January 13, 2015
Dear St. Paul’s Family,
Among the many highlights from our recent trip to Florida was a stop at the Universal Studios Theme Park in Orlando, where my daughters and I visited the new “Diagon Alley” section of the Harry Potter theme park. The experience was everything we were expecting it to be: immersive, meticulously detailed, and crowded. The butter beer was sweet but not sickeningly so, the ride through Gringott’s Bank was a thrill, and the store fronts were lifted straight from the pages of the books: Wiseacres Wizarding Equipment, Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes, and Florean Fortescue’s Ice Cream Parlour. Add to that an amazing ride on the Hogwart’s Express (complete with Station 9 and ¾), and it was like the written words of J.K. Rowling had leapt to life.
The original Harry Potter “Hogsmeade” park opened in 2007, to much fanfare and excitement among rabid fans called “Potterheads,” among whom my daughters and I count ourselves. However, I do remember hearing comments from several die hard fans, including a few of my friends, who were dismayed that this beloved story had been turned into a theme park.
Their concern was not so much that the books would become over commercialized, or that they were turning them into a profit-making machine. Rather, they believed that this theme park would undermine the imaginary world that readers like them had constructed in their own minds. They had developed such an intimate relationship with the story that they had their own sensory impressions of the look of the stores, the taste of the food, and the sounds of the streets. They felt that inevitably, a theme park would offer a concrete contradiction to their own convictions about the story. The same complaint could be made about each of the eight films, as they not only departed from the books on several key points, but undermined the one gift that great books afford the reader: the unleashing of imagination.
I’ll admit those friends have a good point. It’s hard for me to re-read the Harry Potter books with my daughters without picturing the face of Daniel Radcliffe as the lead. And when Rowling describes the Great Hall of Hogwarts Castle, or the darkened streets of Knockturn Alley, or the unpredictable tastes of Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans, I can say to myself, “Seen it, done it, tasted it.” When there is little left to the imagination, there is little reason left to imagine.
But then I took it one step further. As we walked through the park, I remembered that just a week prior, we had observed together the greatest example of a story coming to life.
When John wrote the prelude to his gospel, he described the coming of Jesus with precise, poetic language. He called Jesus “the Word,” which essentially named him as the chief expression of God’s saving activity in the world. Jesus was the pinnacle of the salvation story that God wanted to tell the world.
And how did this Story come to life? Not through a theme park or a film, but through something so imaginative that it could only come from the mind of a creative God. The second person of the trinity, who was fully divine, became fully human. It was a mystery for the ages, that no human mind could conceive. One plus one became one. The Word became flesh.
The incarnation of Jesus was a most imaginative solution to the problem of sin. And when he came to earth, he unleashed that imagination onto his followers. He spoke in parables and performed miracles, upending conventional wisdom, and challenging predisposed behaviors. He expanded people’s worldviews, enlightened them to hidden truths, and introduced them to a whole realm of reality so fantastical that he preached about it more than any other subject: The Kingdom of God.
Then take it one final step further. If the church is the body of Christ, then we are called to that same imaginative storytelling to the world. Not through building theme park experiences, where worship and programming become mere avenues for entertainment and consumerist tendencies. Not through catering to popular culture, by reducing sacred language and ancient doctrines down to the ideologies and terminologies of the street. But by embodying the very same inspired impulses that characterized Jesus himself. Loving our enemies and praying for those who persecute us. Seeking to serve, rather than be served. Seeking sight for the blind and setting the captives free. Building our lives on rock, rather than sand. Believing that the last will be first and the first will be last.
You and I are called to be living expressions of God’s ongoing salvation story. We can offer to others an immersive encounter with Jesus, better than any thrill ride, more realistic than any theme park. We can show people the living Word, then watch their imaginations run wild.
Grace and Peace,
Magrey
The Rev. Magrey R. deVega
St. Paul's United Methodist Church
531 W. Main St.
Cherokee, IA 51012
Ph: 712-225-3955
Email: mdevega@sp-umc.org
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