The Rev. Dr. Walter Brueggemann

Denomination: United Church of Christ (UCC)
Organization: Columbia Theological Seminary, Decatur, GA

The Rev. Dr. Walter Brueggemann is Professor Emeritus of Old Testament, Columbia Theological Seminary, Decatur, GA, and a noted scholar and author. He has earned a Th.D. from Union Theological Seminary and a Ph.D. from St. Louis University.

Recipient of numerous awards, he is an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ. He has authored more than a dozen books, including Inscribing the Text: Sermons and Prayers; An Introduction to the Old Testament; Awed to Heaven, Rooted in Earth; and Reverberations of Faith.

Day1 Weekly Programs by The Rev. Dr. Walter Brueggemann

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Strategies for Staying Emancipated

Tuesday February 27, 2024
The Ten Commandments are strategies for staying emancipated once you get away from Pharaoh. This new strategy, first of all, says you have to honor God - that's the first three commandments - to the exclusion of every idol, every "ism" such as racism, or sexism, or nationalism, or the worship of stuff that is rare or precious or attractive or beautiful or empowering. The new strategy means in the Ten Commandments to take the neighbor with utmost seriousness. So, the last five commandments are all about the neighbor and treating neighbors with legitimacy and dignity and viability and especially disadvantaged neighbors - not to violate the neighbor for the sake of greed.

A New World Birthed

Sunday December 19, 2004
The Rev. Dr. Walter Brueggemann is Professor Emeritus of Old Testament, Columbia Theological Seminary, Decatur, GA, and a noted scholar and author.

Articles by The Rev. Dr. Walter Brueggemann

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The Father God who is no God-Father

Tuesday February 13, 2024
In the course of a family household, there are characteristically two most demanding, most rewarding relationships: the relationship of marital partners and the relationship of parent and child. In Fences, the groundbreaking and oft-adapted play by August Wilson, Troy is the main character. He is a steady, reliable Black garbage collector who does his work every day, loves his family, and seeks out chances for small gains. In the play, Troy has a tangle with both of these primary relationships...

The Slow Speed of Comfort?

Tuesday November 28, 2023
Take time to be holy! Take time to be human! It is not an either/or; it is a both/and. Take time! Resist the way of the world in the daily frantic expenditure of time, energy, and attention. There will be little serious missional energy in the church unless and until we find practical ways to live apart from the societal requirements of scale and speed.

The Good Shepherd And The Bad Ones

Monday November 13, 2023
There is no exact cognate in our economic situation to the intervention of God. We may, however, imagine that the government might intervene on behalf of the vulnerable who are exposed to aggressive exploitation. Except, of course, the neoliberal ideology that justifies the exploitation has largely come to dominate government, so that it is quite unlikely that such an intervention may occur.

The Dangerous Arson of a Bramble

Tuesday September 19, 2023
The great temptation in governance is always the chance for self-benefit. Thus even though Gideon refused kingship, he acted nonetheless in covetous ways...

Walter Brueggemann: On Mapping

Thursday July 06, 2023
I love maps and mapping. My early most durable memory of maps comes from my wee rural grade school in Blackburn, Missouri. In geography class in seventh grade (or so), we had weekly “map study.”...

Walter Brueggemann: Reflecting Awe: Intersecting Pietism, Faith, and Science

Wednesday June 07, 2023
My theme for this comment comes from a question my friend, Conrad Kanagy, posed for me amid his work to narrate my life. He asked about the attitude of my childhood faith toward science. I am glad for his invitation to reflect on the matter.

Walter Brueggemann: Trees: Signals of Hope and Defiance

Tuesday May 16, 2023
This is an unabashed commendation of a book. The book by Franck Prevot is entitled Wangari Maathai: The Woman Who Planted Millions of Trees (2015).

Walter Brueggemann: Pathetic Imagination

Wednesday March 01, 2023
Pathetic imagination is incapable of hosting an alternative world and remains quite satisfied to have its sphere of possibility circumscribed to the small world in front of us. Thus in the confines of pathetic imagination, the claims of prophetic imagination are outrageous and incredible.

Walter Brueggemann: Start Me with Two!

Friday February 03, 2023
We may draw several lessons from the story of one-at-a-time in Santa Vittoria, ten in the operetta, and two in ancient Israel...

Walter Brueggemann: On Seeing “the Enemy” a Second Time

Thursday January 19, 2023
Most Americans (including me) are rooting for Ukraine in the face of Russian aggression. What can the Old Testament figure of Deborah teach us about "the enemy"?

