Listen now

by Walter Brueggemann, March 29 1994

You God who terrified the waters,

who crashed your thunder,

who shook the earth, and

scared the wits out of chaos.

You God who with strong arm saved your people

by miracle and wonder and majestic act.

You are the same God to whom we turn,

we turn in our days of trouble,

and in our weary nights;

we look for steadfast love and are dismayed,

we wait for your promises, but wait in fatigue,

we ponder your forgetfulness and lack of compassion,

and we grow silent.

Our lives, addressed to you,

have this bitter-sweet taste of

loud-clashing miracles and weak-kneed doubt.

So we come in our bewilderment and wonderment,

deeply trusting, almost afraid to trust much,

passionately insisting, too timid to insist much,

fervently hoping, exhausted for hoping too much.

Look upon us in our deep need,

mark the wounds of our brothers and sisters just here,

notice the turmoil in our lives, and the lives of our families,

credit the incongruity of the rich and the poor in our very city,

and the staggering injustices abroad in our land,

tend to the rage out of control, rage justified by displacement,

rage gone crazy by absence, silence, and deprivation,

measure the suffering,

count the sufferers,

number the wounds.

You tamer of chaos and mender of all tears in the canvas of creation,

we ponder your suffering,

your crown of thorns,

your garment taken in lottery,

your mocked life,

and now we throw upon your suffering humiliation,

the suffering of the world.

You defeater of death, whose power could not hold you,

come in your Easter,

come in your sweeping victory,

come in your glorious new life.

Easter us,

salve wounds,

break injustice,

bring peace,

guarantee neighbor,

Easter us in joy and strength.

Be our God, be your true self, lord of life,

massively turn our life toward your life

and away from our anti-neighbor, anti-self deathliness.

Hear our thankful, grateful, unashamed Hallelujah!

Amen.

[Apologies to everyone who initially had a 404 error looking for this. I inadvertently deleted the post which originally appeared in March 2018! See also this post if you want more of Walter…]