Monday 14 May 2007

After several weeks in parables, today we are making a move into selections from "Mandate to Difference by Walter Brueggemann.

You might think

• if you cringe at the boisterous, cocky new sound of religion in politics,
• if you worry about the divisiveness of "red" and "blue" and
• If you are vexed that too many people claim to be speaking directly for Christ...

you might thing that our Christian faith is all about getting the moral issues right and leveraging others to think and act the right way, as do we. But if you think that, you are very wrong, because such contemporary loud posturing is not so much about faith as it is about anxiety and maintaining control in the world. Our faith, I propose, is not about pinning down moral certitudes. It is rather, about openness to wonder and awe in glad praise. (p.1)

These are the opening words of chapter one. Brueggemann doesn't waste any time jumping in and attempting to help us all look more deeply at who we are and what possibilities we have for living in the time we exist. I find that it is so easy to be caught up in the issues of the day that attempt to drive me around between here and there. As I often find, some of this running around is just that...running....running....hoping to be right or at least show that the other side might be wrong. When I fall prey to such work and posturing, it is very difficult to dream. Faith becomes a fixed target - a goal - a plan - a "must be." It is a seductive game and pulls at us all the time. But, as Brueggemann writes, faith...is about openness to wonder and awe in glad praise. Faith is not a calculated move. It is rather, a move that may be more like a leap that looks and even feels odd and out of place and, quite frankly, embarrassing in the middle of all the "common sense" that we are told we should always have. To be open to such a reality that is beyond our control and yet open too our participation gives us the space to look again at promises and covenants and eternity and the fullness of time in which we find ourselves. And there, out of the control of a lame moral certitude, we are introduced again to that awe of God that draws from us simple praise that is released from a relieved heart and life.

Connection: Pause. That could be what we need to do again and again in these days. Pause. Pause. As we are pulled between here and there....pause and wonder about the creative and redeeming presence of our God with us.

Within your embrace, O God, we are given a place within this day to journey beyond what appears to be so fixed and in place and in control within our world. You still liberate your people and yet we so often refuse to be liberated. We remain within our warring worlds rather than turn and walk into another way that trusts your abiding presence that is already healing the world. Amen.