Walter Bruggemann delivered a riveting paper at SBL/AAR last month titled, "The Recovering God of Hosea" which explored the theology of Hosea as a glimpse into the internal life of God. The presentation was so powerful that it was followed by a haunting silence broken by some reverent "amens" muttered under the breath of attendees. [F.Y.I. It is not politically correct to amen at SBL.] Bruggemann's words have stuck with me and in the past few weeks I've been inadvertently meditating on the way Hosea bespeaks a unique, unsettled complexity in God's internal life.
One half hazard discovery -
By thinking of God's internal life as less complex than my own (I dare not say "messy") I have unconsciously believed the complexity of my own internal life as unsuitable for prayer. Was it David's belief in the breadth of God's pathos that explicated his own volubility? Was he a "man after God's own heart" by virtue of believing God's Heart was sophisticated enough to receive his surprisingly frank process? This has legitimated a new season of irreverent but sincerely honest prayers in which I choose to include God in everything from gripes, to ambivalence, to words I wouldn't say in church. This is good news (euangelion) for those who, like me, find it hard to believe God is honored with honesty in spite the endless mixture of complex,unsettled, messy and sometimes dark internal states.
going boldly where one man has gone before
About Me
- Bob
- Long Beach, CA, United States
- I'm into beauty - that's why I married my wife, adore my 5 year old daughter,live in a mid-century home and spend my free time fantasizing of the age to come which is here.
somewhere in baja
1 comment:
From Our Daily Bread:
It reminds me of your article on Prayer
“Let us at all costs avoid the temptation to make our Christmas worship a withdrawal from the stress and sorrow of life into a realm of unreal beauty. It was into the real world that Christ came, into the city where there was no room for Him, and into a country where Herod, the murderer of innocents, was king.
“He comes to us, not to shield us from the harshness of the world but to give us the courage and strength to bear it; not to snatch us away by some miracle from the conflict of life, but to give us peace—His peace—in our hearts, by which we may be calmly steadfast while the conflict rages, and be able to bring to the torn world the healing that is peace.”
When Mary and Joseph presented the infant Jesus to the Lord, Simeon said to them: “Behold, this Child is destined for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign which will be spoken against (yes, a sword will pierce through your own soul also), that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed” (Luke 2:34-35).
Christmas is not a retreat from reality but an advance into it alongside the Prince of Peace.
Post a Comment