9.1.24 "Imagination" Westminster Presbyterian Church, Pasadena, CA

 Psalm 15; James 1.17-27

Keep up the good work …

You’re doing fine …

You’re making progress …

You do good … you pay attention … you smile at the world … you pray often … you give to reliable charities … you’re informed and well-read … 

You’re doing a better job today than you did yesterday … and tomorrow, it’ll be even better …

And if it isn’t better, that’s ok … some of your best learning is done when things go south …

You are instruments of God’s Peace … 

Through you, God touches the world! And through you, the world touches God.

At the heart of our faith, life itself, good questions …

Questions to keep us thinking, and growing.

I love to watch interviews … historians, politicians, business leaders and academics … ever so often during the interview, a question is raised that gives pause to the one being interview … they’ll stop to think, and say, “That’s a very good question,” as they collect their thoughts.

Good questions.

What is life all about?

Who am I?

Where did I come from … and where am I going?

What’s love got to do with it?

Will the world be better off because of me? 

Can I manage the challenge?

Will I make it through?

Part of what we do here is ask good questions:

Life is mostly about good questions … not answers … 

Yes, we have books full of answers … much of it of value … but far too often … answers crush the questions … answers crush the soul … answers close the mind and shut the door.

In too many churches, and in so much of our traditions: judgment, hellfire and damnation …

If not quite so violent as a sawdust trail preacher, a bit more refined, in high pulpits and comfy pews, but still the same old hash: 

you’re not welcome here, 

you’re not quite right for us, 

we care more about ourselves than we care we about you … 

183 questions are put to Jesus … he directly answers only 3 of them. In turn, Jesus asks 307 questions.

Questions fire the imagination … imagination is the heart and soul of life.

Watch a child at play … Christmas, Birthday … a gift unwrapped …  the child goes for the empty box!

The gift is wonderful, but the empty box wins out … because the box invites the child’s imagination … make of me whatever you want, says the box to the child … shall I be a rocket ship to take you to the moon? Let’s go and see the universe.

Or maybe I’m a car, and we can drive fast all over the world.

Maybe I’m ship sailing on the high seas, and off we go for grand adventures in faraway lands …

The child goes to bed happy, a tired smile and a twinkle in the eye … the gift for another day … for now, it’s the empty box!

All the best things in life started with imagination … a refrigerator and an airplane …  … finding the North Pole and going to the moon … voting rights and civil rights … knee replacements and vaccines …

Imagination …

Abraham Lincoln … imagines a world where freedom for all is the order of the day …

Teddy Roosevelt and his trust-busting work … he imagines a nation where all the people benefit, from the wealth of the land, and the wealth of our industry.

Nelson Mandela, jailed for 27 years … imagines his beloved South Africa free of Apartheid …

Dietrich Bonhoeffer imagines his beloved Germany free of Nazi madness.

Galileo and his telescope … Edison and his light bulb …  

Ruby Bridges goes to school, and Rosa Parks refuses to go to the back of the bus.

Imagination is the heart and soul of life.

Poets imagine a better world …

Artists, dancers and story tellers …

Chefs and bakers …

Teachers and social workers …

Bankers and brokers …

Dorothy on the Yellow Brick Road and Captain America …

Imagination …

God said, “Let there be light” …

The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want …

Give us this day our daily bread …

Love your neighbor as you love yourself …

Water from a rock, and manna in the morning …

Trumpets blow and the walls of Jericho crumble to the ground … 

Jonah and the whale …

David and Goliath  …

A star in the sky, shepherds in the hills …

Jesus and John in a river called Jordan …

Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

We imagine a new world every time we pray.

Every hymn we sing …

Before I go any further, let me remind you that imagination can run amok … 

A friend of mine hid under the pew when he was a child, because he was so afraid of God … his imagination violated by angry preachers … when it came to communion, he’d take the little piece of bread and tuck it into his pocket, and he sip the juice, but not swallow it - after church, he’d spit it out, wash his mouth out, because he believed himself unworthy, and if he ate the bread and drank the juice, he’d be damning his soul to eternal hell.

A child’s imagination sullied, violated, injured, by thoughtless adults … no wonder Jesus says: 

Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever becomes humble like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me. If any of you put a stumbling block before one of these little ones who believe in me, it would be better for you if a great millstone were fastened around your neck and you were drowned in the depth of the sea.

