newsletter

A little over a week ago, Old Testament scholar Dr. Walter Brueggemann passed away. While I was in seminary, I fell in love with the writings of the Old Testament, especially the prophets, and Dr. Brueggemann's work was a huge piece of that. He wrote so brilliantly and beautifully about the power structures, oppression, hope, and resistance we find in Scripture and wasn't afraid to name those same realities in our own time. In a season when I really wasn't sure if I saw any value left in the Church or in Christianity as an institutional religion, Dr. Brueggemann, among others, reminded me that this call I felt toward inclusion, love, and justice for all had been a part of the Christian story and God's deepest desires for the world from the very beginning.

In the midst of Pride and Juneteenth and country-wide protests, and coming off yesterday’s sermon about Moses and the Exodus, I wanted to share one of Dr. Brueggemann’s writings from his book, “Prayers for a Privileged People.” May we continue to hope and fight and speak truth to power like Dr. Brueggemann and so many others who came before us did.

-Pastor Julia

Old Stories Become New Songs
On reading 1 & 2 Samuel

We love to tell the old, old story.
We love to sing the old, old song
of your saving deeds of mercy and freedom
and healing and newness.

We know about Exodus freedom
and dancing tambourines.
We know about land and huge clusters of grapes.
We know about the rivers of water and rivers of oil.

We know about the strangeness that
the blind see, the lame walk,
the lepers are cleansed, the dead are raised,
the poor rejoice.

We know. Give us courage to
trust what we know and to obey what we hope.
We know that the old, old story - in our telling -
becomes a new, dangerous, transforming song.
And so we sing!