Elemental Claims of the Gospel by Walter Brueggemann

A Theological Giant's Final Word

Walter Brueggemann’s passing on June 5, 2025 leaves a void in biblical scholarship that will last a very long time. He was still writing books and essays at age 92, and his passionate writing, teaching, and preaching has shaped countless ministries, including mine. In what he called a summary of that work, Elemental Claims of the Gospel, he vigorously set out the gift and the demand of the good news. 

What is the gospel? Somewhere along the way, many of us learned a gospel outline that lays out an understanding of God, humanity, and the sin that separates the two with the atoning sacrifice of Jesus as the reconnector or reconciler. Brueggemann uses a similar outline to study the Scriptures of Israel as the source, we might say, of the Christian gospel, but readers should expect some surprises.

His first three sections talk about

God, the agency of human persons, and the interaction between them amid the larger scope of all creation. (vii)

The final section shows how that interaction of judgment and grace is on display in the Book of Jeremiah. 

The God to Whom Israel Answers

How shall we try to speak of God? We may hope to sum up God’s character with the single word “love”– “but beyond ‘love,’ ‘holiness’ calls us to affirm that there is, for the God of the gospel, a wild otherness....” (vii).

The God whose story involves love, mercy, and forgiveness also judges, often with violence, and is frequently silent for reasons unexplained. As a professor of mine used to say, “Living with God isn’t easy.” 

Speaking in literary terms, this caring and wild God is a character of Scripture, an agent who evokes a plot, and a problem for us as readers today–even as God was a problem for those writers and readers of long ago:

This God is always a problem for those who find a relational, transactional practice of reality too difficult.” (3)

We’d rather use comforting statements that we hope will fit every situation, but they fall short. I once heard a sermon with the title: “The God You Want and the God You Get.” 

God’s holiness may be a problem, but it is also a call. Moses must take off his shoes when he stands on holy ground, yet the people who are not to touch the holy mountain are told “to be holy for I am holy.” Living as a separated people creates a sense of identity and belonging, but it also distinguishes clean from unclean in Leviticus. All that can be misread to exclude others. Looking to the stories of Jesus and writings of Paul, Brueggemann challenges us to focus on our actions in what we choose to accept and exclude, not other people.

The Human Self as Member and Failure

The Psalms switch pronouns back and forth between the “you” whose generative power offers the gifts of life and the “I” of the gifted–who gives thanks and praise but also cries out with laments and petitions.

Brueggemann contrasts that self-understanding with the “selfie culture” of amnesia, autonomy, despair, and radical individualism, a culture that sees everything, human persons included, in terms of commodity: “We are not labeled and branded. We are named and treasured in our rituals of immersion” (54). Children and adults alike are nurtured by immersion the biblical narrative that gives the rituals of baptism and communion their meaning.

Obedience begins with the idea of obligations in relationships, especially in families. For Israel, liberated from enslavement to Pharaoh’s predatory economy, primary relations of love are with God and neighbor. The two tablets of the ten commands work this way, as does Jesus’s citation of Deuteronomy 6:4 and Leviticus 19:18 (see Mark 12:32-33):

The tradition understands quite well that where God is not loved, the neighbor will not be loved. (60)

Thus, idolatry and injustice are two sides of the same coin.

Like holiness, the very notion of a chosen people includes some and excludes others, but racist exclusion begins with the way the Egyptians thought about the Hebrews: eating with or being near them was considered an abomination (said three times about Joseph’s family in Genesis). Brueggemann makes the connection between a sense of purity that relegates some to lower status and the economic exploitation that goes with it.

The story of enslaved Israel in Egypt is paradigmatic of the way the world works; being a chosen people can and should look different. Isaiah’s vision of Israel as light to the nations, Jesus’s conversation with the Phoenician woman, and Peter’s vision about unclean animals all offer an alternative script:

The suffering of the slaves began with the linkage between them and the category of "abomination." The God of emancipation intended that human bodies be accorded respect and security in a way that overrides every sense of "abomination.” (84)

The Riddle of Silence and Speech

The Book of Habakkuk presents the LORD in his holy temple and commands the earth to be silent (Hab. 2:20). Silence and awe are fitting in the presence of a holy, saving God, even as the Psalms call all creation to shout and clap hands. But when God is silent for no apparent reason, we call out in pain and bewilderment. Unlike other laments of the psalter, Psalm 88 ends with no assurance, no answer, yet the prayer is made:

The psalmist knows that real faith requires dialogic engagement in which both parties must refuse silence. (122)

Elijah is confronted with the paradoxical riddle of God’s presence in a “sound of silence.”

Likewise, in The Book of Revelation, John witnesses silence in heaven for thirty minutes (or seconds) before the risen Lamb opens the seventh and last seal. Both are set in contrast with the sturm and drang that comes before, and both present a call to witness and praise. 

All these expositions are too detailed and exciting to summarize here, but let me say, I was caught up with anticipation of where Brueggemann would take his insights. By reading deeply, attending to biblical rhetoric and its connection with human experience, he leads us into the presence of God who continues to surprise and astound.

The Landscape of Jeremiah's Sojourn

Throughout his career, Brueggemann has been a leading commentator on the Book of Jeremiah. His four short studies here give a potent overview of the prophet’s call to “pluck up and break down, to destroy and overthrow” (Jer 1:10). The sermon in chapter 7 calls out what might be called an idolatry of security concerning the “temple of the LORD.”  His trial before the powers of Jerusalem comes at the center of the book in chapter 26; there the prophet puts king and priest on trial instead.

The new covenant of chapters 31-33 is directed to Israel, not the church, yet the Book of Hebrews extends that lovingkindness of YHWH to all in Christ (Heb 8:8-12). The scroll prophesying the ruin of the enemy nations is symbolically thrown in the river in chapter 51, completing his call. Discussion questions at the end of each chapter ask readers to discern how these prophecies address our contemporary situation.

“Back to Basics,” the final chapter, is addressed to preachers who find “the abrupt turn in our political economy toward uncritical populism” bewildering:

That turn has made preaching for many of us even more difficult and demanding because ideological sensibilities are so acute, and every utterance seems freighted with risk. (158)

Jeremiah’s story and sermons are more relevant than ever! 

The “basics” are the same that Jesus cited when asked to name the greatest commandment. There must be two commands because they are inseparable: love God (Deut 6:5) and love neighbor (Lev 19:18). Because the two books in which these commands appear are rarely preached (and hardly appear in the lectionary), pastors have a marvelous opportunity to introduce their call to covenant obligation and speak to the exhaustion that comes with commodified “selfie culture.” I believe this chapter is worth the price of the book. It summarizes all that has gone before, but it also calls the preacher to a renewed sense of purpose.

In Sum

Paired with Brueggemann’s 2019 book, Preaching from the Old Testament (here’s my review), this brief but substantial work will help preachers set out the good news every Sunday–whether or not each sermon or service ends with an invitation. That said, I appreciate those churches who set out a call to faith every week, asking people to commit themselves to following Jesus. However we proceed, these studies will lend real depth to what we say.

Brueggeman’s writing has always been dense; for me, that means it is best taken in smaller chunks, a section, or even a paragraph, at a time. Reading slowly this way can refocus our attention on those “elemental claims” and allow his fresh vision to find its way into our own preaching and teaching. Most importantly, by following his lead, we move against that false dichotomy that pits a so-called Old Testament legalism against freedom in Christ. And, it encourages us to make our own sermonic claims of law and grace from the oldest scriptures we have.

We can show that the good news has been there, present in these texts, from the beginning.