Inspired
29/04/21 04:38
Walter Brueggemann is one of the most influential teachers of our generation. Now retired, he continues to write and lecture in ways that inspire and challenge religious leaders. He is author of over 100 books and they keep coming. When I was a seminary student, he was professor of Old Testament at Eden Theological Seminary. His students discovered his passion for interpreting the Hebrew Scriptures and were inspired by his absolute commitment to living as a Christian in a complex world.
Over the years I have been touched by Brueggemann in different ways. His collections of prayers are important books that I have kept despite radical downsizing of my library. For years, he wrote manuscript prayers for every meeting of every class he taught. Upon his retirement, those prayers were collected into several volumes that continue to be relevant and inspirational.
His book, Tenacious Solidarity, contains essays, lectures and new short writings that he produced from about 2014 to 2018 - spanning the time when the United States was undergoing a radical shift with the election of Donald Trump as President. At the time the book came out, I read it and discussed it with a group of colleagues. It is a challenging book for preachers, reminding us of our task of calling people back to the scriptures in times when the people we serve are tempted to forget the core and essence of our faith. The final essay in the book is a specific challenge to preachers, inviting us to dig deeply into the five books known to Jews at Torah: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy.
The essay reminds me of the intensity of the passion of my years of diving deep into those texts under the guidance of Andre LaCocque. At the time, he was nearing the publication of one of his life’s major works, “The Book of Daniel.” Once he said to us, “A lifetime is too short to adequately study a single book of scripture.” Andre’s continual challenge to us to “think biblically,” was a reminder that we belong to people who have made a basic commitment: We will be the people of God.” Being Christian is not just a matter of behavior. It is an identity. It is more than what we do. It is who we are. I wrestled with the ancient texts word by word, seeing in the story of our people my own story and in our history the words for our contemporary experience.
I am older, now, but occasionally I am reminded of that passion and commitment. My teachers continue to inspire me.
I touched a bit of that passion last night as a study group at our church wrestled with one of Brueggemann’s essays. One of the participants in the study group commented that reading Brueggemann reminded him of being in graduate school, when he had to focus his attention to follow a complex argument. I reminded him that that is exactly what Brueggemann did for his career - teach graduate students. His writing is dense, packed with rich meaning. His subject is similarly powerful.
Many Christians encounter the first five books of the bible as “Old.” When they do read them, they skim lightly over the lists of laws, the descriptions of holiness codes, the statements and restatements of ancient covenants. The books are discounted as ancient writings about ancient times. They rush to get to the stories of Jesus and Paul, sometimes forgetting that Jesus and Paul and all of Christianity is deeply and firmly based in the texts, traditions and experiences of our people expressed in these critical books.
Too often Christians pick out one or two verses from the Hebrew Scriptures and quote them without any context, using them to make a political point or to identify some failing in their neighbor rather than being challenged by the whole texts which shape our identity even when we aren’t aware of their impact.
Brueggemann calls us to return to the texts and to see in them God’s call that is completely relevant to the circumstances in which we find ourselves. The task of interpreters of our faith in the 21st Century is no less daunting than it was for 1st Century evangelists and martyrs. We too are called to absolute commitment to the core of our relationship with God. And whenever we return to the call to love God with all that is within us, we are also called to love neighbor as self. This is not simply a call to personal piety and individual behavior. It is a call to us as a people - as a church and as a nation. How we treat widows, orphans and immigrants is an expression of who we are in relationship to God. The crisis on or border is a crisis of our faith.
As I return to some of the teachers and writings of my seminary days, I am once again inspired by the commitments I made early in my life. I may be retired from the day to day practices of a working preacher, but I continue to be bound by the vows of my ordination and called to speak truth to God’s faithful people. Once again, I am invited to take the plunge to go deeper into the scriptures and to find ways to interpret them to others.
It is a challenge I do not take lightly. Walter Brueggemann is a generation older than I. He has been retired from receiving a pay check as a teacher for many years. He continues, however, to speak and write and inspire. As I make decisions about what comes next in my life, I need to renew the balance of study and writing and speaking. I need to continue to invite God’s people to plunge deeper into the words of our faith.
