Christopher Thomas
Sermon for the Fifth Sunday of Easter, Year B – 5/2/21
Acts 8:26-40
Psalm 22:24-30
1 John 4:7-21
John 15:1-8
“Pure Imagination”
(Leslie Bricusse, Anthony Newley, 1971)
Come with me, and you’ll be
in a world of pure imagination.
Take a look and you’ll see
into your imagination.
We’ll begin, with a spin,
travelling in the world of God’s Creation.
What we’ll see will defy explanation!
If you want to view paradise,
simply look around and view it.
Anything you want to, do it.
Want to change the world?
There’s nothing to it!
Imaginarium – that sacred space into which we can step, if we choose, when we choose, where we choose, and how we choose, to see, and to feel, and to consider, again (like Henry so easily does!) the wonder, the awe, the majesty, the imagination of the God of our Creation. For Henry, it comes so naturally, the gift of wonderment, the divine imaginarium. Unlike you and me, Henry is still connected in ways that lead him on journeys unforeseen every single day. A rock. A tree. A sky. A sea. God’s hands the wonders wrought. And all of that bought for the simple price of admission to God’s great imaginarium.
Where did that go for us wisdom-bearers, gray-hairers, that ability to be so readily connected to God’s ancient, ever-loving, trembling whisper? Henry doesn’t need an explanation, a rationale, any understanding to know he hears from God daily. He just does. Henry doesn’t have to fight through MSNBC or Fox or Bright Bart to know God aspires for Henry. Henry lives every single day of Henry’s incredible life in God’s imaginarium!
We, each of us, did too. We were there, with Henry, in that imaginarium, where, with God, anything, really everything, was possible. Circle upon circle upon circle got drawn, no bound or limit was placed, no line in the sand. I can almost touch it, smell it, taste it, if I only imagine. The fragrance of wisteria and honeysuckle is overwhelmingly sweet!
Philip (the evangelist, maybe all true evangelists) lives in God’s imaginarium. He simply must, after all. How else might you explain the events of that evening, without a full command of imagination?
An angel of the Lord appears…
And says…
“Get up”…
“Get up and go”…
“Get up and go (where?) out into the wilderness!”
“Hang on, let me turn down The Voice so I can get to my imaginarium…”
No, Philip got up and went. Period.
“I have no idea what this is going to be, I don’t know what is going to happen, or how this adventure is going to end, but I imagine, with God, that it will be good!”
The expectations of the imaginarium rarely fail, because the bounds and the bonds do not exist. The expanse of possibilities is infinite. Adventure? Yes! Disappointment? Never!
Philip’s lungs expand with the joy of God’s anticipated next breath as he sets out across hill and dale, where in no time, he encounters someone who is not like him, because that’s what always happens when you imagine a God adventure. You encounter folks not like you! But you want to know them, what makes them tick, because you want to see the God-spark that dwells deep within the radical, beautiful other, the rose of Sharon.
Can you imagine Philip’s wonderment at the beauty set forth as he happens upon this “Chariot of Fire,” the Queen of Ethiopia’s treasurer, mocha-skinned beauty that he was, so obviously different from Philip, in all of his royal finery?
And God says to Philip, “Go, get in. Listen. See what he has to say.”
And they enter, these two, so incredibly, so beautifully, so radically different, into the imaginarium of relationship. And immediately, any lines that existed were blurred and erased, and the circle increased. It was as if the red-line between north and south was erased in an instant, an Easter instant. Just by imagination.
I can imagine how the conversation went, because, believe you me, before there was any “conversion,” there was conversation. Dialogue.
“Tell me, please, tell me, what is it like to be so beautifully dark-skinned in this fair country. I want to know.” “How does it feel to be a Gentile Christian, when Jesus was Jewish?” “Was it painful being castrated? Was that by choice?” “I want to be different, I want to be better, I want to be more whole, because I know you, because I know God in you!” “I have seen God in you!”
Those are the kinds of conversations, evangelism, that lead to conversion. I know, I’ve seen it.
Here’s why – those conversations open up this safe, beautiful, vulnerable space for the conversion questions to happen.
“About whom, may I ask you, does the prophet say this, about himself, or about someone else?”
I can only imagine that Philip must have taken a nice long pregnant pause, time to delve into God’s imaginarium, for what might on the surface seem like the obvious answer, but in fact, is much more layered, and complex. Because, Philip knows the reality that any explanation that expands the circle to include this beautiful Ethiopian Eunuch will necessitate Philip revealing his own marginality. Someone had to come out to Philip’s margin and grab that uncircumcised Gentile, non-Jew and include him. Can Philip possibly bear the stain of revealing his own “outside-ness” to this complete stranger?
It’s going to take a lot of imagination, God-imagination to do that!
Deep breath. “Let me tell you about the all-inclusive Good News of this guy name of Jesus.” I was deep out on the margins and Jesus came for me. Jesus came for an uncircumcised Gentile. Jesus has come, will come, again and again, for you, too! Jesus constantly, consistently, continually draws the circle ever-bigger, ever more encompassing. That is the effect of the Jesus narrative that we tell, time and time again. At the end of the day, eschatologically speaking, everyone gets included.
And so, my question to you, today, is this.
When they, the two of them, the Ethiopian and the disciple, the prophet, step into the waters of baptism, which of the two is converted, in that moment? Is it the Ethiopian, or is it Philip? What’s your imagination telling you? (What’s God whispering to you?)
They both were! They both were! They both were!
You’re probably thinking, “Philip was already a Christian. How was he converted?” Before that night, could Philip have imagined that entire adventure, could he have imagined that an Ethiopian Eunuch was every bit as much a part of God’s Great Plan of Salvation as he was? Could Philip have imagined that he would reveal his own marginalization, making himself vulnerable to a complete and total stranger? No! He was converted! Why? Because he was open to the imagination of God!
Every single time we risk getting into the waters of baptism, entering and reentering God’s fantastical imaginarium, we are converted, again and again and again. And all I can say is, thank God for that. Because the world has a horrible way of turning us from Henry into us! We lose touch with all the sensations of God’s incredible imaginarium!
How many adventures with God, how many relationships, are we missing out on, because we can’t imagine? How many conversations and how many conversions are we forfeiting, because we can’t quite imagine, the possibility that God is whispering, to us, through our imagination, each day, this day, every day, maybe even right this very moment…
There is no life I know
to compare with pure imagination.
Living there, you’ll be free
if you truly wish to be!
Amen.
