During Earth Week, I presented the sermon for First Church of Christ Simsbury. I titled the sermon “The Courage to Imagine,” drawing inspiration from theologian Walter Breugemann and a 1967 speech by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
In his book The Prophetic Imagination, Breugemann encourages us to “keep alive the ministry of imagination, to keep on conjuring and proposing futures alternative to the single one the king wants to urge as the only thinkable one.” MLK called for “creative maladjustment” to the injustices embedded in our social and economic systems.
One challenge we face in the coming months is resisting the personal urge and official encouragement to “get back to normal” — that “normal” created intolerable racial and economic inequality and pushed us to the brink of climate catastrophe. Together, we have an opportunity to imagine an alternative future that is more just and more sustainable, one in which workers are paid well to build the infrastructure and provide the services we need to sustain communities and protect the climate.
And even as we’re developing that common vision, we need to continue organizing to win.
