40 years of prophetic imagination
07/01/19 04:29
Walter Brueggemann is one of those pivotal teachers whose lessons reach far beyond the classrooms where he lectured. He taught at a different seminary than the one I attended, but my professors used his books and made reference to this work. 40 years ago, when I was graduating from seminary, he published what has become one of the great books of our generation, “The Prophetic Imagination.” That book and the work that stemmed from it has been a critical element in my preaching and in my understanding of biblical literature. I’ve had the opportunity to hear Brueggemann lecture on the topic of prophets and the prophetic imagination on a few occasions and his power and passion reignited in me the excitement of this incredible book. The book has since been revised and there is now a new 40th anniversary edition available.
In my mind the book conveys several important ideas that are simply bigger than any generation. They are concepts that took generations to develop and that will be relevant for generations to come. The community of God - the people who are faithful to God and to the covenant with God - gives rise to an alternative to the existing social order. This new social order is grounded in ethics and a vision of justice for all people, compassion for those in need and resistance to those who would establish systems that discriminate and oppress. The tools that there employed by this prophetic community are not the weapons of war, but rather the nuances of language. The prophets speak in lament and protest and complaint, but they also unfold a dramatic vision of a new community, faithful to God and dedicated to healing the pain of the people.
I think that part of the power of Brueggemann’s teaching has its seeds in the fact that his father was a German pastor serving an immigrant community. When Walter was growing up his father was wrestling with the meaning of serving a German evangelical congregation at the time when the Second World War forced deep changes in the community. His father continued to preach in German on occasion, but was an ardent proponent of adopting the English language not only for business and education, but also for worship. The old immigrants were used to thinking about God in their native language. It was threatening to be asked to sing hymns and hear sermons in this new language. People needed to hear the sounds of their mother tongue, but they also needed to understand that God is not restricted to a single language. And, if an immigrant community doesn’t move away from its mother tongue it will lose the next generation.
So Walter grow up knowing of the critical importance of not just how words read, but also how words sound. He was raised by his minister father to be a minister himself and in graduate school he studied under the great Jeremiah scholar James Muilenburg. It was from this teacher that he learned that if you study the same texts every day of your life, year after year, you either eventually get bored and give up or you are captured by the texts themselves and become engaged in the power of the poetry and language you are studying. Brueggemann was captured by the language.
His passion for the words, the nuances, the tiny details and for the force of the language was eloquently communicated to students over the past five decades in remarkable and powerful ways.
The message the Brueggemann preaches, inspired by the power and eloquence of Biblical poetry, is very different from the message you hear from advertising and from social media. We live in a world that invites us to define ourselves by our possessions. Acquire things. Become a millionaire. Become a billionaire. Political power should belong to those who have the most money and possessions. Consolidate power. The prophets attack this notion of the world with such persistence that those who study their words experience much of contemporary culture as a wasteland. Brueggemann often quotes Jeremiah 4: “I looked on the earth, and lo, it was waste and void; and to the heavens, and they had no light. I looked on the mountains, and lo, they were quaking, and all the hills moved to and fro. I looked, and lo, there was no one at all, and all the birds of the air had fled. I looked, and lo, the fruitful land was a desert, and all its cities were laid waste . . . before his fierce anger.”
Jeremiah is, in one sense describing the devastation of the exile that descended on the people of Israel. Judah was overrun from 598 to 587. The exile continued until 538. You can read these words as ancient history. But if you study them and live in them and look at them over and over again, you become aware that they are contemporary. The destruction of values and the relationship with God is an apt description of our country today. Read on. Read Jeremiah’s criticism of the handling of immigrants. Try to say that you do not see the current government shut down in the words of the prophet.
He also is fond of quoting Isaiah 43: “Do not remember the former things nor consider the things of old. I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?” Dwelling on the past comes with the risk of becoming blind to the new things that God is doing. Virtually every problem or crisis that has arisen in my pastoral ministry has been accompanied by faithful church members who lament the passing of the old ways. They complain about the youth of today. They tell stories over and over about how the church used to do things. They make no bones about their desire to restore the way things used to be. And, in my experience, the solution to the problem doesn’t come from looking in the rear view mirror. God is always in the future. God is always doing a new thing.
