I've lost count of the number of books Walter Brueggemann has written. Most of them are his particular brand of Old Testament theology, a blend of exegetical and social hermeneutics of Old Testament texts, honed in his unique process that cuts through our long established defences against the disruptiveness and subversive energy of these words from God. I have a shelf full of them, read most of them, and I probably only have about half of what he has put out there.
This book is a bit different. On the publication in 2013 of the new Presbyterian Hymnal, Glory to God, Brueggemann was involved in some of the launch events. Writing this book comes out of those experiences and his conviction that "Congregational singing, along with forgiveness and thanks, marks the church as a very different community in the context of a culture that is, for the most part, unforgiving and ungrateful." This is vintage Brueggemann, looking for the countercultural practices that bear witness to an alternative and God-given way of seeing and being in the world.
The result is a book that takes some of the hymns from Glory to God, and expounds them as precisely the sung texts that practice awe and wonder, that remember the goodness of God, and acknowledge our own waywardness and recalcitrance to follow in the costly ways of Jesus. Such hymn singing, aids our expression of gratitude for grace, strengthens faith in God's faithfulness, and alerts our responsiveness to those occasions and opportunities in the life of discipleship when we are called to bear witness to the transformative energy of the Gospel of newness, life and flourishing.
The first four chapters are on Psalms are 104-107, praises of Israel and the church which are "definingly human when it is remembered that our humanness consists in our lives played out in the presence of God." Taken together these Psalms evoke "praise, readiness for obedience, readiness for rescue, and thanks." These are the reasons WHY we sing. The rest of the book explores 15 hymns and expounds in considerable pastoral and exegetical detail, WHAT we sing, and what such singing does to the singer, and to the singing community.
This is vintage Brueggemann, observant of our cultural context as Western consumers trained to see all of life as marketable, and everything of worth as money-indexed commodity. In doing so he is attentive to the text of the hymn and its rootedness both in theological tradition and in the spiritual experience of a pilgrim people who have been travelling together for centuries, from generation to generation. His interpretations, even of a hymn like "Jesus calls us o'er the tumult" is neither mawkish nor sentimental, two bogey-words for Brueggemann. His exposition of each hymn renders the poetry and theology in terms that are astringent, searching, bracing, and always but always, pointing the way to a deeper faithfulness, a truer repentance, and a rebirth of hope and daring in every reminder and rediscovery of the fidelity and steadfast love of God in Christ.
A good example of Brueggemann's hymn exegesis might help you decide if this book is for you, and worth your time. "Love Divine, all loves excelling" is Wesley at his lyrical best, and on the theme that brought him to raptures of praise: the Love of God in Christ. Each verse undergoes literary analysis by a writer who has been immersed in the Psalter all his long life. Some of Brueggemann's finest writing is on Psalms, and who can forget his framing of Psalms as texts of orientation - disorientation - reorientation; once you get it, you can't get away from it!
Take Wesley's line, 'Alpha and Omega be!' After some biblical digging around you get this:
"In Revelation's anticipatory vision God now declares in a loud voice from the throne a new governance that totally redefines the shape of reality. There is nothing before the rule of Christ; there is nothing after the rule of Christ. There is nothing other than the rule of Christ who says, "I am making all things new."
One of the most enriching qualities of Brueggemann's writing is his familiarity and facility across the whole canon of Scripture. This is Scripture interpreting Scripture, and Scriptural allusions in hymns being repristinated for those who might have forgotten how brilliantly such truth shines. His comment on 'Pray and praise Thee without ceasing': "Such prayer, we imagine, is not an endless torrent of words, but rather an unmitigated mindfulness of living always in the presence of God." That should be on a poster above every office desk - as well as every prayer desk!
Here is Brueggemann the scripture jazz pianist, and here is his riff on the word 'finish' in "Finish then Thy new creation."
" 'Finish' is not unlike the final delicate act of completing a new building - the close finishing work that requires attention to detail and aesthetic beauty...The hymn's verb 'finish' is reminiscent of the report that God finished creation (Gen.2:1), the finish of the tabernacle as God's new dwelling place (Exod. 39:32;40:33), and Jesus' declaration on the cross, "It is finished" (John 19.30). God can and will make the new creation complete."(p.118)
Coming to the end of seven pages of reflection on Wesley's hymn, he ends as he usually does, as a scholar and pastor who cares deeply for the church and for all of us who try to live faithfully within and beyond our Christian communities:
"The singing assemblage itself can be and sometimes is a transport into another world of 'wonder, love and praise' that invites us and permits us to redefine our lives so that fear, anxiety and responsibility are are made at best penultimate. When we are fully enveloped by "love divine all loves excelling" we may relinquish, for the sake of a different life, the destructiveness of seeking to live beyond the reach of Alpha and Omega." (p.119)
The combination of favourite hymns that could do with some unpacking, and a seasoned exegete of scripture who is also a prophetic critic of culture and our social and contemporary context, makes for a book that is by turns intriguing, inspiring, surprising and an education in what, at its best, the singing congregation can get up to!
Comments