Finally Comes the Poet: The poet in the moment of preaching.

"The event of preaching is an event in transformed imagination. Poets, in the moment of preaching, are permitted to perceive and voice the world differently, to dare a new phrase, a new picture, a fresh juxtaposition of matters long known. Poets are authorized to invite a new conversation, with new voices sounded, new hearings possible. The new conversation may end in freedom to trust and courage to relinquish. The new conversation, on which our very lives depend, requires a poet and not a moralist. Because finally church people are like other people; we are not changed by new rules. The deep places in our lives – places of resistance and embrace – are not ultimately reached by instruction. Those places of resistance and embrace are reached only by stories, by images, metaphors, and phrases that line out the world differently, apart from our fear and hurt. The reflection that comes from the poet requires playfulness, imagination and interpretation. The new conversation allows for ambiguity, probe, and daring hunch. It is only free people, in contexts of trust, who are able to walk close to the scandal, to be seen in its presence, to live by its gifts. (Brueggemann, Finally Comes the Poet, page 109-110)

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More and more I'm discovering important connections between theology and poetry as two different forms of utterance that make possible an expressive construal of how we see the world and understand our experience within it. Brueggemann's point is that preaching and poetry are also related forms of speech, acts of utterance which change the way we or others see the world and ourselves in it. Brueggemann understands as few others do, that the gift of language makes it possible to conceive of alternative worlds, to build hope into the future, to configure a worldview that is not closed but open to the possibility of God's own speech being heard and action being discerned.

Brueggemann accords preaching a role and a seriousness in the life of the Christian community unmatched amongst other contemporary biblical scholars. And this book is where he gathers his most provocative and purposeful thoughts on what can and should happen when the preacher's words faithfully echo and question the Word.