From Imagine to Believe (Reflections of Easter 2, Year B 2024)

 

“Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” (John 20:29)

John Lennon would like this passage. In his classic song “Imagine” the ex-Beatle conjured a future and asked us to

“Imagine no possessions.

I wonder if you can.

No greed or hunger,

A brotherhood of man.

Imagine all the people

Sharing all the world.”[i] 

Great song. It fits nicely with the First Lesson in the Revised Common Lectionary for Easter 2, Year B (Acts 4:32-35). The text describes the first experiment in Christian Socialism. Those early Christians were, the Bible tells us, of one heart and shared all their possessions. They gave according to their ability and received according to their need. It was an earth-shaking new kind of economy in a world which pretty much defined itself in terms of “haves” and “have nots.” But these were people who had Jesus’ example of humble service without regard to status or position. They were taught to love one another as Jesus had loved them, to love their neighbor as themselves. They created an economy and a society built on love, compassion, mutual respect, empathy, generosity, and righteousness.

SPOILER ALERT: It didn’t last long. Just read down to chapter six in Acts and you’ll see when things started to fall apart. Why, you ask? Because of our age-old enemy: sin. You see, the idyllic, utopian society requires that everyone is loving and selfless just as Jesus asked us to be. Unfortunately, we’re not.

As liberal as I’ve been in my politics, I have to be honest and explain that a completely socialist society like our lesson describes just isn’t practical or possible. It might work just peachy-keen for a large family, but once you get to a community, a city, or a whole nation you’re going to have some trouble with administration. If everything is held in common, you’ll need—as the Apostles soon found out—some administration. That’s where the trouble starts. When the Administration—just a small number of elected officials—controls the means of production and the distribution of wealth, it won’t matter if you’ve elected Mother Teresa, Mr. Rogers, and Santa Clause. There’s going to be favoritism or greed or both. It’s human nature. We are by nature sinful and unclean.

But this doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to be the people Jesus wanted us to be. We can’t shrug our shoulders and make a golden calf out of the free market system, preaching “Love thy neighbor” on Sunday and “Every man for himself” the rest of the week. We have to keep trying, and we have to keep believing even when we don’t see the perfect results we imagined.

We can’t become like old Doubting Thomas in our Gospel reading (John 20:19-31). Of course, if you look at things from his point of view, you can kind of see why Thomas feels the way he does. He must’ve really loved Jesus, and he must’ve grieved tremendously when his friend was killed. Not only did he lose his teacher and friend, but he lost the whole slang-dang mission, too. This means he’s just spent three years of his life for nothing as far as he can tell. You have to wonder what else he gave up to be a follower of Jesus. No wonder he adopted a cynical attitude and didn’t want to believe in the resurrection even when he was told by the friends he’d lived with, worked with, and trusted for three years.

This is, of course, the work of Satan. Remember, the Hebrew word “Satan” is best translated as “an adversary.” That is, someone or something which works against you. You don’t have to believe in a devil with horns and a pitchfork to know that our emotions are easily crushed and our sense of self-preservation very easily impels us to curve inward on ourselves. We develop a selfish armor of cynicism which stands like the Great Wall of China between us and the will of God.

We start to believe crappy little lies: Things never get better. The game is rigged. All politicians are crooks, so it’s no use voting. You can’t help the poor because they’ll just use that money for liquor and drugs. All those immigrants want to do is steal our jobs and mooch off our economy. You can’t trust anyone now of days. Kids don’t learn anything in school. The Church is irrelevant and filled with hypocrites.

You get the idea.

I think the late Mr. Lennon overlooked something in his classic song. In one verse he asks us to imagine a world without religion. A world without religion is just a world of imagination. But a world with faith is a world with belief. We are Easter people, and we believe. We are called to believe in a world without poverty, a world in which our climate crisis is solved, a world at peace. We are called to believe that the future will be worth living for. We are called to believe that relationships can be mended, that past hurts can be healed, and that joy is possible.

We are called to believe that with God all things are possible. But if we don’t believe, we will never act. And if we never act, things will never change.

Yes, Thomas, seeing is believing. But blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.

Thanks again for visiting my blog. Believe in God. Believe in yourself. See you next time.

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[i] John Lennon, “Imagine” from the album of the same name. 1971.