Walter Brueggemann: On Gerrymandered Texts

Friday January 06, 2023
In the wake of that reality of which we are all aware, I want to consider here the “gerrymandering of biblical texts,” my phrase for biblical texts read aloud in the congregation that boldly and openly skip over verses in order to accent other verses the pastor believes the church most needs to hear.

Walter Brueggemann: The Social Power of Writing

Tuesday December 06, 2022
Steinbeck would have us recognize the immense power of writing when the ownership class intrudes upon the scarce resources of the poor and vulnerable. Such writing is a way to seize and transfer property. Pa is surely right to be fearful of such writing!

Walter Brueggemann: The Possibility of Good Government

Monday October 17, 2022
In his remarkable, important book, "Evil Geniuses: The Unmaking of America: A Recent History," Kurt Andersen has traced the planning of a political party to take over the government. Near the end of his book, he lists eight claims in the playbook that he believes generate their action. I intend to take up each of these eight claims and, if accurate, to consider how we may in good faith respond to them.

Walter Brueggemann: The Results Men

Friday September 30, 2022
Every empire relies eventually on “results men.” Thus Henry VIII had Thomas Cromwell, and Richard Nixon famously had Bob Haldemann and John Ehrlichmann. Even George Washington had Alexander Hamilton and Franklin Roosevelt had Sydney Hillman.

Walter Brueggemann: Elect from Every Nation Yet One O’er All the Earth

Friday September 16, 2022
I have been thinking about “being chosen” since my high school days....

Walter Brueggemann: Not Comforted!

Friday September 09, 2022
The film "Philomena," as might be expected, led me to a trajectory of biblical texts that concern lost children. At the outset, I thought of Joseph in the book of Genesis.

Walter Brueggemann: Habeas Corpus

Thursday September 01, 2022
From my earliest days I learned in church to recite the creed. In my tradition it was the Apostles Creed. I learned to recite it before I had any clue about the meaning of the words or phrases....

Walter Brueggemann: Iron Rationed

Thursday August 25, 2022
This brief, innocent-looking text is one never heard in church. It nonetheless tells us a great deal about the socio-economic, military situation of Israel in the early days of Israel’s settlement in the land.

Walter Brueggemann: The Raw Power of Government

Friday August 19, 2022
The teachable, preachable point of Psalm 72, I suggest, is the non-negotiable linkage of just restoration for the vulnerable and societal wellbeing (and eventually environmental wellbeing).

Walter Brueggemann: The Ethical Dignity of the Other

Thursday August 11, 2022
It is the work of the church to be about the “ethical dignity of the other.” In order to address this task with sustained intentionality, it is acutely necessary that we examine our own history and inheritance. When we do that, we discover that the Bible yields a very mixed scorecard on the matter of the “other” and the ethical dignity of the “other.”

Walter Brueggemann: Strange Business

Thursday August 04, 2022
Here is a new word you may not know, “schismogenesis,” that taken literally means “originated in a split.”

Walter Brueggemann: On Breaking the Silence

Thursday July 28, 2022
"Therefore the prudent will keep silent in such a time; for it is an evil time" (Amos 5:13). This odd verse is clearly a misfit in the Book of Amos...

Walter Brueggemann: Biodiversity Contra Babel

Thursday July 21, 2022
As long as we have assumed that the Bible has an anthropological accent, we have and do read the Bible as though the God of the Bible was solely preoccupied with the human project. Thus we have traditionally given almost exclusive attention to the human person as the crown of God’s creation, made in God’s image.

Walter Brueggemann: The Hard Work of Exceptionalism

Thursday July 14, 2022
The Bible knows that every claim to chosenness brings with it hard questions and leaves open the questioning that admits no “ease in Zion,” that is, no ease among the would-be chosen.

Walter Brueggemann: God Will Not Be Mocked

Friday July 08, 2022
Those who mock the poor insult their Maker; Those who are glad at calamity will not go unpunished (Proverbs 17:5; see 14:21, 22:9, 28:3).

Walter Brueggemann: Profiles in Cowardice

Wednesday June 22, 2022
Most of us are aware of the book by John F. Kennedy, Profiles in Courage. Now, I suggest, we are in need of a counter-collection of “profiles in cowardice,” an account of individual persons who have refused to take risks or to act boldly for the sake of the common good.

Walter Brueggemann: Converting Statistics

Thursday June 09, 2022
Some thoughts on Timothy Snyder's remarkable book, "On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century," published in 2017. This study succinctly summarizes a life-time of work and research by Snyder on the authoritarian “strong men” who have brutally dominated Western international politics.

Walter Brueggemann: Cities of Refuge?

Thursday June 02, 2022
In the Hebrew scriptures, provision is made for “cities of refuge” that protect the innocent who are vulnerable. What should we do about that?

