Theopoetics. Phillip Michael Garner

utilized by a compiler, yet none of these characters are capable of determining with certainty that their reader will ascribe to their intended meaning. Every contributor to, or editor of the biblical text is a guide within a larger framework of the history that has brought the reader to hear their story.

      Stories circumvent questions, delay answers, and cloud certainty, yet they ignite imagination, invite critique, and seal their mark on the soul with a power unseen. Stories carry spirit and appeal to spirit. A story has power to change the one who hears and the one who hears has the power to change a story through their uniqueness.

      Once your story is told it slips from your hands into the life of another.

      We bring ourselves to the text. This being said, the bible is only as good as the person reading it. The cry for a clean heart is a cry for ears to hear. The task is to hear the voice of God amidst the infusion of humanity’s perceptions in a story of both God and humanity.

      Christianity cannot grow stagnant if it remains as story, as a living witness to the dynamics of revelation in a people, in a person and in history. Ceremonies attempt to seal a story, but a story can be told in a multitude of ways and defy the institutional drudgery of a ceremony. Stories are like God, like Spirit, they cannot be confined and controlled.

      The metanarrative of scripture is an uncontainable story. The error of classical theology and church tradition has been to confine the story to the control of an institution rather than to the lived witness of a people.

      In the present age the academy has privileged itself as the interpreter of scripture based upon the arrogance of intellectual technique and privileged access to learning and information. However, without a story, without a life lived in conjunction with God’s presence among the poor and oppressed then interpretation becomes about maintaining power rather than serving others. The tedious repetition of academic effort apart from the face-to-face encounter with God among the people is vanity (hevel).

      So, tell me a story of grace, a story of justice, a story of liberation, a story of unbound love, of sacrifice and joy. Tell me a story of hope against hope, of dramatic personal challenge, of change and growth into the image of God in Christ Jesus. Tell me a story where people learn to hear the voice of God and see thy kingdom come in the present, where people enter the rest of heaven in the hell of the present. Tell me a human story infused with the life of God.

      Prophetic Denunciation

      When Prophets Weep

      Broken beneath the weight of divine pathos

      Longing for eternity

      Holding onto the present

      Speech alone releases the load

      Unable to release his own humanity

      Or escape the God who will not let him go

      He Speaks

      Overwhelmed

      His vision of humanity belongs to God

      There is no hiding

      Laid at the gate of a globalized world are the children of Lazarus

      Capitalism displays contempt for life

      Empire is indicative of God’s absence

      There is no hiding

      Militarism belongs to those who crucify the innocent

      God’s army is disrobed

      Bearing words for weapons

      There is no hiding

      The consumption of the gods of the earth

      has sent God’s children to scavenge refuse

      The warring of the god’s of the earth

      threatens all of humanity

      They ignore their mortality

      There is no hiding

      when Prophets speak

      Do not trust in these deceptive words: “This is the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD.”

      Jer 7:4

      When Prophets Speak

      Prophetic denunciation makes each human being responsible for their relationship to the powers.

      Prophetic denunciation is an uncompromising view on reality. It is expressed through Spirit driven pathos embodied in a human life, a life formed for speaking truth to power. It is the formation of the prophetic soul under the hand of God that produces a persona whose perception of truth is matched with speech that brings the voice of God into the world as denouncement.