The Prophetic Imagination

by Walter Brueggemann

  Jesus is remembered and presented by the early church as the faithful embodiment of an alternative consciousness. In his compassion, he embodies the anguish of those rejected by the dominant culture, and as embodied anguish, he has the authority to show the deathly end of the dominant culture. Quite clearly, the one thing the dominant culture cannot tolerate or co-opt is compassion, the ability to stand in solidarity with the victims of the present order. It can manage charity and good intentions, but it has no way to resist solidarity with pain or grief. So the structures of competence and competition stand helpless before the one who groaned the groans of those who are hurting. And in their groans they announce the end of the dominant social world. The imperial consciousness lives by its capacity to still the groans and to go on with business as usual as though none were hurting and there were no groans. If the groans become audible, if they can be heard in the streets and markets and courts, then the consciousness of domination is already jeopardized. Thus the groans in Egypt heralded the social innovation (Exod 2:23-25; 3:7). In like manner, Jesus had the capacity to give voice to the very hurt that had been muted, and therefore newness could break through. Newness comes precisely from expressed pain.[14] Suffering made audible and visible produces hope, articulated grief is the gate of newness, and the history of Jesus is the history of entering into the pain and giving it voice.

  Jesus’ radical criticism as embodied anguish is evident in two other places where his grief is unmistakable. They probably should be seen together. First, in the narrative of the death of Lazarus, Jesus is presented as the powerful healer who can bring life from death (John 11:1-57). That is the main thrust of the narrative, but that central act recounted in v. 44 is enveloped by two others. First the power of Jesus is evidenced in the context of his grief:

  When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled; and he said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.” Jesus wept. (John 11:33-35)

  He is not the majestic, unmoved Lord but rather the one with the passion who knows and shares in the anguish of the brother and sister. The fact that Jesus weeps and that he is moved in spirit and troubled contrasts remarkably with the dominant culture. That is not the way of power, and it is scarcely the way among those who intend to maintain firm social control. But in this scene Jesus is engaged not in social control but in dismantling the power of death, and he does so by submitting himself to the pain and grief present in the situation, the very pain and grief that the dominant society must deny.

  We may digress to comment on the other, quite unrelated Lazarus story in Luke 16:19-31. Lazarus is presented as the radical contrast to the rich man. The contrast among other things contrasts the numbness of the rich man with the pain of Lazarus:

  There was a rich man, who was clothed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. At his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus, full of sores, who desired to be fed; . . . the dogs came and licked his sores. (Luke 16:19-21)

  The contrast surely operates at many levels. But among other things, the narrative suggests that the rich man who is numbed by his possessions and social status has no future; there is nothing but an end for him. By contrast, the poor man Lazarus, unencumbered either by possessions or by social status, is beset by grief and pain. And, says Jesus, this is the bearer of the future. The contrast, in the context of our discussion, concerns the numbedone who knows no future except more of the present and the suffering one who receives newness from the Father.

  In the Johannine story of the raising of Lazarus, we have noted Jesus’ deep compassion in which he shares the grief of the others. We have also noted his powerful action to bring life, an action that seems conditioned by his capacity to enter the grief. The other factor to be noted is that his capacity to invert evokes immediate and sharp hostility from the governors of the old order:

  So the chief priests and Pharisees gathered the council, and said, “What are we to do? For this man performs many signs.” . . . Now the chief priests and the Pharisees had given orders that if anyone knew where he was, he should let them know, so that they might arrest him. (John 11:47, 57)

  Jesus gives signs; he promises alternatives; he suggests newness. His promise represents a correctly perceived threat to the old order. Jesus brings newness in the situation but only in his grief. It is not psychologizing but integral to the narrative that grief, embodied anguish, is the route to newness. The old order that does not want newness keeps it from coming by denying the grief. Where grief for the death of the old order is not faced and embodied and expressed, the old order must go on a while longer, dead though it is.

  The other act of decisive weeping, to be linked to this act of passion and power, is Jesus’ weeping over Jerusalem:

  And when he drew near and saw the city he wept over it, saying, “Would that even today you knew the things that make for peace! But now they are hid from your eyes.” (Luke 19:41-42)

  Here the weeping is over Jerusalem, beloved city of God. Jesus’ weeping over Jerusalem, like his weeping over Lazarus, is a sharing in an anguish unto death. The difference is that everyone knew Lazarus was dead, and Jesus raised him to new life. The grieving was finished for Lazarus, whereas everyone thought Jerusalem was alive, and he grieved the death of the city. The grief over the city is ironic because Jerusalem is the main sponsor of numbness and lives itself in denial of grief. Indeed, the governors in Jerusalem want especially to keep the grieving from happening because they cannot and do not wish to acknowledge the end. The grief of Jesus, like the grief of Jeremiah (notice that Luke 19:43 is reminiscent of Jer 6:6), is that this center of promise is now ended and bankrupt. And so the words of Jesus describe the destruction. In the Matthean counterpart, the grief over Jerusalem is preceded by a series of woes (Matt 23:13-33); but woes serve the same purpose, announcing a grieving over death.[15]

  The compassion of Jesus has two sides. On the one hand, it is a frontal attack upon the dominant culture. He grieves over the death of the old world and the old city even when most did not know it was dead. His criticism is not in anger but in pathos, for none loved the city more. Nonetheless, he knew about the deathly conflict between his own mission and the dominant culture of Jerusalem, for he understood early that he must die at the hands of Jerusalem.

