蜜芽传媒

I鈥檝e never liked John Lennon鈥檚 Imagine. The opening lyrics always seemed so hopeless to me. 鈥淎bove us, only sky.鈥� It鈥檚 a line which reminds me of the Phillip Larkin poem, High Windows, where he looks through the glass at the sky which, 鈥渟hows nothing, and is nowhere, and is endless.鈥�

Imagination is a great gift so if we鈥檙e going to imagine something, anything, then why not be extravagant? Theologian Walter Brueggeman, who died last week, and was a huge influence on me at theological college, knew all about the value of imagination and its power to make the world a better place. 鈥淚magination is a danger,鈥� he wrote, 鈥渆very totalitarian regime is frightened of the artist.鈥� You can see why. If you have the means to imagine a more beautiful world, you might start to thirst for it, and if that happens, well. Suddenly, you have possibility.

The opposite is also true. When we exist in a harmful feedback loop of cynicism and despair, we lose the ability to imagine that things can be any different. This is what it鈥檚 like to live with no hope. I think we鈥檙e living in such times, right now, where many of us are numbed to the possibility of change. 鈥淚t鈥檚 all so awful,鈥� we say. When imagination dies, so does hope.

Brueggeman knew this, but he also knew that hope wasn鈥檛 cheap. He understood it must be tempered by reality, and suffering is a part of that. He named the role grief plays in the prophetic work of imagination, insisting that in imagining a better world we are being invited to participate in its creation, not merely being asked to offer utopian promises.

His book, the Prophetic Imagination is a call for the church to be a counter-cultural voice with the courage to imagine a better world. The imagination of Christians is partly shaped by the prophets, by Jeremiah鈥檚 warnings about social injustice and moral decay. Ezekial鈥檚 reminder that God is in charge. Isaiah鈥檚 message of hope, trust and salvation. Elijah鈥檚 example of faith and courage. Each of them carried an unwelcome message to a weary and cynical audience, imagining a radically different world from the one they were living in. Time and time again, they and their words were rejected. They dared to imagine anyway.

John Lennon imagined there was no heaven, but imagine if there was? Imagine if the kingdom of heaven was here on earth, right now, just as Jesus said it was, providing a challenge and an alternative perspective to the dominant culture around us. Because without imagination we simply have deep blue sky, 鈥渢hat shows nothing, and is nowhere, and is endless.鈥�

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