Walter Brueggemann: Bonds of Affection…Once More

Thursday May 19, 2022
I recently wrote an exposition of the phrase from Lincoln’s First Inaugural Address, “the bonds of affection.” Lincoln hoped that those “bonds of affection” would override the eagerness for war. Now I have become aware of two books that in very different ways explore Lincoln’s phrase amid our ongoing national history.

Walter Brueggemann: Divine Arithmetic

Thursday May 12, 2022
Now that I have just turned 89, it is inescapable that I think, from time to time, of my ending. Sometimes I think of my longevity and am amazed. Sometimes—not often—I think of my death. I am mostly content to leave that in God’s good hands.

Walter Brueggemann: Sleepless in Babylon

Friday May 06, 2022
The dismantling of statues of erstwhile heroes has led me, inescapably, to the nightmare of Nebuchadnezzar in Daniel 2. That powerful sixth-century Babylonian ruler, much despised by Israel had, it is reported to us, many sleepless nights, as he was “troubled” (Daniel 2:1, 3).

Walter Brueggemann: Undeserving in Michigan

Friday April 29, 2022
I regularly read the “Advice” column in our local paper written by Jeanne Philips. When I read it daily I sometimes sense in an instant of Schadenfreude that someone has issues more complex than my own.

Walter Brueggemann: Remembering Old Testament Scholar Norman Gottwald

Thursday April 21, 2022
Norman Gottwald has died at 95. He is, in my judgment, the most important and influential Old Testament scholar of the twentieth century in the U.S.

Walter Brueggemann: Let Us Now Praise Famous Health Care Providers

Thursday April 14, 2022
The Apocrypha of the Old Testament includes the book of Ecclesiasticus, The Wisdom of Jesus son of Ben Sirach. The book, a collection of various kinds of wisdom sayings, is commonly dated to 180 BCE. In what follows I will juxtapose two famous sections of the book as background for my appreciation of care-givers.

Walter Brueggemann: Bonds of Affection!

Tuesday April 05, 2022
The phrase “bonds of affection” has drawn my sustained attention as I watched the hearing for Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson. I could think of three places in scripture where we see the “bond of affection” operating, though you might think of others as well.

Walter Brueggemann: Speak Truth; Do Justice

Thursday March 31, 2022
For no reason beyond my curiosity I recently read a biography of John Charles McQuaid, who was the long-running Catholic archbishop of Dublin in the mid-twentieth century, before, during, and after Vatican II.

Walter Brueggemann: On the Way to a Peaceable Torah

Saturday March 19, 2022
Israel’s walk in the procession did not require other nations to sign on to the God of Israel. Thus Micah compromises nothing of the specificity of Israel’s faith. But that faith is not aggressive or exclusionary or preemptive, but generous in its welcome.

Walter Brueggemann: Keeping Names and Preserving Possibility

Thursday March 10, 2022
A congregation might be a keeper of names, and a seer of individual persons. Such a community might regularly engage in a recital of names…of those in the news this week, of those who have contributed mightily to our common wellbeing, and those who have suffered the most in our common injustice.

Walter Brueggemann: On Sacramental Pronouns

Friday March 04, 2022
As a regular church goer, I love to fall back into the familiar phrase and cadences of the liturgy. While I am a low-church Protestant, I have great appreciation for the recital of the classical liturgy.... My long practice of liturgy with access to a variety of ecclesial articulations, however, did not prepare me for the quite unexpected crisis in the liturgy reported in our local paper....

Walter Brueggemann: There are Conspiracies and Then There are Conspiracies

Thursday February 17, 2022
We have become inured to seemingly pervasive political response to find “conspiracy” at every level of opposition. Many readily assume that there are hidden and secret powers lurking around voting machines seeking to overthrow the legitimacy governance, whether it may be “the deep state,” interference from Venezuela, or the anti-Semitic tropes of money clustered in Hollywood.

Church Anew: You Who Casts Our Fear & Other Writings from Walter Brueggemann

Thursday February 10, 2022
Today we share two pieces from the writings of Walter Brueggemann: You Who Casts Out Fear and Meditations on Social Location. We invite you to join in Dr. Brueggemann’s prayer and to understand his history.

Walter Brueggemann: Strike! Best Pitches of Christian Life

Tuesday February 01, 2022
What if we think about these three “best pitches” of the Christian life, with a network helping us to improve our skills at these aspects of our “proper work”?

Walter Brueggemann: Who Knows?

Thursday December 23, 2021
The Hebrew Bible has a recurring grammatical usage in response to the realities of life that are hidden, uncertain, filled with wonder, or beyond human comprehension. The repeated response to such uncertainty is, “Who knows?” (mi-yodea’)...

