Walter Brueggemann
Westminster John Knox Press, 114 pages
Reviewed by Mark Peake
When you’re given the task of reviewing Walter Brueggemann, what are you supposed to do? I went to seminary 25 years ago. He’s been teaching seminary for twice that long. So, what am I going to say? Maybe quote Robin Williams: “I gave it a 9. I’d have given it a 10, but I can’t dance to it.”
Having said that, reading Brueggemann is never a fruitless exercise. In “Delivered Out of Empire,” he sets out to create not “another commentary on Exodus,” but rather “a reader’s guide.” He has done exactly that. The fantastic thing is that he has done it in such a way that the content is accessible to casual readers as well as to those more familiar with the academic approach to exposition and exegesis — even those who already have a grasp on the linguistic and cultural nuances.
The book is the first in a two-volume set designed for personal or group study. A study guide is included at the end of each chapter helping the reader and the group explore more deeply how the material can be considered in the context of the 21st century. In that sense the study is more than just a historical exploration, but also an exercise in spiritual development.
This first volume is concerned with the narrative portion of Exodus culminating at the end of the wilderness sojourn. The second volume will deal with the shift to the prescribed commandments. Each chapter focuses on one pivotal moment in which the narrative shifts and new things emerge.
Brueggemann does a fantastic job taking concepts that one might think more appropriate for a seminar in Hebrew language and unwrapping them in a way that is totally accessible even to those who have no experience with the language. For instance, in his treatment of the divine name YHWH in the first chapter, he explains well the dueling interpretive ideas around how the divine name actually functions, either causatively or imperatively, and offers a way to understand theologically and linguistically. So there is meat to it all, but any reader would be able to unpack it easily while at the same time still feel challenged to think in new directions.
I particularly appreciated the way he links the biblical narrative to current contextual realities. He notes that he purposefully writes this book from a “liberationist hermeneutic.” Brueggemann links it to the reality of the last 70 years of Western experience from the birth of the civil rights movement to Black Lives Matter today. The study questions follow through on that, sometimes focusing on what we might find corporately or culturally and sometimes calling for personal introspection. For example, he finds the pivotal moment in the beginning of Exodus to be the cry for justice from enslaved people who had up to the that point been silent. We are then asked to consider what the cry for justice sounds like today. But later, reflecting on how God’s intervention leads some to weep and some to worship, we are asked about our personal response to God’s interventions in the world. I find this move from cultural reflection to personal reflection to be very meaningful.
So, in the end, even though I still can’t dance to it, I guess I’ll give it a 10.
Mark Peake is the senior pastor at 1st Presbyterian Church of Monterey, California.
