105 Quotes by Walter Brueggemann

Prophecy cannot be separated very long from doxology, or it will either wither or become ideology. Abraham.

The wonder of the Exodus narrative is that the role of pharaoh continues to be reperformed in many times and many places. “Pharaoh” reappears in the course of history in the guise of coercive economic production. In every new performance, the character of Pharaoh makes claims to be absolute to perpetuity; the character is regularly propelled by fearful greed; the character imposes stringent economic demands on a vulnerable labor force.

Faith is both the conviction that justice can be accomplished and the refusal to accept injustice.

Every imperial agent wants to reduce what is possible to what is available.

Sabbath is not simply the pause that refreshes. It is the pause that transforms. Whereas Israelites are always tempted to acquisitiveness, Sabbath is an invitation to receptivity, an acknowledgment that what is needed is given and need not be seized.

Compassion constitutes a radical form of criticism, for it announces that the hurt is to be taken seriously, that the hurt is not to be accepted as normal and natural but is an abnormal and unacceptable condition for humanness.

It is the silence-breaking cry that begins the process that turns pain into joy.

The power of the future lies not in the hands of those who believe in scarcity but of those who trust God’s abundance.

The deep places in our lives – places of resistance and embrace – are reached only by stories, by images, metaphors and phrases that line out the world differently, apart from our fear and hurt.