This time I'm going to break my own rules. That's because those who read Walter Brueggemann know that he is the author very many thickly textured thin books. Indeed I suspect the phrase "thickly textured" comes from my reading of Brueggemann from his first books till now, and that, like the twelfth of never, is a long, long time. So I want to mention several of Brueggemann's books, and those reading this, well you can take your pick.
By way of orientation for those who don't know about him. From his appointment as Professor of Old Testament at Eden Theological Seminary in 191, until his retirement from Columbia Theological seminary in 2003, and still active in scholarship and preaching at the age of 88, Walter Brueggemann has written, preached, taught, lectured and served the church all his life. He remained in Seminary education in order to influence the formation of those who would serve the church as preachers and pastors. It mattered to him what theological and pastoral students do with their studying and their thinking. He wanted to encourage them to become people of prayer, scholars for whom study and contemplation in the world of the biblical text would provide the nourishment and guidance for the people of God in a time of cultural exile and globalised capitalism.
I'm not sure who actually knows how many books Walter Brueggemann has written. According to his own website the total at present stands at 137 – that is not a misprint. There are three scheduled for 2020, but in fact the list omits Virus as a Summons to Faith. Biblical Reflections in a Time of Loss, Grief and Uncertainty, just published. The title and subtitle say much about why Brueggemann has become for many pastors and Christ followers a trusted source of biblical wisdom, pastoral responsiveness, and theological responsibility when dealing with the dilemmas, suffering and injustices of life in our globalised world. You can find more about Brueggemann on his website. For now, some reasons why he has a place in this series of blog posts.
Living Toward a Vision. Biblical reflections on Shalom. (1976.Rev Ed.82). Ever since reading this book 'shalom' has been a keyword in my world view. The word incorporates blessing as wide as the grace and generosity of God. Living towards shalom means deep commitments to peace as a gift and a task; it involves compassion enough to be inconvenienced and generous to those in need; it requires imagination to think newness into old unjust systems of power, in order to transform our social arrangements towards human flourishing; shalom invites change and incites the passions to work for them. And that's Brueggemann just getting started. For me this was a ministry defining book that compels an out of the ordinary kind of obedience, a new way of seeing the world differently, trusting the graced interventions of God through gifts to God's people, and then the people of God heeding the vision and wirlding God's gifts of shalom, serving God to make it so.
Which brings me to The Prophetic Imagination (1978). "The time may be ripe in the church for serious consideration of prophecy as a crucial element in ministry." "The prophets", he argued, "understood the distinctive power of language, the capacity to speak in ways that evoke newness "fresh from the word." This book introduced to its readers the distinctive themes and tones of Brueggemann's ministry of scholarship: the role of an alternative community with different goals for human community; creating a mindset that is counter cultural in order to be a creative and redemptive presence in that culture; acknowledgement of pain and suffering, openness to human pathos and enough faith in God to voice lament and anger arising out of grief; the prophet's words and visions a energy source of faith, amazement and risk in the reach for newness. Few writers enter more deeply into the biblical text in search of God rather than answers to human crises.
The Message of the Psalms is an astonishing book. In it Brueggemann expounds the Book of Psalms using a 'scheme' of orientation – disorientation – reorientation. Some Psalms are entirely positive, affirming creation and the Creator, extolling the blessings of Torah, celebrating occasions of well-being, life is experienced as orientation towards blessing. Other Psalms are much more negative, as tragedy and suffering bring anguish and deep questioning of faith, there is disorientation, and as deep penitence is called for, despair is given voice in some of the most pain filled words in all of world literature. Yet other Psalms speak of reorientation, praise and gratitude for reconciliation, problem resolution and restored relationships, a return to thanksgiving as a default disposition of faith, returning confidence in God and in life in one's place in the world and in the divine purposes. Throughout the book Brueggemann comments briefly, sharply and at times quite brilliantly about the human experiences of orientation – disorientation – reorientation as a cycle of life circumstances that give rise to such apt and to the point prayers as are gathered in the Psalter.
Those who have read Brueggemann over the years would now recognise his voice, his way of saying things, and the remarkable power of his own words. Who else writes like this:
"The subversion of faith has nothing to do with being liberal or conservative. It has to do rather with this question: whether the dominant force of technological, electronic, military consumerism is to have the final say in the world, whether the practices of greed, alienation, despair, amnesia and brutality are to be the shape of the world in which only the privileged have a chance to live well, and that by utilization of the deprivileged as a means toward ends. Or whether the covenantal dreams of Moses, the deep hopes of Jeremiah, and the suffering transformative love of Jesus will draw us to an alternative faith that treasures our common, God-given humanness."
I would recognise that voice anywhere.
By his own criteria for what constitutes the genuine prophetic element in ministry and in the church's mission, Brueggemann is also amongst the goodly fellowship of the prophets. No, he is not always right; yes at times he says again what he said before; he can at times get carried away by his own passionate lucidity and he can be so provocative you have to close the book, think about it, and more often than not, hear him out because he's on to something important. And you need to listen.
If you have never read him, try his now famous essay, "The Costly Loss of Lament" which you can read over here. If you want to chase some of his titles, they are all listed over here.
Two tasters. One from Prophetic Imagination, the other from Sabbath as Resistance:
"The prophet engages in futuring fantasy. The prophet does not ask if the vision can be implemented, for questions of implementation are of no consequence until the vision can be imagined. The imagination must come before the implementation. Our culture is competent to implement almost anything and to imagine almost nothing. The same royal consciousness that make it possible to implement anything and everything is the one that shrinks imagination because imagination is a danger. Thus every totalitarian regime is frightened of the artist. It is the vocation of the prophet 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.”
“Sabbath, in the first instance, is not about worship. It is about work stoppage. It is about withdrawal from the anxiety system of Pharaoh, the refusal to let one’s life be defined by production and consumption, and the endless pursuit of private well-being.”
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