Imagine
You need imagination in order to imagine a future that doesn't exist.-Azar Nafisi
This past weekend, Reverend Mitri Raheb, a Palestinian Lutheran pastor, theologian, teacher, and social entrepreneur, was awarded an honorary doctorate from Wartburg Theological Seminary in Dubuque, Iowa. In their announcement of this honor, Wartburg described Mitri’s ministry in Bethlehem and the Occupied Territories thus, “Raheb’s genius has focused on what fosters life and freedom in the midst of situations of oppression and conflict, including education in music, dance, the visual and culinary arts, and film.”
In addition to being the pastor of Bethlehem’s Christmas Lutheran church, Rev. Raheb is the founder of Dar al-Kalima university in Bethlehem, an oasis of creativity and imagination, vibrant culture, and deep joy in that tender place. He knows about death and he knows about resurrection; his ministry and mission of persistent peacemaking in the face of imperial aggression and occupation flow from the latter.
Today’s devotion is an extended quotation from a Bible study led by Mitri in Leipzig, Germany in July of 2017.
“As Christians we continue to live in a broken world and thus the tension between the ‘the world as it is’ with all its ugly and painful realities and the ‘the world as it could be.’ We have to balance that tension. Being too absorbed by ‘the world as it is’ makes us resentful. Dreaming too much about ‘the world as it should be’ makes us fundamentalists. We can't live but with our two feet deeply grounded in the reality of this world, and, at the same time, with our two hands engaged in creating the ‘the world as it could be.’ We have to learn to hold the reins of tension between history with its endless wounds and the future with its promises without forgetting that “today” is the space to heal wounds and to seize opportunities. We need to analyze the oppressive system of empire, without falling into a kind of fatalism where we become objects of history. To some extent, we lose the future the moment we lose our capability for imagination.
“Jesus’ sermon is an open invitation to envision a new world as God intended it. Without a new driving vision and without allowing for such an imaginative process to take place, the world will spiral into chaos. Without vision, nations go astray. It is in this time of immense challenges that imaginative faith rises to discover the endless possibilities that lie therein.
“Imagination is important, but imagination alone is not enough. God’s preferential option for the poor is good, but it is not enough. Faith is about imagination, but it is more about hope. Imagination is what we see. Hope is what we do…. Hope is the power to keep focusing on the larger vision while taking and doing the small steps towards that future. Hope doesn't wait for vision to come. Hope is vision in action today. Faith that makes people passive, depressive, or illusive is not faith, but opium. Faith is facing the empire with open eyes that analyzes what is happening while, at the same time, develops the ability to see beyond what humans see. Hope is living the reality and yet investing in a different one.”
Find Rev. Dr. Mitri Raheb’s amazing book, Faith in the Face of Empire: The Bible through Palestinian Eyes, wherever you get your books.
They shall be like a tree planted by water, sending out its roots by the stream. It shall not fear when heat comes, and its leaves shall stay green; in the year of drought it is not anxious, and it does not cease to bear fruit. -Jeremiah 17.8