Bruggemann

This week I have learned some interesting things in class.

In Brueggmann's booklet Spirituality of the Psalms, he lays out a wonderfully simple construct for the Psalter consisting of three parts: 1) Psalms of Orientation; 2) Psalms of Disorientation; and 3) Psalms of New Orientation. He goes on to say that this model is not always linear and perhaps remains chronologically consistent and cyclical throughout one's life, but that it stands as a mode to describe our relationship with God to which creation itself will testify.

Though allusions can and have been made to Messianic prophecy and the life of Jesus of Nazareth throughout the Psalms, Bruggemann offers a wonderful interpretation based upon uniquely ancient Hebrew tradition. This is epitomized in his proposition:

"Much Christian piety and spirituality is romantic and unreal in its positiveness. As children of the Enlightenment, we have censored and selected around the voice of darkness and disorientation, seeking to go from strength to strength, from victory to victory. But such a way not only ignores the Psalms; it is a lie in terms of our experience (Preface, xii)."

This proposition is shocking to me for at least two reasons. First, it stands firmly in my mind as verification of the present activity of the Spirit of God in my life up to this point. But perhaps more importantly, secondly, Bruggemann's interpretation calls us to acknowledge the parts of life that Westerners spend a great deal of time and money trying to forget.

What does this mean? To face a life of near-cyclical reorienting? What paradoxes does this present the Christ follower who's only understanding of God is that He exists to please our needs and quiet our fears? What if some should fall away on account of this proposition?

Without writing volumes, I can say that my experiences seem to lend themselves to the notion that God is more pleased with me when I venture forth into the dangerous, perhaps violent, and certainly uncomfortable breech of uncertainty. It is there that I seem to find God's pleasure; where His will and desires for my life are fulfilled (or in the process of being) as He continually transforms me from the "inside-out."

There is much in the way of Biblical interpretation that stands to verify this point of view, but I will not focus on that aspect of the argument nor waste precious word-processor space recounting it. It seems like a very Western-Enlightenment-systematic-theology thing to do to provide 35 points of reason to back up such claims. But there is a Voice that cries out to us often in spite of reason that can only be heard when all else is stripped away; when all else is silenced; when we are in a place of primal fear and foreboding; when the bottom has fallen out; when we've broken through the ice; and when we refuse to let our circumstances dominate us, instead choosing to take the authority we've been given and allow God to dominate the situation.

There is a Voice in our experience. There is a Voice in our relationships. There is a Voice in our greatest tragedies. And that Voice is closest to us in the midst of those tragedies, and closest felt when we turn to It.

I have lived through some terrible experiences. These experiences have happened apart from and in the midst of my relationship with God. But it is only through the understanding of my proximity to God as a "relationship" can any of the heartache make sense.

There is a constant longing in the heart of God to be with His people. We are told that God is "jealous" in His love for us. We are told that God has a "hope and a future" for us and that it includes our "holistic well being." We are told that His "loving kindness leads us to repentance." We are told that Jesus didn't come "into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through Him." We are told that God is constantly building up a cup-full-of-wrath, but that He stays His anger to those who turn to him. God says, "You will be My people, and I will be your God," and, ". . .you will call me 'My Husband' and no longer will you call me 'My Baal.'" We are even commanded to "Love the LORD your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength," and to "love your neighbor as yourself."

God is all about love. This is what Christianity in modernity affords us. Yet I sometimes experience greatest love in the context of personal sacrifice and humiliation. We can never experience true growth without pain; but it is possible to experience pain without growth. My "orientation" seems to be under assault.

Some old sayings come to mind; "It's always calmest before the storm," and, "It's always darkest before the dawn." I wonder if nature itself testifies to the model Bruggemann presents, and I wonder if it is impossible for humanity to appreciate the vastness and richness of God's love unless there existed a seemingly equal and opposing void that forced us into the embittered uncomfortableness of the paradox that is our relationship with God.

It seems to break God's heart when I choose things that hurt others; even when the only one I hurt is myself. Sin is no longer "as defined by law" some terrible consequence for a crappy rule-follower. It is the result of my turning away from God's desire for my life. And it is fascinating to think that this causes God pain. And when viewed in the context of a relationship, this makes perfect sense.

My desire, then, is not to avoid breaking rules for their own sake; rather, my desire is to love God so much that the thought of causing Him pain repulses me from the desire to "sin." And this is okay because we know that in the end, God desires us to be well in a holistic sense.

Does this paint our God with wimpy colors? What kind of victorious God could possibly be hurt by betrayal? Wouldn't God be beyond such a human and emotionally base experience?

Well, no. And that's okay.

It seems to endear us to our loving God rather than repel us from Him. God is intimately in tune with human experience due to the fact that on some nearly imperceptible level He experiences some of the same things we do.

Peterson refers to the life of Jesus of Nazareth in this way; "He was looked down on and passed over, a man who suffered, who knew pain firsthand. One look at him and people turned away. We looked down on him, thought he was scum" (Isaiah 53:3. Peterson, Eugene. "THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language. NavPress Publishing Group, 2002.) Jesus Himself, being the expressed image of God, being fully God and fully human, experienced life in the same way we did, immersed in it, though not conformed by it.

I can only imagine what Jesus felt as He screamed from the cross, "Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?" that is, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (Matthew 27:46, NRSV). Jesus experienced the most extreme form of disorientation, and that seems to bring us great comfort because we are a species that continually struggles with realities of life and death, forgetting just how amazing our God really is and how deep is the reciprocity of identification between One and the other.

So to the original point, with no further ado. It seems to me that by embracing the disorientation of humanity and allowing our loving God to propel us into dangerous, painful territory, knowing that He desires our ultimate benefit, using our former tragedies as touchstones for His loving kindness, and that the mature faith is rooted in this equivalent exchange of trust and goodness, it seems entirely plausible that Yahweh would have us face our greatest fears and accept our every "orientation" as a sign of His closeness and activity in our lives.