Reviving the Tiger
Just as I was about to head out, I was caught by a revealing TV interview by Bill Moyer with Walter Brueggeman, an Old Testament scholar from Columbia Theological Seminary in Atlanta. One of Moyer’s questions arrested me: Why was Scripture so central to Brueggeman in dealing with questions of faith and ethics? Professor Brueggeman candidly and reflectively confessed that he could not really answer why, but that, whenever he comes to deal with the great issues of life, he finds himself in the Bible looking for clues. That is were he discovers the most integrating perspective.
That made me sit down. When most of us use Scripture, the question of “why?” is blissfully ignored; we just assume that the Book has the same revered place for everybody as it has for us. Or we personally dare not face the question of why — except in secret musings — lest we be tabbed as closet unbelievers. But I wonder if the reason that so much of our moral proclaiming has a hollow, clangy ring to it lies right here: that we have relied on some external say-so, and not on our own conviction, forged out of the fire, through doubts, and through wrestling with life itself.
I can’t speak for everyone, and likely not for most people. Billy Graham has touched millions with his simple phrase, “The Bible says . . . .” Who can challenge God’s amazing ministry through him! But, as for myself, I have always wanted to dig into the “why,” not for ostensible proof, but to set my feet on the inner territory of the Word. Of late, in my digging, I have felt that I’m stepping onto shores of heretofore undiscovered terrain. Even better, I feel like I am coming home. Here, Mr. Brueggeman has helped me put words to this feeling. For instance, in his comments on the Psalms, he is a poet breaking up fallow ground. I have to admit to skirting certain Psalms because it seemed to me that a holy signature was put on the ugliest aspects of being human. However, his treatment of vindictiveness in Psalm 109 has brought the tiger in me back into the fold of faith. I breathe deeply as a human being again!