Suspicion and Trust

"Suspicion is not an academic act. It is an act of faith to enter into the suffering that gives the lie to theological triumphalism. In such a practice that does not need to protect God and does not fear to enter into the texts that voice protest, we may become more responsible Friday-Sunday people who know about truth and pain, about strength and weakness, about new life out of death. The canon insists upon such a horizon for faith. The God who hides in the canon knows about this horizon of life and is not scandalized by it." --Walter Brueggemann

I stumbled across a book of Brueggemann's a few weeks ago, Deep Memory, Exuberant Hope, and have since been meandering my way through it. In the essay that I read this weekend, "Reading as Wounded and as Haunted," Brueggemann addresses the Christian canon. Delving into texts that most of us would rather turn away from (such as Samuel de-crowning Saul because he refused to commit complete genocide in 1 Samuel 15), he calls us to be suspicious of such portrayals of God, but also to look more deeply at the text: do we see options instead of hesed (love)? Is it possible that God is not so narrow as Samuel? Is it possible that the editors of the canon recognized the incomprehensibility of an infinite Being?

In asking these questions, Brueggemann asserts, we are questioning the human assumptions and understandings that surround the text and the tradition. The God of the Christians is much bigger than our questions and our protests, and in probing these things, we (hopefully) come a little nearer to the truth and identity of the One above. Like the Hebrews who refused to let their theology get away with exile, we too must examine our precepts and theological assertions based on the reality in which we find ourselves--the reality in which the world finds itself. When there is genocide, do not say that it is the will of God. Denounce the evil, question God, and work to right the wrong. We know that life can follow death, that beauty can follow pain, if only we are willing and open enough to push for it to happen.

And finally, in the very midst of protest, praise God in the sanctuary.

How long, O Lord? Will you hide yourself forever?
How long will your wrath burn like fire?
Lord, where is your steadfast love of old, which by your faithfulness you swore to David?
Remember, O Lord, how your servant is taunted; how I bear in my bosom the insults of the peoples,
with which your enemies taunt, O Lord, with which they taunted the footsteps of your anointed.

Blessed be the Lord forever. Amen and Amen.

-Psalm 89:46, 49-52