Commentary

Ken Sehested

There’s never an appropriate time to die. But if there was, Walter Brueggemann’s passing was well timed: In the last week of Eastertide (he was an Easter man if ever there were one, though never out of sight of the crucifixion) and days before Pentecost’s outburst. I can imagine the Heavenly chorale jumping the gun just a bit to offer an exuberant rendition of Jerry Lee Lewis’ “Great Balls of Fire” as Brueggemann passed through the Pearly Gates:

“You shake my nerves and you rattle my brain / Too much love drives a man insane / You broke my will but what a thrill / Goodness gracious, great balls of fire.”

—compiled by Ken Sehested

Language matters

• “El Shaddai” is one of several “names” given to God in Scripture. El Shaddai is a feminine noun, which can be translated “God of the breast,” conveying the quality of nourishing, satisfying and supplying needs. It is used seven times in Scripture (see Genesis 17:1).
• The English translation of “El Shaddai” as “God Almighty” is misleading, because “almighty” suggests omnipotence, the capacity to overpower or destroy. Whereas “Shaddai” infers sufficiency and nourishment (i.e., “blessings of the breasts and of the womb”) and implies a certain fecundity.
• Also in Hebrew, the divine presence(“Shekhinah”) of God is feminine.
• From the word “womb” (rehem) comes the verb “to have compassion” (raham), and the phrase “Yahweh’s compassionate (rahum) and gracious” repeatedly appears in the Hebrew scripture to describe the merciful and saving acts of God in history.

Biblical texts

• Deut 32:18; Ps 90:2; Prov 8:24-25; Isa 43:1,7,15; 44:2, 24; 45:9, 11; 51:13; 54:5 – The Creator God of Israel is also imaged as the shaper, maker and mother God who formed Israel in the womb and birthed Israel with labor pains. 
• Deut 4:31; 2 Chr 30:9;  Neh 9:17; Ps 78:38; 86:16; 103:8; 111:4; 112:4; 145:8; John 4:7 – images of God who demonstrates “womb–like compassion” for her child Israel.
• Exodus 33:19 and 34:6 – In Hebrew the words for “compassion” and “womb” derive from the same root. God of compassion use the Hebrew word “rehem” which can be translated “womb-love.
• Num 11:12 – “Was it I who conceived all this people, was it I who gave them birth that you should say to me, carry them in your bosom like a nurse with a baby at the breast?”
• Prov 7-9 –“Wisdom” (“Sophia”) who was present before the foundations of the world were created; and announces (Prov 1) Heaven’s judgment on “scoffers” and “fools.”
• John 7: 38 – From his breast shall flow the fountains of living water.
• Gen 1:2 – God as a nesting mother.
• Is 42:14 [Thus says the Lord], “For a long time I have held my peace; I have kept still and restrained myself; now I will cry out like a woman in labor; I will gasp and pant.”
• Ex 19:4 & Deut 32 :1-12 – God as a mother eagle.
• Hos 13:8 – “I will fall upon them like a bear robbed of her cubs.”
• Ps 17:8, 36:7, 57:1, 61:4 – Refuge in “the shadow of [God’s] wings.”
• Job 38:28-29 – “Has the rain a father, or who has begotten the drops of dew? From whose womb did the ice come forth, and who has given birth to the hoarfrost of heaven?”
• Luke 15:8 – A woman tirelessly sweeping for her lost coin, for what is important to her.
• Luke 13: 34 (Matt 23:37) – “How often I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings.”
• Gen 2:7, Ps 104: 29; John 3:8 – “Ruah” presence gives life; feminine Hebrew word meaning breath, wind, inspiration or spirit.
• Gen 3:21 – God as a seamstress.
• Isaiah 66:13 – "As a mother comforts her child, so I will comfort you.")
• Isa 4:4, Ps 51:7 – God as a washerwoman.
• Ps 22:9-11, Ps 71:6; Isa 66:9 – God as a midwife.
• Matt 13:33 – God as a woman baking bread.

