| From the section 'Jewish Probes of the Dialogical,' Brueggemann now lists three people who made contributions to this way of seeing and reading. Foremost is Martin Buber, whose dialogic understandings are at the center of his philosophic thought. This concern is evident in the most popular work, I and Thou.... In his daring insistence upon religious (as distinct from philosophic) categories, Buber proposes that there is an "ontology of the between" in which subjective agents have an encounter marked by and intense immediacy. While Buber's rhetoric tilts in the direction of mystical encounter, there is no doubt that he is primally informed by the deepest claims of the Hebrew Bible in which the meeting of the subjective agents is given a historical casting. From the initial encounter of the burning bush in which YHWH gave (and did not give!) the divine name, YHWH has been a confrontive, engaged agent in the life of Israel and in the life of the world. That which happens between the I and Thou is a whole new creation. One teacher once said that this was the power of the Holy Spirit - that which takes place between us. It is there that we are pulled outside of ourselves (sharing) and bring into ourselves the words of the other. In that back and forth is the power of life that can change the world. It is the power to help people change direction and begin life in a new way. It is the power that seeks to reunite the broken and find new meaning in the life that will begin now. Our God is a "confrontative, engaged agent" not only in the life of Israel, but also in our lives. The church can be a walled-in city that closes its doors at any sign of other ideas or notions or even - the Spirit's wind of life. We are invited to open the doors of our individual lives and our corporate live and enter into a wrestling match with our God who longs to shape us and stretch us and bring us into God's Reign. The dialogue is where we begin to feel the wind of the Spirit brushing by us. Connection: There may be something to simple posture when we listen to others. Do you lean into new ideas - or do you pull back? I don't know if I am consistent. I need to self-observe. Maybe that is how we can help one another engage the wind of life that blows among us. O God, whose Word lifts us into new life - continue to fill us with what is not yet visible and not yet in hand. Amen. |
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