Imagine
Amy Grant released a new song this week. The song was written by Sandra Emory Lawrence. It is a deeply relevant song that dares to shine a light on the turmoil of the day. But that’s not what I want to discuss in this essay. I did get an opportunity to have a conversation with two philosophers and a singer-songwriter and I will link to that conversation below. But I want to talk about the reactions to the song by Christians. My focus will be upon the reaction of the song referring to John Lennon’s song Imagine.
The verse in question is:
I’m shopping for some groceries
Muzak piped in overhead
They only play the melody
I hear the words John Lennon said
Asking me to imagine
As I fight this cart with crooked wheels
He’s either bent over laughing
Or spinning in his Strawberry Fields
This is a really good lyric. The mundane task of grocery shopping is only interrupted by that all too often busted grocery cart wheel. My friend Hunter pointed out that the cart is oscillating back and forth and not really going fully right or left. Lennon’s anti-war song has become muzak, but when we stop - when remember that it invites us to imagine. It is this line that brought the most angry responses on Amy’s social media; especially from Christians. You see, there is an assumption about the song Imagine which is fed by the demands for purity of thought by the theo-political American white evangelical anger. You see, Imagine makes the grave “sin” of asking a very important question. What if this life is all we have? What if we imagined a different way to see one another unburdened by our assumptions about them shaped by religious dogmas rather than truth?
Imagine there’s no Heaven
It’s easy if you try
No Hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people livin’ for today
I’ll link the whole song for context, but let’s focus on this verse because it is the one that drove most of the over the top comments.
It is the fact that Lennon asks us to imagine that neither heaven nor hell exist that angers so many. But they miss the entire point by focusing so much on heaven and hell. I believe this is also an error made in general with pop evangelicalism and revivalism. Too much emphasis on things barely mentioned in the Gospels. I know some of you are already bristling, but stick with me. Let me be clear, the Gospel is not about heaven and hell, at least not completely. Yes, Jesus mentions the Kingdom of Heaven, or the Kingdom of God, but when he does it is usually about a present or coming reality in the here and now. Most discussions of afterlife are passing or mentions of a general resurrection. This is important. You see my question for disciples of Jesus is the following:
If there were not heaven of hell, how compelling or inviting is the Gospel? Is the Gospel still Good News?
I believe it is. I believe that the Good News is not reliant upon heaven or hell to be inviting. Why? Because if we start at the beginning of the Gospel Jesus tells us his watchword.
When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. (Lk 4:16-20)
Jesus goes on to include the peoples in that promise that the crowd in the synagogue believed to be cursed and outside of the promises of God. But Jesus does not follow the ideologies of the narrow. His mercy is wide. None of the reading of Isaiah by Jesus mentions heaven or hell. Yes, we do find such discussions in the whole of scripture, but we need to understand what is being discussed. Before you use this as evidence that I do not believe in heaven and hell, you would be wrong. I do believe in those, but I also don’t think they are critical to the Gospel. Heaven and hell are side effects of the Gospel. Throughout Jesus’ ministry he points out the very real hells on earth that humanity builds through oppressive systems and even religious rules. The Kingdom of God, or what we might call the Kindom of God in a culture where kingdom carries a different idea than what Jesus meant, is presented as a present reality coming to change the world. It is not a far off reward.
The truth is that the Gospels are very scant when it comes to anything other than resurrection. That belief was a standard of the Pharisees, but Jesus does bring the idea of specific resurrection in his preaching when speaking of himself. I don;t want to root around in the weeds of resurrection, but know that the idea of resurrection into new creation is a powerful invitation. But it is not the same as popular visions of heaven and hell that get conflated with the Gospel. No, the Gospel is the Good News that God is with us. The Gospel is the Good News that God loves us so much that God is willing to be killed by our violence. The Gospel is the Good News that the world has changed, that the Spirit of God is at work.
If the Good News is only good if there is a reward or punishment when we die, then how is it good? Imagine if we told the story of a God who loves the world so much that God is willing to die upon a tree? But that God is raised and drags us to New Creation. The fear of hell only goes so far as does the hope of heaven. When people are living in hells on earth what is to be feared? What if we believed that our mission as disciples is to work with God to rescue the captives? To heal the sick? To help the blind to see? What if our message was a message of truth in counter to the world where gaslighting lies reign supreme? What if we told Good News?
Imagine that God has brought heaven to us
It’s easy of you try
No more hell on earth
People reaching for the sky
By going to their knees*
Imagine we told Good News without all the baggage of our own assumptions? I hope, please help by hopelessness.
Our discussion this week:
*Apologies to John Lennon and U2
Amazing stuff!!