More of prophets and poets from Walter Brueggemann.
Hope is created by speech and before that speech Israel is always hopeless. Indeed, are we not all? Before we are addressed we know no future and no possible newness. Where there is no speech we must live in despair. And exile is first of all where our speech has been silenced and God's speech has been banished. But the prophetic poet asserts hope precisely in exile.
Exile is a place and time when we do not consider what is possible. Instead, we are trapped in what is and we are consumed by what must be - for now. The poet does not convince us of an answer to the questions of our lives. The poet sketches out a line that allows us to move from one place to another before we really know - where we are going. Hope does not need to see the end. Hope is having that which - is not - raised up so that we can begin to see that something may, indeed, exist outside of the reality in which we have let ourselves be exiled. I need words as a place to begin to be somewhere other than the place in which I see myself.
Connection: Sometimes we need only point people to words of hope in order to save them from the sound of despair that can so quickly suck life from us. We can be those words.
By your Word you bring to us a refreshing drink that enable us to continue on through what is and into what will be. Thanks be to you, O God. Amen.
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