Parakalein

I was preaching today on "imagination" and quoted John Lenin's hit song "Imagine".

The wonder and witness to love and peace is amazing in that song.  Imagine there's no heaven,  It is easy if you try, no hell below us, above us only sky, imagine all the people living for today.  Imagine, there are no countries, nothing to kill or die for, no religion too.  Imagine all the people living life in peace.

Sadness grips my soul as I read these words.  I sang them years ago but today I am different.  I am the same person but I think so differently.  Years ago I had a friend tell me that she would not be a Christian if it were not for heaven.  So maybe that is what John was thinking about.   Some people, good religious people, really believe that this life is just a pass through to the next life.   They see living for today in a negative way. They say they love their neighbors but they gossip about them and to them.  They do not sow peace but conflict by maintaing a position that the only way to peace is to believe the way they do. They do not get that the Lord's prayer suggests the we would bring the will of God in heaven to the way we live on earth.  "Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven".  Elsewhere Jesus said God's will is "that we all be one" even as he and the father are one.  Living life in love and peace, now.  Just imagine if people really did that.

This is why sadness gripped me.  John said for love and peace to be, there has to be no religion.  What is sad is that it is true that religion has fueled more wars, and conflict than any other singular cause when the teaching of the church is to foster love and peace.  Why the disparity, the inconsistency, and the antithesis?  I want to live in love and peace so that life is full of love and peace, and the world would be a better place for you and me and everyone else on the planet.

What if religion could lead the way by cultivating love and peace toward all people of faith regardless of anything.  Would the line change: "Imagine religion leading the way to peace (by setting aside their distinctive and different beliefs in favor of the common goal of), living in love and peace, with everyone."

Thank you John as you challenge the church to be the church.  The place where all are loved in peace regardless of anything is a sacred place.

Create sacred space for sacred peace and love everyone.  I rejoice to think that we can make this shift:  Love and peace nurtured in us and lived out toward others.  The word perfect is connected to two realities:  perfect peace and perfect love in Isaiah 26:3 and I John 4:8.

Peace on earth promotes good will toward all people which results in greater peace.