  Jesus’ compassion is not only criticism of what is deathly, for in his criticism and solidarity he evidences power to transform. So his embrace of the death his people are dying leads to a restored Lazarus, to healed people, to fed crowds, to a cared-for man, to an accepted son, and to good news for the harassed and helpless. The heavy criticism of Jesus holds the offer and possibility of an alternative beginning.

  Jesus’ Crucifixion

  It is the crucifixion of Jesus that is the decisive criticism of the royal consciousness. The crucifixion of Jesus is not to be understood simply in good liberal fashion as the sacrifice of a noble man, nor should we too quickly assign a cultic, priestly theory of atonement to the event. Rather, we might see in the crucifixion of Jesus the ultimate act of prophetic criticism in which Jesus announces the end of a world of death (the same announcement as that of Jeremiah) and takes the death into his own person. Therefore we say that the ultimate criticism is that God embraces the death that God’s people must die.[16] The criticism consists not in standing over against but in standing with; the ultimate criticism is not one of triumphant indignation but one of the passion and compassion that completely and irresistibly undermine the world of competence and competition. The contrast is stark and total: this passionate man set in the midst of numbed Jerusalem. And only the passion can finally penetrate the numbness.

  Passion Announcements.The radical criticism embodied in the crucifixion can be discerned in the “passion announcements” of Mark’s Gospel:

  And he began to teach them that the Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes, and be ki
lled, and after three days rise again. (Mark 8:31)

  “The Son of man will be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill him; and when he is killed, after three days he will rise.” (9:31)

  “Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem; and the Son of man will be delivered to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death, and deliver him to the Gentiles; and they will mock him, and spit upon him, and scourge him, and kill him; and after three days he will rise.” (10:33-34)

  There is no more radical criticism than these statements, for they announce that the power of God takes the form of death and that real well-being and victory only appear via death. So the sayings dismantle the dominant theories of power by asserting that all such would-be power is in fact no-power. Thus the passion announcements of Jesus are the decisive dismissal of every self-serving form of power upon which the royal consciousness is based. Just that formula, Son of man must suffer—Son of man/suffer!—is more than the world can tolerate, for the phrase of ultimate power, “Son of man,” has as its predicate the passion to death. It is true that no precise counterpart can be found in the history of Moses. Moses never speaks or acts in this way; but we may pause to discern important continuities between the two. Moses also dismantled the empire and declared it to be a no-power (remember Exod 8:18) by disregarding the claims of the imperial reality and trusting fully in the Lord of justice and freedom. In parallel fashion, the dominant power is dismantled by appeal to an uncredentialed God.

  That the passion sayings of Jesus constitute the ultimate criticism of the royal consciousness is evident in the reaction of the faithful. First, Peter, on behalf of the church, rejects the criticism as too radical and he is roundly reprimanded (Mark 8:32-33). Second, the disciples did not understand and are afraid to ask (9:32). Third, they respond, indicating they understood nothing, by fresh dispute about their own power and authority (10:35-37). The criticism of Jesus is too radical, not only for the imperial managers but also for his own followers. None of us is prepared for such decisive criticism.

  Sayings on the Cross. Jesus’ sayings on the cross as preserved in the various traditions are the voice of an alternative consciousness. His initial plea for forgiveness for his enemies is an act of criticism (Luke 23:34), for it asserts the insanity of the dominant culture. On behalf of that world that has now sentenced him, he enters a plea of temporary insanity. A reference should be made here to the insightful interpretation of Paul Lehmann, who shows that the trial of Jesus before Pilate in fact has Pilate, and not Jesus, on trial.[17] The cry of Jesus from the cross, then, may be regarded as a decision (by the Judge) that the defendant (the old order) may not be punished because it is insane.

  Second, his cry of despair is an announcement of abandonment (Mark 15:34). The whole known network of meaning has collapsed and a new, dangerous situation of faith has emerged.[18] Thus Jesus experiences the result of the criticism; the old assurances and awarenesses of meaning are now all gone.[19]

  Third, the ultimate criticism ends in submission (Luke 23:46), the last thing possible in a world of competence and control. Thus in that very world of control Jesus presents a new way of faithfulness that completely subverts the dominant way.

  And finally, his assertion of paradise is a speech about the delegitimization of the world that killed him (Luke 23:43). Now he speaks from a very different value system. The very one called criminal is now welcomed to paradise; the outcast is the welcomed one. Jesus’ new way of acting and speaking announces that another way is now operating. It is the final assertion that the old way is null and void.