Walter Brueggemann: You Who Casts Out Fear

Thursday December 16, 2021
A prayer for these times by Walter Bruegemann...

Walter Brueggemann: Ode to Sammy

Tuesday December 07, 2021
Sammy, our cat, came to us by way of rescue. He was a handsome, silky, loud-purring tabby. He died much too soon; and we are left with treasured memories and lingering sadness. I mention Sammy by way of introducing two pieces I have read lately concerning cats.

Walter Brueggemann: The Strangeness of the Stranger

Friday November 26, 2021
What follows is a report on two books I have recently read, quite by happenstance, back to back.

Walter Brueggemann: Dear Preacher: Buoyant Gospel Without Hindrance

Wednesday November 03, 2021
The preacher alternatively can, like the ducks, trust the buoyancy of the water, be like Paul to fall back into the goodness of God in a way that makes all the tribulations distinctly penultimate.

Walter Brueggemann: Stay Safe!

Thursday October 14, 2021
The reality for many of us is that we are so wise and calculating that we never run the risk of real obedience or enter vigorously into the zone of neighborliness.

Walter Brueggemann: When the Music Starts Again

Wednesday June 16, 2021
Any family or communal festive occasion can become a “sign” or a marker. It could be a graduation, a birthday, a funeral, or a reunion. But let us consider a wedding … a wedding as a “sign” or a marker of social, historical significance. This is how it was for the ancient prophet Jeremiah as he watched his beloved Jerusalem sink into misery.

Walter Brueggemann: The Bible and the 1%

Thursday June 03, 2021
King Josiah’s bold alternative action opened more historical possibility to his realm and especially to those who had been left out and left behind.

Walter Brueggemann: Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Neighborly Covenant

Wednesday May 26, 2021
Here I will consider only three McCarthys, to the disregard of many others. There is in scripture, as far as I know, no direct response to these various McCarthys. I did however think of these texts that seem pertinent in Isaiah and Jeremiah.

Walter Brueggemann: O Land, Land, Land (Jeremiah 22:29)

Thursday May 13, 2021
The land, when it is honored and respected, weeps. It weeps long sadness because it knows such durable abuse....

Walter Brueggemann: Discriminatory Gaslighting

Tuesday May 04, 2021
I watched the interview of Meghan Markle and Prince Harry by Oprah Winfrey. I read about the reaction of the royal family to the interview in which members of the royal family attempted to undermine or deconstruct the memory of Harry and Meghan about how they had been treated. And then I learned what was for me a new phrase, “discriminatory gaslighting”...

Walter Brueggemann: Majoring in Minors

Tuesday April 27, 2021
In the midst of the pandemic, Fareed Zakaria, a well known journalist and commentator, has published a short accessible book entitled, Ten Lessons for a Post-Pandemic World. In one of his chapters, Zakaria has this “lesson”: “The world is digital.” This “lesson” leads Zakaria to explore the current technological revolution and the expansive reach of Artificial Intelligence.

Walter Brueggemann: We Will Get Through This Together

Tuesday April 20, 2021
While such an assurance is welcome, it also makes one wonder: who is the “we” in this mantra? And who are we leaving out?

Walter Brueggemann: Providential Tyranny

Friday April 16, 2021
I have been thinking about “providence” as I have been reading about “meritocracy,” the notion of a society governed by those who have exceptional ability and have arrived at their power, wealth, and influence solely by the merit of their ability.

Walter Brueggemann: Solidarity that Counts: Second Sunday of Easter (Psalm 133; Acts 4:32-35)

Tuesday April 06, 2021
Easter is the good news that God’s power for life has defeated death; this is matched by the good news that God’s power intends the defeat of poverty.

Walter Brueggemann: Beyond the Spreadsheet

Tuesday March 23, 2021
The linkage between the God of the Gospel and economics is deep, wide, and inescapable. One cannot have the God of the Gospel without the neighborly economy willed by the God of the Gospel.

Walter Brueggemann: The "Ands" of the Gospel

Friday March 05, 2021
The church community includes both Jews and Gentiles. Gentiles cannot be lopped off after the “and.”

Walter Brueggemann: Refusing Erasure

Tuesday March 02, 2021
Brutality served not only to erase those who might threaten power, but also to intimidate those who might undertake resistance. Yet there can be a considerable sustained and courageous resistance movement, even in the face of such acute danger.

Walter Brueggemann: Borne Away

Wednesday February 24, 2021
Isaac Watts’s hymn "O God, Our Help in Ages Past" concerns the reality of death and the reliable governance of God beyond the reality of death.

