Imagine Insanity

Dear Eugene,

Imagination.  Seeing.  Faith.

A trinity of words that if not synonymous in aspects are at least part and parcel of each others.

We Christians talk a lot about faith, not enough seeing, almost never imagination.  I wonder why.  All the more perplexing when faith is the most abstract, seeing the most common, imagining the most pervasive.

Maybe it's because by "faith" we mean merely an assent to a particular formulation of doctrine, especially one about soteriology (means and nature of "personal" salvation), that we either "get it" or not, take or leave, heaven or hell we go, nothing is left to the...imagination.

Yesterday's sermon was about the "Insane Generosity" of the first church and ours, and how the world is to know us for our pathological hospitality, incorrigible to our very core, that nothing can stop us from giving and caring about the fullness, wholesomeness of our neighbors and neighborhood.

Of course we realize very rarely does the world know the church (my church--me!) for her crazy generosity.  Often the world knows her for being an irrelevant institution that if you give her the time of day would drive the world crazy with her sermonizing (even if only on a handpicked narrow range of topics).  Sadly.

So I imagined: How do we get infected by this "Insane Generosity" and start an epidemic of hope?  How does the cancer of acute hospitality spread from our heart to the very tip of our every fiber, dirty jagged edge of our fingernails?  How do we herald the Greatest News that, Yes, salvation has come and made his home among us, the face of justice and restoration is finally unveiled, that the yearning of all nations, the entire creation is now answered by what the Father has accomplished through the death and resurrection of his son Jesus and will be answered again and again with every action big and small done by these friends of Jesus carrying out his Father's will on earth as it is in heaven?

I am imagining.  I am seeking to see.  I am learning to trust, to "have faith."  To trust God is good and able to finish the good work he has started.  Everything in my life needs to change.  Every next step I take either announces to the world Jesus is Lord and the world is now finally making a turn for the better--for the best!--or that Jesus doesn't really matter and the world can witness his doesn't-matter-ness in how I live my sorry, bad-news life.

I was blind, and am still getting used to the unblinding light.

Praying for the next step, Alex

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