Tuesday 3 July 2007

Walter Brueggeman notes four necessary components for the practice of hope shared by Jews and Christians. Today we look at #3.

Hope requires a text that mediates between holy generativity and communal obedience. Jews and Christians share such a text that is grounded in oracular assurances and that provides an account of narrative possibility that continues to be available amid the vagaries of lived reality. This mediating text is...always "strange and new." Over time, there are many strategies to try to make manageable what is strange and make commonplace what is new; such strategies, however, cannot in the long run succeed, because of the character of the text itself and because of the Character who occupies the text. That is why, on the one hand, the interpretive protagonists agree in a rough way that the text is revelatory, offering glimpses of that which remains hidden from us.

From the text, we are given something beyond our control. It is the vehicle that makes the "strange and new" available to us so that we are not afraid to encounter and enter either one. I enjoy Brueggemann's insight in regard to what is so often attempted by those who read these "strange and new" texts. He writes: there are many strategies to try and make manageable what is strange and make commonplace what is new. What is not realized by so many is that these texts - right when we think we have "managed" to "get it" and then made them "commonplace" is that they then blow wide open our lives with new strangeness and newness. It is so easy to turn these texts into weapons of oppression and I would even say death. But that does not work and it never will. The text is able to keep churning us up. If not right now and right here, then soon and very soon and yes, even right here among us. When our lives are collapsing into the legalism of the day that often brings with it nothing more than despair, a rereading of the texts we have can open doors to that which we have not considered and to a place we were not planning on entering.

Connection: Sometimes, this day needs another vision. It may come out of texts we know so well and thing we have under our belts. And yet, those kind of texts are the exact ones that will surprise us and offer us another opportunity to hope and live in joy.

From within your Word, O God, the saints of old remind us of how your Reign really does provide your people with new space to live and new eyes to see our mundane lives. When we are left alone with nothing else but the texts of the faithful community, help us to read them with new eyes so that we can see your ever unfolding new life. Amen.