Good theology, theology centered in Jesus, ignites the imagination … lifts the spirit …  

Good theology invites us into the child’s empty box … to imagine ourselves on great adventures of faith.

Good theology invites us to see the world through the eyes of love …

To know anything about Jesus is to know the energy and power of imagination …  

I am the Bread of Life … says Jesus.

I am the Light of the World …

I am the Door … 

I am the Good Shepherd …

I am the Resurrection and the Life …

I am the Way, the Truth and the Life …

I am the Vine …

Come and follow, and I’ll make you fish for people.

You are the light of the world, and the salt of earth.

Look at the birds of the air …

Consider the lilies of the field …

Knock and the door will be opened to you …

Don’t build your house on the sand, build it on the rock.

This isn’t theology - it’s imagination.

This isn’t dogma, or doctrine - it’s imagination.

These aren’t rules and regulations …

These aren’t requirements and restrictions …

These are not dire warnings and threats of punishment - it’s imagination.

Christianity at its best is like a piece of great music, 

a fine book, 

a visit to the Norton Simon, 

a stroll in the mountains, 

a picnic with friends, 

a quiet evening at home binge watching a favorite show.

This building is all about imagination … the chancel is a bright blue sky … the ceiling above you, a crown of crosses, covering the whole wide earth.

In the this place, we imagine great things …  

Amen and Amen! 

"They Saw the Child" - El Monte Community Presbyterian Church

Matthew 2.1-12

When you live in a city, like LA, it’s hard to see the stars. 

I used to live in Northern Wisconsin, in the middle of nowhere, but we could see stars … especially on cold winter nights, when the air is clear, really clear … things get clear when it’s 30 below … 

I remember driving out to make a pastoral call … they lived in a small, patchwork house, on a small peninsula, jutting out into one of the great northern lakes … all was ice and snow … and 20 below, maybe colder … but that never stopped anyone in that part of the world.

So, there I was, driving along, not a car on the road … surrounded by stars … sharp and clear, pinpoints of light in a vast velvet-black sky … so close to me, it seemed … I could have reached out and grabbed a handful of stars …

I’ve never forgotten that night …

Some years later, we were living in Detroit, when the lights when out … all over the North East, 2003, the Great Blackout … by the second night, we had neighbors over on our patio … I fired up the gas grill, and we did chicken and steak and pork chops, and everything we could, because we knew the electricity was going to be down for awhile, so grill up the meat, so it doesn’t spoil.

And there we sat, with flash lights, a few gas lamps … after eating, we turned off our lights … and there it was … the rich and beautiful night sky … velvet black, and full of stars … 

A sight never seen in cities …

We have to get out into the country, into the mountains, away from the city, to see the sky at night …

I wonder how many children in years past, laying on their backs in a field at night, scanning the sky, catching a shooting star now and then … dreaming of the universe, vast and mysterious … dreaming of space ships and far-away planets … maybe thinking about God … how big God must be, and how small we are … children laying on their backs in a field of summer grass… a warm night in August … to watch the stars and dream of faraway places.

We three kings of Orient are

Bearing gifts we traverse afar.

Field and fountain, moor and mountain,

Following yonder star.

Or maybe:

Twinkle, twinkle, little star

How I wonder what you are

Up above the world so high

Like a diamond in the sky

Twinkle, twinkle little star

How I wonder what you are.

Or even:

When you wish upon a star

Makes no difference who you are

Anything your heart desires will come to you

And, then, again:

Star light, star bright,

First star I see tonight,

I wish I may, I wish I might,

Have this wish I wish tonight.

It’s Epiphany Sunday … 

The visit of the magi … wise men from the East … astrologers they are, fascinated by the heavens above, vast and beyond count … the stars at night, new moon, old moon … the rising of the sun and its setting … the turning of the seasons … a story to tell … 

The alignment of the stars, a star of peculiar brightness, a star dominating the western sky …  “What’s this?” they ask! … and with their charts unrolled and with their books opened wide, a discovery is made … the star, so bright and clear, the herald of a birth, and not just any birth, but the birth of a king …

So unusual was it all … their curiosity got the best of them, and so begins their quest, a journey, an adventure … weeks, maybe months … traveling afar … to see where the star would take them … and perhaps to find the king … 

Two thousands years later, here we are … telling and retelling the stories of our faith … each in our own way, wise men, wise women, wise children … paying attention to the world God created, the sky above, the earth beneath and the Holy Spirit within …

And still the star shines … the glories of the heavens declare the glory of God … 

Faith, hope and love … grace, mercy and peace … 

The star still shines, bright and clear …

And like those magi of old, we’re the magi now.