Walter Brueggemann: Permission to Narrate

Saturday February 20, 2021
The narrative for which the church has permission is precisely the story that dominant culture wants to shush.

Walter Brueggemann: A Small Gain in Yardage

Friday February 12, 2021
The possession of the “whole world” leads to the diminishment of life: or in the words of the hymn, we become “rich in things and poor is soul.”

Walter Brueggemann: The Peaceful Transfer of Real Power (Transfiguration): II Kings 2:1-12

Tuesday February 09, 2021
No doubt many preachers will eschew this enigmatic text and choose texts that give easier access. I hope, to the contrary, that preachers will linger over this text, because it teems with interpretive thickness. The narrative specificity of this text includes a number of components that defy our every explanation...

Walter Brueggemann: Discipleship That Inconveniences

Saturday February 06, 2021
Complete, unwavering discipleship to Jesus is costly, eventually leading to a risky contradiction with dominant culture. Most of us, surely, are not much inclined to that costliness that seems nothing short of heroic.

Walter Brueggemann: Destiny Not Fate

Tuesday February 02, 2021
One of our neighbors who will not wear a mask says, “Well, if I die it must be my time.” Our roads, moreover, are strewn with signs that say, “God’s got this.” These judgments, if taken seriously, conclude that we are fated to a future that is already determined for us. This sentiment is an echo of the ancient confidence in the “law of the Medes and the Persians.”

Walter Brueggemann: Imagine: The Apostle Paul Meets Francis Bacon

Saturday January 30, 2021
We are presently in a great contest between Paul and Bacon, between love and knowledge, between neighbor and self-serving and self-seeking.

Walter Brueggemann: What Naboth Teaches Us Today

Wednesday January 27, 2021
The story of Naboth’s vineyard is a towering, uncompromising witness to the pertinence of YHWH to socioeconomic matters. The narrative is so towering and so uncompromising that we may take it as a paradigmatic tale that functions as a lens for the interpretation of many other texts...

Walter Brueggemann: The Peculiar Dialect of Faith

Wednesday January 13, 2021
It is a primary task of church leadership, in the face of the language of commoditized instrumentalism, to keep alive the peculiar relational, covenantal language of faith. That is, to assure that our peculiar rhetoric remains available and compelling. Given that task, I was somewhat “woke” by this remarkable statement: "A language is a dialect with an army and a navy."

Walter Brueggemann: Psalm 29: First Sunday after Epiphany and the Baptism of Christ

Thursday January 07, 2021
It is the hunch of some scholars (including me) that Psalm 29 is a liturgical script (or an echo of a liturgical script) that served an annual pageant in the Jerusalem temple in ancient Israel. The intent of that pageant was to perform a drama whereby YHWH was designated as King of the gods for the coming year.

Walter Brueggemann: Snow as Testimony

Tuesday January 05, 2021
Savor every flake, because every flake bears witness, so claims the poet, to the life-giving reliability of God.

Walter Brueggemann: Joseph and Mary: On Becoming a Statistic

Friday December 25, 2020
The carpenter from Nazareth, Joseph, we may assume, was a modest man who lived a modest life in his village. He did not rock the boat. He did not want to call attention to himself. But then, according to the gospel narrative, he faced two powerful disruptions in his settled life.

Walter Brueggemann: The God Laden with Narrative and Constancy

Tuesday December 22, 2020
In these hard days, every pastor (along with many other folk) is asked, “How do you fend off despair?” and “How can we continue to hope?” In response to these questions, what follows here is my exposition of a single familiar text from Israel’s great Manifesto of Hope, Isaiah 40-55...

Walter Brueggemann: Clued to the Big Moment: Third Sunday of Advent (I Thessalonians 5:16-24)

Monday December 07, 2020
It is not easy now to let Christmas be a singular moment of faith and life. On the one hand, commercialism even before Thanksgiving detracts from the moment of birthed newness. On the other hand, the demands of COVID-19 make every day seem like the next one and the last one, and we don’t easily recognize “why this day is different from all other days.”

Walter Brueggemann: Not Numbed Inside

Friday November 27, 2020
My friend, Dean Francis, loaned me a most remarkable book. Written by John Compton, it is entitled, The End of Empathy: Why White Protestants Stopped Loving Their Neighbors. The book is a carefully researched study about the way in which mainline churches have dramatically lost members and public influence.

Walter Brueggemann: Gratitude as Subversion

Tuesday November 24, 2020
Thanksgiving Day, for all its entanglement with white violence against Native Americans, is a reminder to us that even in such a difficult time as this, gratitude is the hallmark of the Christian life. It is an acknowledgement that we are on the receiving end of life, and it is the generous creator God who is on the giving end of our life.