I hope that I can continue to discover new ways to live our my role as a minister of the Gospel in this new phase of my life and as I become more adjusted to retirement I can find places to speak of our faith. Encountering Brueggemann and other teachers is a good place to start.
Over the years I have been touched by Brueggemann in different ways. His collections of prayers are important books that I have kept despite radical downsizing of my library. For years, he wrote manuscript prayers for every meeting of every class he taught. Upon his retirement, those prayers were collected into several volumes that continue to be relevant and inspirational.
His book, Tenacious Solidarity, contains essays, lectures and new short writings that he produced from about 2014 to 2018 - spanning the time when the United States was undergoing a radical shift with the election of Donald Trump as President. At the time the book came out, I read it and discussed it with a group of colleagues. It is a challenging book for preachers, reminding us of our task of calling people back to the scriptures in times when the people we serve are tempted to forget the core and essence of our faith. The final essay in the book is a specific challenge to preachers, inviting us to dig deeply into the five books known to Jews at Torah: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy.
The essay reminds me of the intensity of the passion of my years of diving deep into those texts under the guidance of Andre LaCocque. At the time, he was nearing the publication of one of his life’s major works, “The Book of Daniel.” Once he said to us, “A lifetime is too short to adequately study a single book of scripture.” Andre’s continual challenge to us to “think biblically,” was a reminder that we belong to people who have made a basic commitment: We will be the people of God.” Being Christian is not just a matter of behavior. It is an identity. It is more than what we do. It is who we are. I wrestled with the ancient texts word by word, seeing in the story of our people my own story and in our history the words for our contemporary experience.
I am older, now, but occasionally I am reminded of that passion and commitment. My teachers continue to inspire me.
I touched a bit of that passion last night as a study group at our church wrestled with one of Brueggemann’s essays. One of the participants in the study group commented that reading Brueggemann reminded him of being in graduate school, when he had to focus his attention to follow a complex argument. I reminded him that that is exactly what Brueggemann did for his career - teach graduate students. His writing is dense, packed with rich meaning. His subject is similarly powerful.
Many Christians encounter the first five books of the bible as “Old.” When they do read them, they skim lightly over the lists of laws, the descriptions of holiness codes, the statements and restatements of ancient covenants. The books are discounted as ancient writings about ancient times. They rush to get to the stories of Jesus and Paul, sometimes forgetting that Jesus and Paul and all of Christianity is deeply and firmly based in the texts, traditions and experiences of our people expressed in these critical books.
Too often Christians pick out one or two verses from the Hebrew Scriptures and quote them without any context, using them to make a political point or to identify some failing in their neighbor rather than being challenged by the whole texts which shape our identity even when we aren’t aware of their impact.
Brueggemann calls us to return to the texts and to see in them God’s call that is completely relevant to the circumstances in which we find ourselves. The task of interpreters of our faith in the 21st Century is no less daunting than it was for 1st Century evangelists and martyrs. We too are called to absolute commitment to the core of our relationship with God. And whenever we return to the call to love God with all that is within us, we are also called to love neighbor as self. This is not simply a call to personal piety and individual behavior. It is a call to us as a people - as a church and as a nation. How we treat widows, orphans and immigrants is an expression of who we are in relationship to God. The crisis on or border is a crisis of our faith.
As I return to some of the teachers and writings of my seminary days, I am once again inspired by the commitments I made early in my life. I may be retired from the day to day practices of a working preacher, but I continue to be bound by the vows of my ordination and called to speak truth to God’s faithful people. Once again, I am invited to take the plunge to go deeper into the scriptures and to find ways to interpret them to others.
It is a challenge I do not take lightly. Walter Brueggemann is a generation older than I. He has been retired from receiving a pay check as a teacher for many years. He continues, however, to speak and write and inspire. As I make decisions about what comes next in my life, I need to renew the balance of study and writing and speaking. I need to continue to invite God’s people to plunge deeper into the words of our faith.
I hope that I can continue to discover new ways to live our my role as a minister of the Gospel in this new phase of my life and as I become more adjusted to retirement I can find places to speak of our faith. Encountering Brueggemann and other teachers is a good place to start.
