13 January 2006

We end the week with more of Walter Brueggemann on the word spoken from God.

...Yahweh is a God who speaks, whose word is effective and whose decree is carried out in the world. In Isaiah 55:10-11, the speech of Yahweh is not futile. Yahweh does what Yahweh says. Yahweh must therefore be taken more seriously than the Babylonian gods. What Yahweh speaks is the fall of Babylon and the corresponding liberation of Israel. The same word that frees Israel is the word that creates worlds.

"Yahweh says." What a powerful way to describe who our God is and how our God functions. Just as in the story of the creation, a word uttered by God is enough to make a reality take shape. Bit by bit and word by word...creation's order is established and our God is the one who brings all things into being out of nothing at all. It is important to hear that it is not the people of God who bring things into being by their "saying." Some religious leaders think that. Some try to take the place of God or the prophets of God who are given the word of God to say to all who will hear. Most often, we hear nothing more that self-indulgent words that are bias and full of an agenda that has lost the power of the God of Grace and Peace who delivers all who are oppressed. To often those who say they speak for God - and therefore have many people waiting to hear their every word - rarely have the vision of the Reign of God in mind. Too often it is their own reign they are attempting to build or increase. A word that really free God's people is a word that set us off into a domain we have yet to experience because we tend to be a people who simply try to preserve who we are and what we have right now. Yahweh calls forth justice and peace and it will be. We are called into that reality...a reality that does not exist just yet...but remember, Yahweh speaks.

Connection: We must step into that word that creates the Reign of God even as the power that be continue to play their games of politics and religion. When we are confused by what might be the way, a good place to start is with what John's gospel puts on the lips of Jesus, "I am the way, the truth, and the life."

Lord God, speak to us with the words of your blessed Reign so that we will begin to look beyond our own vision and live beyond our own self interests. You are the one who calls all your people into the unfolding glory of your promises in which we can live in truthfulness and peace no matter what might be the sounds of things around us. Amen.