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Reviewed by Reviewed by Rev. Patricia Farris, Senior Minister, Santa Monica First United Methodist Church Prayers for a Privileged People By Walter Brueggemann This is a beautiful collection of poetic and prophetic prayers, words to be prayed with, mulled over, pondered, savored—and challenged by. For in this little text, we glimpse a side of Brueggemann we may not have known through his rich Scripture studies alone. Here, he draws on not only his extensive years of study and teaching of the Psalms and the prophets, but his own faith immersion in the church year and in the liturgies of the church. Beginning with a series of prayers unpacking the phrases of the Collect for Purity, he journeys through the Christian year—Advent, Easter, and Pentecost. He reaches beyond as well, through a variety of familiar and unexpected civic holidays and occasions, including Mother’s Day, Election Day, and Income Tax Day. Time spent with these prayers reminds all of us who pray regularly, especially those of us charged with leading public prayer, how very hard it is to tell the truth of our lives. These are, after all, prayers for a privileged people, not of a privileged people. For those of us who are privileged or who serve privileged congregations, these prayers ring hard strains of challenge and reflection. Brueggemann urges us to invite God to “enter the deep places of our life and claim us for [God’s] purposes. We would be more free than we are, more bold than we dare, more obedient than we choose.” For, as he prays elsewhere, “we do not pray to be eased from our dis-ease, but only for courage and freedom to relearn you and to reimagine ourselves.” It is a spiritual quest in the spirit of that opening Collect: “that we might perfectly love Thee and worthily magnify Thy holy name.” There is a sense, too, in which this book of prayers comes as a cleansing corrective to the overly personal and familiar forms of prayer which pervade much of contemporary worship. Here, the God of the Psalms and of the prophets is not so much a friend, a pal, or a coach as Creator, Judge, Liberator, Lord, and Sovereign. Some may find this a bit off-putting. It is instead a helpful recalibration, a reminder that the God who is as close as a sigh and a tear is also Sovereign of creation, Judge of all, and Liberator of the oppressed. It was Karl Barth who said: "to clasp the hands in prayer is the beginning of an uprising against the disorder of the world." These prayers begin that journey, or further it in those already on that path. It is costly grace. For as Bruggemann prays: “we live by your word; we await your news, but we do so tentatively, reluctantly, knowing the cost to all that is settled and old. So come, Power of newness, come here, come soon.” |