Walter Brueggemann: Refusing the Bramble

Saturday November 14, 2020
The poetic probe in Judges 9:8-15 is situated amid a sustained contestation about public leadership. The book of Judges consists in a series of disconnected “hero stories” that have been secondarily connected by a strong, highly-visible editorial hand.

Walter Brueggemann: Preaching on the Sunday After Election 2020

Friday November 06, 2020
Because I write this prior to the election, I do not know the outcome. No doubt some of us will be soaringly elated and some of us will be deeply chagrined. The pastoral task on this Sunday is to call the faithful away from either elation or chagrin back to the more elemental realities of our faith.

Walter Brueggemann: The Duty and Destiny of a Shoveler

Tuesday November 03, 2020
What follows here is an act of self-indulgence. It is not likely to be informative, instructive, or edifying for you, dear reader. Thus, you may desist from reading further. I have written this simply because I wanted to, to see what I could make of a line I have read recently.

Walter Brueggemann: Truth or Consequences in 2020

Saturday October 31, 2020
We live in a world of so-called “fake news” and so-called “alternative facts.” These propositions, largely invoked by Donald Trump and amplified by myriad conspiracy theorists, have quickly eroded trust in foundational pillars of democracy and of shared community. Ultimately, the assertions of “fake news” display downright violence against our neighborhoods and our shared vision for humanity.

Walter Brueggemann on the Unrest in Our Cities

Monday October 26, 2020
This year’s unrest in our cities merits restorative attention. The attention that unrest receives from our political discourse and reactive policies has not shown itself to be restorative. Indeed, we can recall speeches that, without a cubit of understanding, declared the “carnage stops now.” Of course, the unrest has not stopped, and our leadership has done nothing to stop it. There is no awareness of or interest in what causes and sustains the unrest.

Walter Brueggemann: On the Truth of Economic Control

Monday October 19, 2020
The ownership class knows the price of everything. It is accustomed to buying, selling, and acquiring. Consequently, it pays great attention to prices, and not unlike the Philistines, that class sets the price of commodities. But that same ownership class very often does not know the cost of things, because it has not actually paid the cost.

Walter Brueggemann: The Golden Calf and 2020: Exodus 32:1-14, Psalm 106:19-23

Thursday October 08, 2020
The narrative of the “golden calf” stands as a paradigmatic tale of Israel’s skewed covenant with YHWH. Excluding the Priestly instruction of Exodus 25-31, this story in Exodus 32 follows immediately after the covenant-making in Exodus 2:43. There is not even the space of a breath between covenant-making and covenant-breaking!

Walter Brueggemann: An Unwelcome Read of History

Thursday October 01, 2020
We lose so much by our liturgic impatience. We cannot wait, or pause, or sit still long enough. As result we never to get to say or sing or hear such a marvelous poem as Psalm 105. We get only selected snippets; it is like memorizing the roster of U.S. presidents, but omitting eight of them “because there are so many of them.”

Walter Brueggemann: Hope, by the Numbers

Saturday September 26, 2020
Meet Amos Wilder (1895-1993). Wilder was a pastor, a poet, and a long-time New Testament scholar at Harvard. He was also the brother of Thornton Wilder, author of Our Town. I introduce him to you, dear reader, in order that you may, along with me, savor his wonderful enigmatic dictum: The zero hour breeds new algebra.

Walter Brueggemann: When Will We Ever Learn?

Monday September 21, 2020
I take the liberty of offering something of a book review; the book is entitled "When Truth Mattered: The Kent State Shootings 50 Years Later" by Robert Giles. It is a careful report and summary of the Kent State killings...

Walter Brueggemann: Squirming toward Newness (Psalm 114; Matthew 18:21-35)

Tuesday September 08, 2020
Psalm 114 is a lyrical rendering of Israel’s Exodus memory. The Psalm readily divides into three parts, just right for a sermon sketch!

Walter Brueggemann: Thoughts on Labor Day

Saturday September 05, 2020
When one begins to think about economics in the Bible, one immediately confronts the matter of slavery.

Walter Brueggemann: Fall 2020: How Do We Not Live in Despair?

Tuesday September 01, 2020
In 2020, the church has been driven back to basics! We are driven there in the context of the dominant narrative of our society; that is a narrative of an ongoing pandemic, scarcity, fear, greed, and violence.

Walter Brueggemann: Red Meat for White Idols

Friday August 21, 2020
When the “strong” will not or cannot stop the “red meat” offered to “white idols,” according to the rhetoric of the Bible, they must be “hewn down.” They might be hewn down by the vigorous passion of those most offended. Or they might be hewn down by the wise action of government. Either way, they must be hewn down.

