Posts
The witnesses tell us that your promises persist
and will come to fruition;
We find that retelling of such promises deeply compelling
in our own lives,
You are the God who reached our family not yet formed.
You uttered promise and sent father Abraham on his daring way.
You assured mother Sarah of impossibility
and sent her laughing in disbelief.
You hoped them to new land,
and since have been giving sons and daughters and
futures and possibilities,
beyond all that we can hope or imagine.
We are the glad carriers and recipients of those promises.
We live each time from the trace of your future
that keeps surprising us with
gifts and chances and hopes.
But your promises seem so flimsy, so risky, so unsure.
We keep fashioning better guarantees.
We lie a little here and cheat a little there.
We add our own securities,
and then find that every land of promise
becomes a turf of killing dispute.
The promise fades; it feels more like we are on our own.
So do this yet today. Match the goodness of your promise
with the daring of our faith.
Let us trust beyond seeing,
risk beyond laughing,
yield beyond calculating.
By supper time give us the freedom that belongs to your “Yes”,
Your “Yes” we have seen fleshed in glad obedience. Amen.
– Walter Brueggemann, July 13, 2000
![[del.icio.us]](http://images.del.icio.us/static/img/delicious.small.gif){kind=small}