Still and always the journey, setting out to discover the king born in Bethlehem … with our gifts, whatever they are … we lay them down before the cradle and before the child it holds …

The Christian Life is always one of journey … 

We never fully arrive … never! … because God is infinite, and whatever we learn of God today, there’s still more to learn tomorrow … whatever good we manage, whatever we truth we tell, whatever deed of kindness we offer, whatever power we challenge, there’s always more to be done … the endless journey is what it means to be faithful to Christ.

Back in seminary, my Hebrew professor, a wise and learnèd man … he’d come bouncing into the classroom, a smile on his face from ear-to-ear … to announce that just that morning, he had learned something new … usually something small … in a footnote, or some obscure Hebrew dictionary … with joy and delight, he’d tell us all about it.

We came to call him, “The Student” … the one always learning, and delighted to learn … encouraging us to learn, and keep on learning … to be students always of God’s Word, always exploring, always going to new places, never afraid to cross a boundary, into unexplored land … never, ever, afraid of making a mistake … in the Kingdom of God, in the quest of truth, there are no mistakes, only lessons to be learned … 

God is a God of great mercy, and above all else, God is the Teacher … God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit … to teach of us life, to teach us love … to teach us how to care for the world God made …

Like any good teacher anywhere, it’s not about the answers, but the learning, the questions, the pondering, the musing … among all the confessions of faith any of us can make, there is one confession that cuts to the core of our journey, that says it well, with humility, honesty and hope: LORD, I believe, help my unbelief.

God takes pleasure in those who want to learn about God’s world … the heavens above, the oceans upon the face of the earth, the creatures, great and small … times long before we were here …

As for creation, it’s just plain silly to suggest that the earth was created 8000 thousand years ago or something like … no, it was created billions of years ago … long before any of us showed up: dinosaurs roamed the earth, for millions of years … until something emerged out of a pool of muck, rich with life … and it grew, and it grew … tens of thousands of years … and here we are today, from the earth we have come, by the hand of God, and still the creation goes on … it never stops … always changing … and now we have to pay attention to something brand new in our story: the impact we’re having on the earth … global warming, climate change, pollution, filth, driven by the blind greed of those who always want more for themselves, and will take it from everyone else … who are always drawing boundaries, and building walls … who love to say some, “you don’t belong here,” “we don’t want you,” “go back to where you came from.”

For those who follow Christ, it must be different: no boundaries, never a wall, and no exclusion … we all belong to one another because we’re all created by God … and to one another we owe the debt of love … to be kind and merciful, to make room for the lonely, heal the broken, clothe the naked, feed the hungry, provide for the homeless, visit those in prison.

What might the magi say to us?

Pay attention to the stars … the world God created, the birds and the bees … flowers and field … the sun above and the earth beneath … all of its creatures, great and small. As Jesus said: Consider the birds of the air … and the lilies of the field!

What might the magi say to us?

If you follow the star, you’ll have to travel afar … the journey never ends … keep on keepin’ on.

And don’t be fooled by Herod, they’d say to us …

Herod welcomed the wise men; sent them on their way with a task, to find the child, and then let Herod know where the child is, so that Herod could go and “worship him”, too. 

It was a lie, fake news, nonsense … 

Beware of Herod, they’d say to us:

Herod the fox, Herod the liar, Herod the con-man, loud and reckless, Herod the man of violence …

When the magi found the child, and laid their gifts before him, the Spirit warned them: go home by another route … 

I like that image: another route … we never cover the same ground again … time does that to us … so the journey goes on.

What might the magi say to us?

“Pay Attention” to places like Bethlehem … small places, out-of-the-way places … people of low-account … a young pregnant girl, a father doing his best … pawns in the power-plays of the nations … late at night, alone and frightened … a kindly inn keeper, with no room in the inn, finds a little room for them outback … with the animals, warm and safe … where God is born … born into the world, then … and born into the world today … the Bethlehems of our world … little places, places of no-account … the least of all places … but that’s where God is born!

Though I’m not a magi, this much I can say:

God is born right here … maybe in the corner over there, or in the kitchen … in our hearts, for sure …  small places, out-of-the-way places … God likes places just like this … and God loves people just like you.

Amen and Amen!