Keeping alive a ministry of imagination...

NOTE:  Here are my worship notes for Sunday, March 17, 2013 based upon the story of Mary, Martha and Lazarus at their feast.

 

Introduction

For some reason of late I have been reading a LOT of essays:  not the fluffy distractions that can capture your eye while waiting in line to check out at the grocery store; but rather meaty, thought-provoking and concise dissertations on art and culture, imagination and politics, the role of generative, embodied creativity versus the ubiquitous snarky cynicism that passes for wisdom in our overly stressed and broken society. 

+  Don’t get me wrong, I am just as interested as the next person in whether or not Lindsay Lohan is headed back to prison in cuffs and chains.  And the feud between Justin Timberlake and Kayne West?  Get outta town – that’s hot stuff, too!  And does anybody really know what’s going on with Justin Beiber?  I mean showing up for his London concert 50 minutes late:  what’s up with that?

+  Maybe this essay craze has something to do with the fact that I quit watching cable news for Lent.  Without the presence and sound of O’Reilly, Matthews, Maddow,  Anderson Cooper and Piers Morgan in my head I’m more inclined to want to spend quiet time with people like Mako Fujimura, Marilynne Robinson, Annie Dillard, Walter Brueggemann, Gregory Wolfe  and Douglas John Hall.

I guess what I’m trying to say is I don’t know exactly why my mind has taken me in this direction every night – my preferred bed time reading has always been New Yorker cartoons or British mysteries – but as one wise soul said, “when the student is ready, the Buddha will appear,” so there you are.  Given all of that I would like to share with you three quotes that have continued to percolate in my soul long after consumption for they shed a measure of light on today’s gospel challenge in a unique way.

Insights

First, from United Church of Christ pastor and celebrated scholar of the Older Testament, Walter Breuggemann, who notes that when a culture is wounded and a society confused – when ordinary people are exasperated and an increasing number of citizens look towards suicide as a solution to their angst – God’s people have a special role to play.

We need to ask not whether (an alternative to the status quo) is realistic or practical or viable, but whether it is imaginable. We need to ask if our consciousness and imagination have been so assaulted and co-opted by the dominant (vision) that we have been robbed of the courage or power to think an alternative thought. Imagination is a danger… that’s why every totalitarian regime is frightened of the artist.  It is the vocation of the prophetic poet to keep alive the ministry of imagination, to keep on conjuring and proposing alternative futures to the single one the king – or dictator – or CEO or even President – wants to urge as the only thinkable one. And the characteristic way of the prophet is that of poetry and lyric. (The Prophetic Imagination)

Are you still with me?  Did you hear what brother Breuggemann is saying?  In times like our own the community of faith has been summoned by the Lord to be extravagant and prophetic poets who keep alive the ministry of imagination.  That’s what Isaiah was asked to do by the Lord in his generation – keep alive the ministry of imagination – so he sang to his people words we have recorded in our Bible like this.

Forget about what’s happened and don’t keep going over old history (like a broken record.) Be alert, be present. I’m about to do something brand-new. It’s bursting out! Don’t you see it?There it is! I’m making a road through the desert, rivers in the badlands. Wild animals will say ‘Thank you!’—the coyotes and the buzzards together – because I provided water in the desert, rivers through the sun-baked earth, drinking water for the people I chose, the people I made especially for myself, a people custom-made to praise me.

He’s talking about creating refreshment – hope – an alternative vision from the dry, parched and painful experience of the status quo.  And the most important way of getting his beloved albeit wounded sisters and brothers to notice and take heart is through song:  Isaiah keeps alive the ministry of imagination by song and poetry, lyric and rhythm and a radically creative engagement with the people he loves.  Sadly, writes Marilynne Robinson, ours has become an era shaped more by a stagnant imagination than a prophetic and poetic extravagance – and there are mean-spirited consequences to this reality.  She writes:

Austerity is the big word through the West these days, with the implicit claim that whatever the Austerity manager takes to be inessential is inessential… and that whatever can be transformed from public wealth into private affluence is suddenly an insupportable public burden and should and must be put on the block.  Everywhere the crisis of the private financial system has been transformed into a tale of slovenly and overweening government that perpetuates and is perpetuated by a dependent and demanding population… so much so that not long ago I saw an emblematic bumper sticker on a pick-up truck in my Iowa town that read:  DON’T DISTRIBUTE MY WEALTH – DISTRIBUTE MY WORK ETHIC… (and it hit me) the populace at large is thought of by a significant part of this same population as a burden, a threat to their well-being, to their values (not kin or fellow Americans) but a threat.  (And part of the reason for this change) is that there is currently a dearth of humane imagination for the integrity and mystery of other lives. (When I was a Child I Read Books)

A dearth of humane imagination about the integrity and mystery of other people:  if they don’t advance my needs or values, don’t bring them refreshment in the desert or nourish the ties that bind with a cool sip of water, dismiss them and demonize them so that THEY become part of the problem – not our fear or greed or shame or despair – THEY become other – and the other is always dangerous, bad and never to be trusted.  Small wonder that one of our masters of the ministry of imagination, the Apostle Paul, urged us to:  Steer clear of the barking dogs, those religious busybodies, all bark and no bite. All they’re interested in is appearances—knife-happy circumcisers, I call them. The real believers are the ones the Spirit of God leads to work away at this ministry, filling the air with Christ’s praise as we do it.

