Move Off the Page

Walter Brueggemann taught Old Testament classes for over forty years.
Before each class, he would pray a prayer he wrote himself.
His students were abundantly blessed to have this man as their professor.
He has written more than 58 books, as well as articles, and Bible commentaries.

A collection of his personal, written prayers was published in book form in 2003.
Awed to Heaven, Rooted in Earth is a wonderful collection.

One prayer in particular has never left my heart.
I think of its title often, and ponder what Walter is asking of the Lord.

For a week now we have been cast in the role of readers, students, scholars, doctors.
A week in the leisure class: air conditioning, many books, assured food, free time with only a modicum of anxiety. In our leisure, we have watched You move from verse to verse, noticed the force of Your verbs, pondered Your elliptical pauses, and now we dare interrupt Your anticipated sabbath with one imperative, for a moment not scholars but petitioners in urgency. So listen up: You, majestic Sovereign…
Move off the page!
Move off the page to the world,
Move off the page to the trouble,
Move out of Your paged leisure to the turmoil of Your creatures…

(taken from Move Off The Page,  by Walter Brueggmann)

Move Off The Page!

Can you imagine being able to talk to our Sovereign God like that?
We can!
We can offer up our lament, our pleas, and our imperatives as an act of worship.

People often think that we must be proper and formal when we talk to God.
Since when is our heart cry ever proper and formal?
In Christ, God is our Abba, Father.
We can tell Him anything, and like a good Father, He wants to hear it.

God has given us the Psalms, permanently enshrined in His Word.
There are cries of “Why?” “I don’t understand,” “Where are You, God?”
God can take it.
He can take our raw lament, and our tantrums, and our anger.

In the Psalms, lament often turns to praise.
We read it in the form of a word: yet, but, till, or then.
After we are spent, after we have poured out our soul, after we have cried all of our tears, a  “turn” happens; a line is crossed.

When I tried to understand all this, it was oppressive to me TILL I entered the sanctuary of God; then I understood their final destiny. (Psalm 73:16,17)

Lament, poured out, eventually turns to praise.
We can talk to God like that because HE is the One we are talking to.
We are not talking ABOUT Him, but rather, we are talking TO Him.
There is no better place to put our sorrow, our confusion, and our grief.

God’s Word is not meant to be just words on a page.
God’s Word needs to be permanently rooted in our hearts.
God’s Word has to be incarnate in our lives.
God’s Word has to be lived out.

God’s Word has to Move Off The Page and into our lives.
The incarnate ministry of the Word of God.

We are a peculiar people.
We are needy people.
We have problems and trouble.
We are surrounded by sin in this fallen world; sin in ourselves and in others.

Where Are You, God?
I don’t see You clearly, God.
I can’t hear Your voice above all the noise in my life, God.

Move off the page!

Even Jesus, as He hung on the cross, cried out in lament to His Father.
My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me? (Mark 15:34)

Jesus who quoted Scripture as Satan tempted Him.
Jesus who knows that, man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God. (Matthew 4:4)
Jesus knew that the Word couldn’t stay on the page.

Move to the peace negotiations, and cancer diagnoses, and burning churches, and lynched blacks, and abused children. Listen to the groans and moans, and see and hear and know and remember, and come down! Have no Sabbath rest until Your creatures rest well, all of us. Be Your Friday self that Your world may be Eastered.
Move off the page!
Amen.

(taken from Move Off The Page, by Walter Breuggemann)

So listen up: You, majestic Sovereign…
Move off the page!

Raw, honest pounding on the chest of God!
Eventually those pounding hands will be raised in praise to our Lord.
We have nowhere else to go with our sorrow, our confusion, and our grief.

Be Your Friday self that Your world may be Eastered.