Prayer Monday: Loss is indeed our gain

The pushing and shoving of the world is endless
We are pushed and shoved
And we do our fair share of pushing and shoving
in our great anxiety.
And in the middle of that
you have set down your beloved suffering son
who was like a sheep led to slaughter
who opened not his mouth.

We seem not able,
so we ask you to create the spaces for our life
where we may ponder his suffering
and your summons to suffer with him,
suspecting that suffering is the only way to come to newness.

So we pray for your church in these lenten days,
when we are driven to denial-
not to notice the suffering,
not to engage it,
not to acknowledge it.
So be that way of truth among us
that we should not deceive ourselves.
That we should see that loss is indeed our gain.
We give you thanks for that mystery from which we live
Amen

Walter Brueggemann

Prayer Mondays: Brueggemann

Re- text us


We confess you to be text-maker,
text giver,
text-worker,
and we find ourselves addressed
by your making, giving, working.
So now we bid you, re-text us by your spirit.
Re-text us away from all our shallow loves,
into your overwhelming gracefulness.
Re-text us away from our thin angers,
into your truth telling freedom.
Retext us away from our lean hopes,
into your tidal promises.
Give us attentive ears,
responsive hearts,
receiving hands;
Re-text us to be your liberated partners
in joy and obedience,
in risk and gratitude.
Re-text us by your word become wind. Amen


Walter Brueggemann "Awed to Heaven, Rooted in Earth"

ps. buy the book, it's awesomwe

Church is...

one of the few places left in our society that knows how speak of both loss and hope.
-Brueggemann

Prayers Monday

Thought I'd post some prayers on Mondays. Yep. No particular reason. Just want to.

We are all in hock


Christ is risen!
You have come into a world of debt where we are all in hock.
We pray daily that you forgive our debts.
We boldly qualify our prayer by the condition of how we treat our neighbors.
So we pray for the cancellation of our debts
and the debts of the poor
of the weak
of the imprisoned
of the abused.
Your Easter Jubilee has broken our old patterns of debt and credit,
and made us rich beyond our acknowledgement.
You are the one who was rich and became Friday poor,
that by being made poor,
you would make many rich.
We are among those who have been made rich.....
along with our neighbors.
For your Sunday wealth that is our new beginning,
we give you deep and exuberant thanks.
Amen.


Walter Brueggeman "Awed to Heaven, Rooted in Earth: prayers of Walter Brueggemann"

Brueggemann on Quarrels

"The insistence of gospel-rooted social action is a dream of a genuinely covenantal community of neighbors. That finally is what the "kingdom of God" means. But covenantal neighborliness is a demanding alternative in the world, one deeply at odds with our conventional ways of thought and life. I submit that our work is to bring every aspect of our life together under the neighborliness of God.
In doing so, I dare suggest, there are only two difficult questions. One is sex. Sexuality has to do with intimacy and power; the Bible, so it seems to me, intends covenanted sex and not promiscuity or exploitation. The other hard question is money, for money is about freedom and control, and the Bible is for covenantal economics that are not promiscuous or exploitative. It strikes me as odd- but predictable- that conservatives, people who tend to stress evangelism, care a lot about covenantal sexuality but seem strangely naive about promiscuous, self indulgent economics. Conversely, liberals, those who seem to care about social action, have some sure sense of covenantal economics but tend to mumble about sexuality. Why not a recognition that money and sexuality are twin manifastations of our lust for power, our refusal of commitment, our will to live otherwise, but also our chance for genuine neighborliness as intended by God? I cannot think of a reason to choose up sides on these issues, for such choosing is silly and obsolete."
Walter Brueggeman ' Together in the Spirit- Beyond Seductive Quarrels' in "Deep Memory, Exuberant Hope: Contested truth in a post-Christian world" pp39