Walter Brueggemann: An Alternative Politics

Saturday August 15, 2020
I believe our political economy too often relies on a handful of wealthy families whose contributions profoundly shape political races and policies alike. In some countries, that “clique” is called “oligarchs.” In American society, it is sometimes called the “political elite.”

Walter Brueggemann: The God of the Second Wind

Thursday August 06, 2020
In his latest piece for Church Anew, Walter Brueggemann writes that we have become all too familiar with the desperate plea, from Eric Garner to George Floyd, “I can’t breathe.” At the same time, and even more so in the midst of their cries, we recognize “breath” is the gift of the creator God that allows us to be fully creaturely in the world. In biblical testimony, human life begins with the gift of breath...

Walter Brueggemann: God’s Songs of Protest: We Shall Overcome

Friday July 31, 2020
“We sing what we cannot say.” We sing such words and make such claims in our singing because lyrical poetic discourse that can tease, contradict, and exaggerate, is porous and elusive. It is not bound by the strict rules that govern and contain our prosaic speech. In what follows I will reflect on my recent learning that we sing what we dare not say.

Walter Brueggemann: Who Will Lead Us Out of this Wilderness?

Friday July 24, 2020
When the enslaved Hebrews departed Egypt, they all went. They all danced at the border as they were emancipated. They all came into the wilderness. They all ate quail that showed up inscrutably. They all ate the “bread of heaven” and were filled and satisfied. They all drank water from a rock. They all lived according to the new emergence of God’s abundance in the wilderness. When the time came to enter the land of promise, however, the community of the emancipated was sharply divided.

Walter Brueggemann: There’s No Excuse for Food Insecurity

Wednesday July 15, 2020
I am “food secure!” I eat out frequently in the lovely venues in my town: Red Ginger, Poppycock, Harrington’s by the Bay, or West End Tavern. I would not have known to use that phrase for myself except that I hear much talk in our town of disproportionate wealth about the “food insecure.”

Walter Brueggemann: Isaiah 55:10-13: From Chaos to Homecoming

Saturday July 11, 2020
In his Church Anew article, Walter Brueggemann says this narrative entrusted to us is the news of emancipation from the forces of greed, fear, and violence that cannot finally prevail because the word of God is at work in the world.

Walter Brueggemann: The Protocols of Scarcity

Friday July 03, 2020
In several of my previous columns, I have referred to “the protocols of scarcity.” In this setting I want to exposit what I mean by that phrase.

Walter Brueggemann: When God’s Normal Becomes Abnormal

Thursday June 25, 2020
In the midst of our contemporary shameless new normals, God has sent the church. The church is not a nag or a nanny to monitor such policy and conduct. It is, however, I submit, the proper work of the church (and its pastors) to bear witness to the normals that are ordained of God and structured into the creation that cannot for long be outflanked or violated with impunity...

Walter Brueggemann: Mrs. Thompson's Call for Honest Grief

Friday June 19, 2020
In his latest Church Anew article, Walter Brueggemann recalls his neighbor: Mrs. Thompson may not have known it, but in doing this work she was effectively serving in the wake of Jeremiah.

Walter Brueggemann: Is Anything Impossible for God? (Genesis 18:1-15)

Thursday June 11, 2020
In his new Church Anew article, Walter Brueggemann says the “three/one” visitor declared to Sarah and Abraham that they would have a son and heir, an impossibility for them in their old age. Sarah giggled at the impossibility. Before they departed the “three/one” visitor posed a question to the aged couple: “Is anything impossible for God?” The question is left unanswered in the narrative.

Walter Brueggemann: God's Stunning Reversal

Sunday June 07, 2020
I now return to Isaiah 54:7-8. In the first article of this series, “Abandoned!”, I considered the fact that Israel’s God-abandonment is confirmed from Gods’ own lips. In the second article, “How Long is a Moment”, I reflected on the duration of Israel’s abandonment reckoned in God’s own time. Now in a third reflection I consider the “resolution” of divine abandonment.

Walter Brueggemann: How Long Is “A Moment”?

Saturday May 30, 2020
In his latest article for Church Anew, Dr. Walter Brueggemann says God meets us in the brevity of a moment -- liminal spaces that seem eternal.

Church Anew: Abandoned! A Pastoral Word from Walter Brueggemann

Sunday May 24, 2020
In this Church Anew post, Dr. Walter Brueggemann offers wisdom on how we move forward in faith amid despair through disciplines of faith.

Walter Brueggemann: How Long? Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Prophets in a Pandemic

Saturday May 16, 2020
A personal commentary on the old question of faith amid suffering, “How long?” A question asked by prophets, Martin Luther King, Jr., and all of us during this COVID-19 pandemic.

