After my last post on June 3, my time was devoted to preparing my stepmother’s funeral service, packing, traveling to PA, and reuniting with my immediate and extended family and old friends at the funeral . Throughout that time, everything else in the world appropriately faded into the background. I didn’t think about writing for “Tongue on Fire” until this morning after reading about the death of Walter Brueggemann on June 5.

Though I only heard him speak one time, his understanding of Old Testament history and the prophetic tradition blew me away and literally changed the trajectory of my preaching and ministry. A prolific writer (his website lists 168 titles!), it was his best known book, “The Prophetic Imagination,” written in 1978, that most impacted me and opened my eyes to the prophetic role of the church–speaking truth to power.

In describing the content of his final book of essays, “Lament that Generates Covenant,” published in March 2025, Brueggemann wrote: “This collection of essays pertains to matters that urgently concern our faith. My work consists in recognition that our various systems of meaning, power, and control are decisively penultimate, even though we conduct ourselves as though they are ultimate. Thus, our articulation of theology and faith are momentary and require endless rearticulation… For much too long the church has focused on private, spiritual, other-worldly matters. In fact, the biblical reportage and advocacy concern the continuing struggle for an alternative economy that is governed by neighborly generosity, an economy that eschews private accumulation by the powerful at the expense of the vulnerable.” Amen!

Though his pen is now stilled and his voice silenced, the words he wrote and spoke during his lifetime will live on–just as relevant for our times and for times to come. There will always be a need for prophetic imagination and prophetic action.

“Then I heard a voice from heaven say, ‘Write this: Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on.’ ‘Yes,’ says the Spirit, ‘they will rest from their labor, for their deeds will follow them’.” (Revelation 14:13). Well done.