And the words of the prophet become necessary for the health of the community.
What Brueggemann has done so eloquently for so many years is to call us back to the text. And that text will give life to us now and in the future.
In my mind the book conveys several important ideas that are simply bigger than any generation. They are concepts that took generations to develop and that will be relevant for generations to come. The community of God - the people who are faithful to God and to the covenant with God - gives rise to an alternative to the existing social order. This new social order is grounded in ethics and a vision of justice for all people, compassion for those in need and resistance to those who would establish systems that discriminate and oppress. The tools that there employed by this prophetic community are not the weapons of war, but rather the nuances of language. The prophets speak in lament and protest and complaint, but they also unfold a dramatic vision of a new community, faithful to God and dedicated to healing the pain of the people.
I think that part of the power of Brueggemann’s teaching has its seeds in the fact that his father was a German pastor serving an immigrant community. When Walter was growing up his father was wrestling with the meaning of serving a German evangelical congregation at the time when the Second World War forced deep changes in the community. His father continued to preach in German on occasion, but was an ardent proponent of adopting the English language not only for business and education, but also for worship. The old immigrants were used to thinking about God in their native language. It was threatening to be asked to sing hymns and hear sermons in this new language. People needed to hear the sounds of their mother tongue, but they also needed to understand that God is not restricted to a single language. And, if an immigrant community doesn’t move away from its mother tongue it will lose the next generation.
So Walter grow up knowing of the critical importance of not just how words read, but also how words sound. He was raised by his minister father to be a minister himself and in graduate school he studied under the great Jeremiah scholar James Muilenburg. It was from this teacher that he learned that if you study the same texts every day of your life, year after year, you either eventually get bored and give up or you are captured by the texts themselves and become engaged in the power of the poetry and language you are studying. Brueggemann was captured by the language.
His passion for the words, the nuances, the tiny details and for the force of the language was eloquently communicated to students over the past five decades in remarkable and powerful ways.
The message the Brueggemann preaches, inspired by the power and eloquence of Biblical poetry, is very different from the message you hear from advertising and from social media. We live in a world that invites us to define ourselves by our possessions. Acquire things. Become a millionaire. Become a billionaire. Political power should belong to those who have the most money and possessions. Consolidate power. The prophets attack this notion of the world with such persistence that those who study their words experience much of contemporary culture as a wasteland. Brueggemann often quotes Jeremiah 4: “I looked on the earth, and lo, it was waste and void; and to the heavens, and they had no light. I looked on the mountains, and lo, they were quaking, and all the hills moved to and fro. I looked, and lo, there was no one at all, and all the birds of the air had fled. I looked, and lo, the fruitful land was a desert, and all its cities were laid waste . . . before his fierce anger.”
Jeremiah is, in one sense describing the devastation of the exile that descended on the people of Israel. Judah was overrun from 598 to 587. The exile continued until 538. You can read these words as ancient history. But if you study them and live in them and look at them over and over again, you become aware that they are contemporary. The destruction of values and the relationship with God is an apt description of our country today. Read on. Read Jeremiah’s criticism of the handling of immigrants. Try to say that you do not see the current government shut down in the words of the prophet.
He also is fond of quoting Isaiah 43: “Do not remember the former things nor consider the things of old. I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?” Dwelling on the past comes with the risk of becoming blind to the new things that God is doing. Virtually every problem or crisis that has arisen in my pastoral ministry has been accompanied by faithful church members who lament the passing of the old ways. They complain about the youth of today. They tell stories over and over about how the church used to do things. They make no bones about their desire to restore the way things used to be. And, in my experience, the solution to the problem doesn’t come from looking in the rear view mirror. God is always in the future. God is always doing a new thing.
And the words of the prophet become necessary for the health of the community.
What Brueggemann has done so eloquently for so many years is to call us back to the text. And that text will give life to us now and in the future.