Imagine It. Work for It.
Reflections on the Resurrection
RCL Easter C
17 April 2022
Holy Trinity Anglican Cathedral
New Westminster BC
For the newly-established United States, first decades of the nineteenth century were significant in the formation of its national character. With the purchase of the Louisiana Territory, the country more than doubled in size and settlers quickly moved into the watersheds of the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers. The national unity forged by the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812 began to be tested by the question of slavery, unresolved in the early days of the Republic and now urgent as new states clamoured to join the Union.
A religious revival had swept through the western regions of New York and Pennsylvania and many Christian communities were rent asunder by conflict. Among the affected communities were the Quakers of the region. Mostly farmers and merchants, the Quakers were quiet folk who were just emerging from the troubles caused by their pacificism and their internal conflicts over how they were to behave as citizens in this new country.
One young Quaker minister, Edward Hicks, became a prominent preacher and travelled throughout the area. His cousin, Elias, was the leader of a movement within the Quakers that had challenged the established order of the Quakers with views that struck at the root of many Quaker teachings. In the midst of all this religious and political turmoil, Edward Hicks found himself inspired by the vision of a peaceable kingdom expressed in Isaiah 11 and repeated in today’s reading from Isaiah 65.
For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind. . . . No more shall there be in it an infant that lives but a few days, or an old person who does not live out a lifetime . . . . They shall build houses and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit. . . . They shall not labour in vain, or bear children for calamity; for they shall be offspring blessed by the Lord – and their descendants as well. Before they call I will answer, while they are yet speaking I will hear. The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, the lion shall eat straw like the ox; but the serpent — its food shall be dust! They shall not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain, says the Lord.
Over a period of more than twenty years, Hicks, who had been trained as a decorative artist, painted at least sixty-two versions of his dream of this new creation God had promised to the faithful. One version is printed on the cover of today’s worship bulletin.
As Hicks grew older and conflicts continued to rock his religious and political communities, his paintings became expressions of his own emotional state. In early versions, the Christ Child rests its hand gently on a lion that seems to be smiling. Later versions have the Child grasping tightly on a more menacing lion, as if the Child is restraining it. The backgrounds become darker and one has the sense of a faithful man who is doing his utmost to hold on to his imagined future where all people and animals lived in harmony and peace.
Hicks knew his scriptures well. I’m sure that from time to time, particularly at the worst of times, he recalled the words of the prophet Habakkuk:
I will stand at my watchpost, and station myself on the rampart; I will keep watch to see what he will say to me, and what he will answer concerning my complaint. Then the Lord answered me and said: Write the vision; make it plain on tablets, so that a runner may read it. For there is still a vision for the appointed time; it speaks of the end, and does not lie. If it seems to tarry, wait for it; it will surely come, it will not delay.” [1]
And Hicks waited and painted and hoped and worked for that future.
Two thousand years ago a small community of women and men awoke from the nightmare of their last few days with their teacher and friend. No one could have imagined what the faithful women would find early on that Sunday morning – an empty tomb, scattered clothing and a vision of angels who were surprised at the women’s reaction. This experience and the experience of other disciples over the course of the following months fuelled their imagination. They dared to believe that a new world was indeed possible. They believed so firmly in this new world that they worked for its realization by sharing their dream with others throughout the Roman Empire and beyond.
To be sure there were and have been moments when this dreamed-for future seemed to be more than just distant. Powerful forces sought and still seek to thwart the realization of this future. At times the community of disciples itself have acted in ways that were not faithful to the dream and we have had to undergo conversion and reformation and reconciliation. But the dream, the vision of a new earth in which all God’s children can be free, a world in which the dignity of every human being is respected, a creation tended and cared for as God’s precious gift, has never lost its power to inspire us and to empower us to work for its fulfillment.
This Easter we gather after an pandemic that has tested and continues to test all of us. We gather at a time when violence continues to plague millions of people throughout the world. We gather at a time when the effects of climate change have been felt all over the world and in the Lower Mainland. These are, to borrow a phrase from Thomas Paine, times that try our souls. These times and our own personal needs and concerns may even cause us to shut down our imagination, to forget the dream and to lay down tools.
When I ponder the challenges of Christian witness and ministry in our times, I sometimes hear words from Bishop Gordon Light’s hymn, ‘Draw the Circle Wide’: [2]
God the still-point of the circle,
‘round whom all creation turns;
nothing lost, but held for ever,
in God’s gracious arms.
Let our hearts reach far horizons,
so encompass great and small;
let our loving know no borders,
faithful to God’s call.
Let the dreams we dream be larger,
than we’ve ever dreamed before;
let the dream of Christ be in us,
open every door.
When God raised Jesus from the dead, God showed us that our dreams of a world in which ‘life’ not ‘death’ is God’s last word is not a false hope or a unrealizable dream. Within each one of us and within our community there is a faithful imagination fuelled by the Spirit. That same Spirit not only fuels our imagination but empowers our hearts, our minds, our souls and our strength to work for what we imagine. There will be false starts, failures and disappointments. There will be losses and moments that border on despair. But there will also be successes and moments when the world we dream is closer than we think. God is the still-point of the circle, and nothing is lost but held forever in God’s arms.
Because Christ is risen, our hearts can reach far horizons. Because Christ is risen, our loving need not know any borders. Because Christ is risen, our dreams can be larger than we’ve ever dreamed. Because God, working in us and through us and sometimes despite us, can always do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine.
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