| More from "Regulation via Imagination" - again from Walter Brueggemann in "An Unsettling God." The reason I stress that the biblical testimony is revelation-as-human-imagination is that the text tradition fully delivers on adequate partners for YHWH, partners who are capable of sustained dialogic transactions of fidelity. Israel, in its formation and transmission of the text, found itself drawn out beyond itself into this always lively, redefining transaction. And while the framers and transmitters of the textual tradition lived in quite concrete human life - of family and sexuality, of money and property - they also understood that life in faithful intentionality was a performance of an ongoing transaction that caused it to be different in the world. They understood that "in faithful intentionality was a performance of an ongoing transaction that caused it to be different in the world." In other words, 'this is what makes us who we are.' Or maybe we could say it like this: we do the things we do and don't do other things because we are part of a dialogical relationship that is always walking with us as we become more and more human. This will mean that as we walk with this God who engages us in dialogue, we do look and act and speak as though we are different - some might say alien. And yet we tell ourselves - through our faithful imagination - that we are to be a light to the nations. We are thus people who remain in conversation with our God and one another so that we understand what make a light shine in our day that may be different from days gone by - and yet still vitally a part of the tradition of our God with God's people Connection: The dialogue builds character and we are always facing ways that our character might change or be transformed. O God, who gifts us with the ability to imagine the life that is more full than the present seems to allow, use us to be a part of the building of your people in this time - even when we would rather stay just as we are. Amen. |
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