“Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace
You may say that I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday
you'll join us
And the world will
be as one”
― John Lennon,
Imagine
__________________________
It’s hard to
imagine
In this time of
radical polarization
It is hard to
imagine
In a world where
fearful souls
Feel it is
necessary to carry an AR-15 to by a BigMac
It is hard to
imagine in a time when
A man placed in
the leadership of a great nation
Sits a sulks
alone
It is hard to
imagine
As we celebrate
the war to end all wars
(which was how
many wars ago?)
By looking over
white crosses representing thousands of young men
Killed
It is hard to
image as the rhetoric flies
About immigrant
caravans
And as the
evangelical church endorses exclusion and hate
It is hard to
imagine unity
It is hard to
imagine peace
But I can imagine
And I know one
thing
It will never
happen when we sit on the poles of the ideological
(or even
theological) spectrum shouting at one another
It will not
happen if we always insist on getting our own way
It will not
happen if we focus on winning and losing
It will not
happen if in fear we reject and exclude
It will not
happen if we lie, or bully,
It will not
happen if we insist on power rather than servanthood
It will only
happen if we come together
Recognizing that
we share the same heart
The same spirit
(and Spirit)
It will only
happen if we are willing to be servants to one another
To see others as
important (or more so) than ourselves
At the end of
many services I share a verse from Paul’s letter to
The Romans (15)
It goes this way…
“May the God who
inspires us to endure, and gives us a loving parent’s care, give us a mind
united towards one another because of our common loyalty to Jesus Christ. And
then, as one person we will sing from the heart the praises of God the Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ. So let us open our hearts to one another as Christ
has opened his heart to us, and God will be glorified.”
JB
Phillips
God will be
glorified, indeed
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