3 March 2005

From "The Prophetic Imagination" by Walter Brueggemann.

...prophetic hope easily lends itself to distortion. It can be made so grandiose that it does not touch reality; it can be trivialized so that it does not impact reality; it can be "bread and circuses" so that it only supports and abets the general despair. But a prophet has another purpose in bringing hope to public expression, and that is to return the community to its single referent, the sovereign faithfulness of God.

This is the easiest piece of the reality of the Reign of God to forget - God's faithfulness! And yet, it is the rock and foundation of all things. The prophet is rarely heard because we so often do not want to hear merely that...that God is faithful. We want something more...something that we can put in our pockets to make us secure or well or better. We want to be able to sit in a seat that has a bit more control on life. Therefore, whatever the prophet will say can easily be taken by us and used to sooth us even if the word of the Lord is not meant to be taken that way. It is always good to have other faithful people listening in on the prophetic word of the day...because we often need more ears than our own to hear about the faithfulness of our God and what that brings to life.

Connection: In the mix of everything, the assurance of God's faithfulness is enough to generate life. There is no proof to this...there is only life in it.

Come Holy Spirit and grab hold of our hearts because we so quickly turn from the promises of our God and look for other ways to live. Unfortunately, nothing is working...we long for your promises to be our rest and foundation for life. Amen.