Walter Brueggemann: Quarantine Fatigue or Sabbath Rest: A Reflection on Psalm 31

Friday May 08, 2020
In his Church Anew article, Walter Brueggemann says the Psalm text for the 5th Sunday of Easter serves as a theological lens for looking at time: Promethean and Covenantal.

Walter Brueggemann: Holy Week 2020: Until the Dancing Begins Again

Wednesday April 08, 2020
How do Jeremiah’s powerful messages correlate with God’s people in our COVID-19 world? Walter Brueggemann explores the answer.

Walter Brueggemann: God's New Thing: Is God with us in the COVID-19 crisis? (Isaiah 43:18-19)

Thursday April 02, 2020
Walter Brueggemann says it is possible to trust that the God of the Gospel is in, with, and under the crisis of the virus without imagining that God is the cause of it.

ON Scripture: Who am I? Rant vs. Relationship (Hosea 11:1-11) By Walter Brueggemann

Monday July 25, 2016
This is an extraordinary poem that dares to take us inside the conflicted interior life of God in order to see that the father has acute 'heart problems' and is torn between emotive rage and self-disciplined fidelity. With this text before us, we should I suggest, sit in silent amazement and ponder the God disclosed to us in this poem.

ON Scripture: Walter Brueggemann on Wisdom (Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31)

Monday May 16, 2016
This text is one of the loveliest and most important biblical texts that respond to the question: What is the world like? How does it work? The text is framed as a speech by 'wisdom' who is presented as an active agent who has a voice for self-announcement. It is the work of the poet to bring to availability that which remains hidden but is deeply operative in the working of creation.

ON Scripture: A Covenant of Neighborly Justice: Break the Chains of Quid Pro Quo (Isaiah 55:1-9) By Walter Brueggemann

Monday February 22, 2016
In this season of Lent, this text of summons may be a sobering one for us. In this election season amid shrill or buoyant rhetoric, we may not notice that there real choices to be made, even as Jews in ancient Babylon were confronted with real choices of a most elemental kind.

ON Scripture: Free Speech: A License to Destroy or A Responsibility to Build Up (James 3:1-12) By Walter Brueggemann

Monday September 07, 2015
Many countries in the global community do not have the right to free speech. In the US, our right to speak out is protected under the constitution. How well do we live up to the responsibility granted with that freedom?

ON Scripture: Ferguson & Forgiveness (Jeremiah 31:31-34) By Walter Brueggemann

Monday March 16, 2015
Lent is our season of honesty. It is a time when we may break out of our illusions to face the reality of our life in preparation for Easter, a radical new beginning. When, through this illusion breaking homework, we connect with reality we see that in our society the fabric of human community is almost totally broken and one glaring evidence of such brokenness is the current unrelieved tension between police and citizens in Ferguson, Missouri.

ON Scripture-The Bible: God Beyond All Relationships and Agendas: Exodus 24:12-18 by Walter Brueggemann

Monday February 24, 2014
Exodus 19-24 enacts an agreement of mutual fidelity between YHWH and Israel. That covenant consists in two major parts: YHWH’s commands set the requirement of covenant in the form of the Ten Commandments (20:1-17), and Israel pledges allegiance to the covenant through obedience to YHWH’s commandments (24:3, 7). This enactment creates a relationship in which the defining dynamic is one of 'command-obey,' with the understanding that Israel’s obedience will result in abundant covenantal blessing.

ON Scripture: Walter Brueggemann on the Liturgy of the Passion (Isaiah 50:4-9a)

Wednesday March 20, 2013
The voice that speaks in Isaiah 50:4 – 9a is the poet of the exile himself. Here he offers an autobiographical reflection on his call as a prophet sent by God to the deported Jews in Babylon in the sixth century BCE. His message to the Jews is they are now free to go back home to Jerusalem. This freedom came, says the poet, because of the dispatch of Cyrus the Persian at the behest of YHWH, the Lord of all of history.

ON Scripture: Dr. Walter Brueggemann on I Kings 2:10-12; 3:3-14: Who Will Be America's Next Leader?

Wednesday August 15, 2012
The old king, David, is dead. It is time to pick his successor as king. In retrospect it seems obvious that his son, Solomon, was his rightful heir. In the moment, however, the matter of succession to the throne is highly contested.

ON Scripture: Dr. Walter Brueggemann on Ezekiel 34 - Reign of Christ Sunday

Wednesday November 16, 2011
If Ezekiel were among us now, he might well conclude that the emergence of the “99%” is a scourge from God that intends to expose and bring down social policies, practices, and institutions that are out of sync with God’s will for shalom.