This is the third and final offering in a trilogy of reflections on our lives together by Walter Brueggemann, published by Fortress Press at the end of the last century, beginning of this one. In memory and in hope, "We are forever re-imagining and retelling and reliving our lives through the scandal of Friday and the rumor of Sunday." Preaching as sub-version: a life-giving word within a death-dealing situation. Staying in Egypt is not our only option, and remember, [the exilic] 2nd Isaiah "funded Handel's Messiah!"
In this last book of the series that began with The Covenanted Self, and continued with Texts that Linger, Words That Explode, Walter Brueggemann asks why on earth anyone would want to "delete YHWH" [page 119] in relating these stories, these sagas, if you weren't proclaiming YHWH's agency and part in them? Well, if it weren't for YHWH, we wouldn't be reading or talkin' about any of these mighty acts of creation, liberation, homecoming, and resurrection because they wouldn't have happened; we couldn't begin to envision the possibility of daily bread for which we do not owe empire. In fact, if you do leave YHWH out of everything, "...not much that matters remains."
All three books in this series would be outstanding preaching and teaching resources; they even include detailed endnotes, as well as author and scripture indices.
my amazon review: deep memory, exuberant hope
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