Finally Comes the Poet: Daring Speech for Proclamation

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Fortress Press, 1989 M01 1 - 165 pages
The Christian gospel, says Brueggemann, is too easily preached and heard. Too often technical reason and excessive religious certitude reduce the gospel to coercive, debilitating pietisms that mask the text's meaning and freeze the hearers heart. With skill and imagination, Brueggemann demonstrates how the preacher can engage in daring speech?differently voiced and therefore differently heard. This speech, as suggested by the Bible itself, is "poetic" speech, enabling the preacher to forge communion in the midst of alienation, bring healing out of guilt, and empower the hearer for "missional imagination." As an alternative to theological/homiletical discourse that is moralistic, pietistic or scholastic, Brueggemann proposes preaching that is artistic, poetic, and dramatic. The basis for the 1989 Lyman Beecher Lectures at Yale Divinity School, Finally Comes the Poet is a unique and transforming guide for powerful preaching.

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Contents

Numbness and Ache The Strangeness of Healing
13
Alienation and Rage The Odd Invitation to Doxological Communion
43
Restlessness and Greed Obedience for Missional Imagination
79
Resistance and Relinquishment A Permit for Freedom
111
Notes
143
Scripture Index
163
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Page 56 - And it came to pass in process of time, that the king of Egypt died: and the children of Israel sighed by reason of the bondage, and they cried, and their cry came up unto God by reason of the bondage.
Page 40 - I will take from them the voice of mirth, and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom, and the voice of the bride, the sound of the millstones, and the light of the candle.
Page 35 - Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh; and having an high priest over the house of God ; let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water.
Page 68 - I will sing to the LORD, for he has triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider
Page 133 - You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.
Page 22 - Oh that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people!
Page 99 - You shall not commit adultery. "You shall not steal. "You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. "You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife/ or his manservant/ or his maidservant/ or his ox/ or his ass/ or anything that is your neighbor's.
Page 71 - Mid toil and tribulation, And tumult of her war She waits the consummation Of peace for evermore ; Till with the vision glorious Her longing eyes are blest, And the great Church victorious Shall be the Church at rest. 5 Yet she on earth hath union With God the Three in One, And mystic sweet communion With those whose rest is won : O happy ones and holy ! Lord, give us grace that we Like them, the meek and lowly, On high may dwell with Thee.
Page 53 - For in death there is no remembrance of thee; in Sheol who can give thee praise?

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