The Second Day of Christmas: The Politics of Imagination

 

The Politics of Imagination

The Second Day of Christmas

Saturday, December 26, 2020

Jeremiah 26:1-9, 12-15

Acts 6:8-15, 7:51-60

Yesterday, we reflected on the political nature of Christmas. And in case it wasn’t clear, I want to 

emphasize that we’re not talking about Republican or Democrat kind of politics.

At its core, politics is about negotiating differences, finding commonality, and figuring out how the 

heck to live together.

The reason we often want to avoid politics is because American politics is so toxic. But we have 

to imagine what’s possible beyond, outside of, the national political stage. We have to imagine 

another way of living together.

And that work of imagining is, according to Walter Brueggemann, the first priority of the prophets.

 

 

“The prophet engages in futuring fantasy,” writes Brueggemann. “The prophet does not ask if the vision 

can be implemented, for questions of implementation are of no consequence until the vision can be 

imagined. The imagination must come before the implementation.”

This is how any good leadership works. You start by painting a vision of what you want to be true...and 

only then do you figure out how to get there, how to make that vision a reality.

But as Brueggemann argues, we are conditioned in such a way that we can’t see beyond the status 

quo; the future seems closed off, and imagining a better future is considered childish and immature.

He points to the first chapter of Ecclesiastes:

What has been is what will be,

   and what has been done is what will be done;

and there is nothing new under the sun.

To protect ourselves, we tell ourselves that there is nothing new under the sun. Doing so keeps 

us from being disappointed.

But it also keeps us from imagining a better tomorrow, from asking questions, from challenging 

those in power. In short, from bringing down the powerful from their thrones and sending the rich 

away empty.

We are right to feel turned off by American politics. But we must not allow that to lead to apathy 

and despair or denial. And we must not allow that to make us numb or willfully ignorant or cynical.

And we must not allow American politics to define how we do politics - how we live together - as 

a church.

As a church, we can do better. We can be better.

We can open ourselves to see the suffering and the death in our world. We can open ourselves 

to feeling pain, to experiencing grief.

And we can open ourselves to imagining something different, something better.

But imagining a different and better future necessarily means the end of the status quo. And 

that’s bad news for those who benefit from the world as it is.

And that’s why, in today’s reading, “the priests and the prophets and all the people seized 

[Jeremiah], saying, ‘You are doomed to die.’”

You see, good news is a matter of perspective.

It’s hard to imagine our small congregation changing the world. But it’s also pretty presumptuous 

to think we control the whole world. At any rate, why would a world that does not know the Christ 

whose birth we are celebrating, why would we expect that world to follow the way of Jesus?

So maybe we start with our congregation.

As Stanley Hauerwas and Will Willimon argue, “the political task of Christians is to be the church 

rather than to transform the world.”

I take this to mean that we, as the church, can embody an alternative way of being together, an 

alternative politics.

But as Brueggeman reminds us, imagination comes first.

So let’s spend these next few days of Christmas imagining what our lives together could and 

should look like. Imagine what it feels like. Dream.

And then read our passage from Acts and pray.

Pray that we don’t throw stones at the Stephens among us. Pray that we will have hearts and 

minds and ears to hear each other’s dreams. Pray that we can be a people who refuse violence, 

in whatever form it takes, as we figure out how to live together.