Driving over to our Monday night class and discussion 2 weeks ago I happened to have the NPR show, Market Place, on the radio.  Kai Ryssdal, the host, was talking with a business owner who noted that most of the college graduates he interviews these days don’t know how to think creatively and are terribly under-skilled when it comes to both problem solving and talking in complete, clear sentences.  As the show progressed, two truths were revealed.  First, most of the young people being interviewed today for entry level positions have NO background in the liberal arts – they don’t know poetry or music, film, art or history – so all the college graduates that are hired by this entrepreneur are required to take his own year-long supplemental course in history, art and culture.  It is the only way to deepen their souls and make them creative employees.  And second, what are the college and high school level courses that are the first to be cut in times of austerity:  art, music and all the liberal arts, yes?

Canadian theologian, Douglas John Hall, frames our reality like this:

While for most of us there are indeed joys and laughter and moments of great happiness, human life is also filled with sorrow and pain at every stage, from childhood through to old age and death.  The excruciating struggle for survival, which is both physical and spiritual, is often carried on by ordinary people quite silently, for, especially in our rhetorically upbeat society there is a strong pressure on individuals to seem content and in charge… but still one in for persons in our comparatively affluent and healthy society is clinically depressed… and while our frantic quest for entertainment continues… and our excessive interest in food, sex and travel or anything allegedly new (distracts us for a time) all such realities may be seen as substitutes for any profound or lasting sense of purpose and vocation.

That is, we do not know how to talk about the profound emptiness that is at the core of much of our modern American life.  Visual artist and theologian, Mako Fujimura, notes:  “The world is not as it ought to be. We long for meaningful existence and involvement in our culture – to be part of a story greater than ourselves.

Often our reality is a broken and fragmented story in which dignity and value are stripped from humanity. (Like the prophets of old, I have found that) art can begin to address this dehumanization… (it can help us travel from) the trivial to the transcendent, bringing synthesis to fragmentation and hope to despair.” He adds that our creativity, however, must be generative:  “A generative response will mean that we reflect deeply to cherish what we love, and lament for what is lost. Art has a greater role to play today to help grieve and attempt to capture the "groans that words cannot express” than any time in the past 50 years.

Enter the mind-blowing extravagance of today’s gospel that both defies a linear explanation while giving us a vision of how we just might move from fear to trust by grace.  This is a wild and sensual story about creativity and incarnation – perfume and tears – a woman’s hair and the Messiah’s feet, prelude to Christ’s own foot washing ceremony at the Last Supper next as well as his Cross and so much more.  Every gospel contains a version of this story although each story teller changes some of the details to help deepen the truth – so we need to pay attention.

In John’s retelling some old friends return:  Lazarus has been resuscitated from the tomb of death after receiving the Lord’s tears of grief and his family is now throwing a party for Jesus.  His sisters Mary and Martha are co-hosts and as is often the case, Martha takes care of the details – she serves the meal – and becomes one model of discipleship in this story.  Too often she is overlooked in our sermons but we should celebrate her as the trusted and compassionate helper because the world wouldn’t work without the gifts that Martha brings to the table.   In a way, she is like the older son in the story of the Prodigal from last week – she keeps things going – while everyone else is caught up in themselves.

Her sister Mary, however, has a different gift – not a better gift, just one that is different – for Mary is spontaneous and passionate.  She pours expensive burial oil on Christ’s feet and then caresses them with her loose hair.  The fragrance of her perfume fills the house and touches everyone who enters.  She is neither afraid of being extravagant nor concerned with explaining herself:  she simple shares love in a bold way where it is needed the most.

+  And judging by the selfless passion of her love, Jesus was not only moved to call her the model of discipleship, but he mirrored Mary’s action before the last supper when he knelt to wash the feet of his own bewildered and quarrelsome disciples. 

+  Do you see that connection?  Mary responds to the Lord with gracious and extravagant love – not words, ideology or photo-ops – deep love and it moves Christ’s heart.  So much so that when the Master wants to help the other disciples at the close of his life, he, too neither speaks nor explains but kneels and serves in an extravagantly beautiful way.

Conclusion

For me this story of extravagant love is prophetic – especially given the call to refresh and renew our imaginations that have been so assaulted and co-opted by the dominant (vision of austerity) that we have been robbed of the courage or power to think an alternative thought.  Some like to tell me that given the dominant vision of austerity that rules our day that this must become a time for protest.  And while I think that is true, I remind them that not all protest or protestors look the same.  There are clearly some who have been called to be bold in well-orchestrated public events.  Others engage in the nitty-gritty of politics and organizing. 

And some others still who have been led to the table to be both Martha and Mary for our generation – to sometimes serve and love in quiet and constant ways so that others might enjoy the feast – and sometimes to create such a thing of beauty filled with song and visual art and poetry that its bold and extravagant grace keeps alive the ministry of imagination… and when that happens the fragrance of the gospel fills the whole house.