The Sign of your Suffering Love

the god we would rather have

We are your people and mostly we don't mind,
       except that you do not fit any of our categories.
We keep pushing
                  and pulling
                  and twisting
                  and turning,
       trying to make you fit the God we would rather have,
                  and every time we distort you that way
                             we end up with an idol more congenial to us.
In our more honest moments of grief and pain
       we are very glad that you are who you are,
       and that you are toward us in all your freedom
       what you have been toward us.
So be your faithful self
       and by your very engagement in the suffering of the world,
       transform the world even as you are being changed.
We pray in the name of Jesus,
       who is the sign of your suffering love. Amen.

(In anticipation of reading Jeremiah 4-6)

- Walter Brueggemann, "Awed to Heaven, Rooted in Earth" (Fortress Press, 2003), p. 35