 A few post-biblical texts

• Clement of Alexander (c.150 – c. 215 CE) spoke of Christ as the breast of God supplying the milk of love.
• “Just as God is our Father, so God is also our Mother.” And also, “The mother can give her child to suck of her milk, but our precious Mother Jesus can feed us with himself, and does, most courteously and most tenderly, with the blessed sacrament, which is the precious food of true life. . . .” —Julian of Norwich (1342–1416)
• “We are all meant to be mothers of God.” —Meister Eckhart, 13^th century mystic
• “A mother is one to whom you hurry when you are troubled.” —Emily Dickinson

• “In the divine economy it is not the feminine person who remains hidden and at home. She is God in the world, moving, stirring up, revealing, interceding. It is she who calls out, sanctifies, and animates the church. Hers is the water of the one baptism. The debt of sin is wiped away by her. She is the life-giver who raises men [sic] from the dead with the life of the coming age. Jesus himself left the earth so that she, the intercessor, might come.” — Jay G. Williams, “Yahweh, Women and the Trinity,” Theology Today 32 (1975) 240.

• “You, beloved daughters, serve as reminders / that life cannot be had on the cheap; / that every new future foreseen in joy / will endure all tearful failures; that strength / of hand and valiance of heart must be / coupled with wombish welcome to that / unnameable (and thus unmanageable) / Promise that death’s ascendance will / be crushed. / Such vision persists; such milk flows; / and by it we are kept from perishing.” —Ken Sehested, “On the flow of tears”

Ken Sehested

Invocation. “Satan, we're gonna tear / Your kingdom down (Lord, Jesu') / Oh, Satan, we're gonna tear / Your Kingdom down (oh Yes) / You've been building your kingdom / All over the land / Satan, we're gonna tear / Your kingdom down, down (yes).” —“Satan, We’re Gonna’ Tear Your Kingdom Down,” Shirley Caesar and The Young People’s Institutional Choir of Brooklyn

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Ken Sehested

Parade. Palestinian band escorting the Orthodox Patriarch on Palm Sunday from The Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem.

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A bit of history and a meditation on the provocation of his witness
(on the anniversary of his assassination)

Ken Sehested

Invocation. “Early morning, April four / Shot rings out in the Memphis sky. / Free at last, they took your life / They could not take your pride. / In the name of love / What more in the name of love.” —“Pride (In the Name of Love),” U2, celebrating the life and legacy of Martin Luther King Jr.

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A meditation on faithful living in a land filled with frightful prospects

Ken Sehested

Note: I wrote an earlier version of this article (“Dueling spirits are loose in the land: A meditation on the pandemic and the outbreak of political infamy”) in June 2000 when the COVID-19 epidemic wrought infectious fear and trembling, coinciding with the pestilence of President Trump’s first term in office. Some copy has been edited and added in this updated version.

Processional. “Psalm 116: How can I repay the Lord.” —Poor Clares and Pauline Sisters, Lusaka, Zambia

Lent is the season to sort out the gods.

Ken Sehested
Text: Philippians 3:17-4:1

Invocation.  “Lovers of the world unite / bound to Creator’s vision, bright / that even these our darkest nights / become the light become the light.” — “Hope Beyond All Hope,” Alana Levandoski

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Ken Sehested

Invocation (on the third anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine). —“A City Under Siege,” in solidarity with Ukraine, composed by Elijah Culp, text from Psalm 31: 21-24

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Including 35 questions for contemplative attention

Ken Sehested

Invocation. “Tempted and tried we're oft made to wonder why it should be thus all the day long / While there are others living about us, never molested, though in the wrong. . . . / Farther along we'll know all about it; farther along we'll understand why / Cheer up, my brother; live in the sunshine, we'll understand it all by and by.” —“Farther Along,” Dolly Parton

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