The Thursday After

John Lennon’s most successful solo song is Imagine. Imagine is a completely memorable almost hymn-like song which asks you to imagine a world where we are all one – without countries, politics, religious differences and materialism to separate us. It’s been covered countless times, played after tragedies and even used in Olympic ceremonies. In case you’ve forgotten, the lyrics go like this:

Imagine there’s no heaven
It’s easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us, only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today

[Chorus]:
You may say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will be as one

[Verse 2]:
Imagine there’s no countries
It isn’t hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace

[Chorus]

[Verse 3]:

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world

[Chorus]

When it came out in 1971, the song generated controversy: people objected to him saying the world would be perfect without religion. Others called him a rich hypocrite for telling others to achieve peace by rejecting material things – which he showed no signs of doing. Lennon was shot by Mark David Chapman in December 1980. Chapman was a troubled soul. He would later describe his anger about the line “no religion too” as one motivation for shooting Lennon – an irony which kind of makes a case for Lennon’s dream in the first place.

Today with partisanship and nationalism ramping up, the middle east near eruption, a despot causing the death of many in Ukraine/Russia … (add your world worry here) … imagining a world where we live in harmony is particularly appealing.

I’m a big fan of imagining in general, but I am not much a fan of Imagine. Let me explain.

I’ve been going through the sermon on the mount (Matthew 5-7) with the Bible Project this year. It’s had quite an effect on me. In the past, I’ve tended to read things like the sermon on the mount as instructions for what I should do, maybe like a self-help guide. This time around, I’m reading it more like a description of what Jesus’ kingdom is like and how it operates. A question that helps me a lot is “imagine, what would it be like to live in a country where (for example) each person (including me) was valued and honoured?”. Or, “imagine a country in which the meek are above the rich”. I’ve experienced only moments like this, and I’d love to live in a world where sermon on the mount is normal.

I want to live like I am in that kind of country. “Be the change you want to see”. Life is complicated and most of the examples around me tell me to protect myself, think about me, think about what I deserve and what my rights are. In that kind of world, I don’t expect to succeed often in living out the sermon on the mount as Jesus describes. But I want to try.

I find this helpful when for example, we talk about Colossians 3 & 4 in the conversations around Christian households with those words “submit” and “obey”. They are trigger words, and yet if I start by imagining Christian households which live out the sermon on the mount vision, its easier to understand.

I really like Lennon’s desire for everyone to live in harmony. His prescription for how to get there (erase countries, materialism and religion) is naïve and ignores the human condition. We don’t have to discuss this in the abstract – human’s have actually tried his prescription a few times (the other Lenin! – China, Russia) and it fails miserably. [An aside: Xi Jinping is aggressively trying this approach all over again, so we can watch the current experiment unfold in real time.] Lennon says that’s not the kind of communism that he’s thinking about, but he ignores the human heart. He should have listened to G.K. Chesterton.

A UK newspaper invited its readers to describe “what is wrong with the world today”. We already know Lennon’s answer. G.K. Chesterton famously wrote

Dear sir,

I am.

Yours, G.K. Chesterton

which is a marvelously succinct way to say that it’s the human heart (mine and yours) which needs attention.

This is exactly Jesus’ point in the sermon on the mount. And the gospel writers. And the New Testament letters. And the rest of the biblical story. Which is why it’s so wonderful to read. Xi Jinping will fail. So will Putin. Only Jesus message + Spirit can actually change the world by changing hearts. The good news (should you choose to believe it) is that Jesus’ kingdom will ultimately arrive in full. Then Lennon will see his imagined peace and harmony, but not the way he imagined.

I considered writing alternative lyrics for Imagine. That probably won’t be positive for anyone. It’s a great question: how would you rewrite the lyrics for Imagine? How would you rewrite the first part of each verse so that we could all live for today, live life in peace and share the world?