  Too much should not be made of these isolated statements of the cross, for each has its own complex development in the history of the tradition, which is undoubtedly in part a history of the liturgy. Nonetheless, together they form a statement that completely refutes the claims of those who seem to be in charge. These statements (a plea of insanity, a cry of abandonment, a groan of submission, and an assertion of a new way of graciousness) are a refutation of the world now brought to an end. The old order may be characterized as madness masquerading as control; phony assurance of sustained well-being; a desperate attempt to control and not submit; and a grim system of retribution. Thus each statement of Jesus is a counter-possibility that places all the old ways in question. The passion narrative of Jesus provides ground for prophetic criticism. It hints at a fresh way for the repentance of Lent.

  Christological Hymn. This theological tradition of life in the shape of death and of power in the form of suffering is more than the dominant culture can receive or accept. That alternative discernment is evident in the theology of the cross both as narrated by Mark and as articulated by Paul. While many texts might be cited, here I mention the ancient hymn utilized by Paul:

  Christ Jesus,

  who though he was in the form of God,

  did not count equality with God

  a thing to be grasped,

  but emptied himself,

  taking the form of a servant,

  being born in the likeness of men.

  And being found in human form

  he humbled himself

  and became obedient unto death,

  even death on a cross.

  Therefore God has highly exalted him

  and bestowed on him the name

  which is above every name,

  that at the name of Jesus

  every knee should bow,

  in heaven and on earth and under the earth,

  and every tongue confess

  that Jesus Christ is Lord,

  to the glory of God the father. (Phil 2:5-11)[20]

  That tradition of radical criticism is about the self-giving emptiness of Jesus, about dominion through the loss of dominion, and about fullness coming only by self-emptying. The emptying is not to be related to self-negating meditation, for it is a thoroughly political image concerned with the willing surrender of power; it is the very thing kings cannot do and yet remain kings. Thus the entire royal self-understanding is refuted. The empty one who willingly surrendered power for obedience is the ultimately powerful one who can permit humanness where no other has authority to do so.

  The Politics of Justice and Compassion

  The crucifixion, then, is not an odd event in the history of faith, although it is the decisive event. It is, rather, the full expression of dismantling that has been practiced and insisted upon in the prophetic tradition since Moses confronted Pharaoh. As with Moses, so Jesus’ ministry and death opposed the politics of oppression with the politics of justice and compassion. As with Moses, so Jesus’ ministry and death contradicted the religion of God’s captivity with the freedom of God to bring life where he will, even in the face of death.

  The cross is the ultimate metaphor of prophetic criticism because it means the end of the old consciousness that brings death on everyone. The crucifixion articulates God’s odd freedom, his strange justice, and his peculiar power. It is this freedom (read religion of God’s freedom), justice (read economics of sharing), and power (read politics of justice) that break the power of the old age and bring it to death. Without the cross, prophetic imagination will likely be as strident and as destructive as that which it criticizes. The cross is the assurance that effective prophetic criticism is done not by an outsider but always by one who must embrace the grief, enter into the death, and know the pain of the criticized one.

  Prophetic criticism aims to create an alternative consciousness with its own rhetoric and field of perception. That alternative consciousness, unless the criticism is to be superficial and external, has to do with the cross. Douglas John Hall has explored how we might think about this, suggesting that creative criticism must be ethically pertinent and premised on our own embrace of negativity.[21] This kind of prophetic criticism does not lightly offer alternatives, does not mouth assurances, and does not provide redemptive social policy. It knows that only those who mourn can be comforted, and so it first asks about how to mourn seriously an
d faithfully for the world passing away. Jesus understood and embodied that anguish Jeremiah felt so poignantly.

  * * *

  That same contrast and alternative between powerful king and new claimant is presented in the present shape of Jeremiah 34–35. In their present form, the two narratives are surely juxtaposed intentionally. In Jeremiah 34, the calculating holders of the land (not unlike Herod) play a deathly game with land and freedom, and in the end they are sentenced to death, for their calculating game cannot succeed. By contrast, in chap. 35 the Rechabites—those who claim nothing and who have nothing, except a determination to obedience—end with a blessing. The Nazarene identity of Jesus and the lifestyle of the Rechabites suggest a more than casual parallel. ↵

  See the perceptive statement about Lucan summaries by Paul S. Minear, To Heal and to Reveal: The Prophetic Vocation According to Luke (New York: Seabury, 1976), 63–77. The Magnificat is seen as one of several texts that present, Luke as a theology of the necessity of the impossible. Other texts shaped in parallel fashion, according to Minear, are: 4:18-19; 6:20-22; 7:22; and 14:21. ↵

  See Minear, To Heal, 63–65 on the theme of inversion represented in this most characteristic text of Luke. The hope carried in the passage is an appeal to the spirit, “to heaven,” i.e., to that which the present order cannot administer. ↵

  Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1958), 236–43: “The discoverer of the role of forgiveness in the realm of human affairs was Jesus of Nazareth” (238). “It is his insistence on the ‘power to forgive’ even more than his performance of miracles, that shocks the people” (239 n. 76). ↵