Brueggemann speaks on “Extraction and the economy of restoration” @ Laurel Heights UMC

At 4 o’clock Saturday afternoon, August 15 Rev. Dr. Walter Brueggemann will give a presentation in the sanctuary of Laurel Heights United Methodist Church to consider evidence in the Bible that ancient faith lives in the midst of an economy of extraction, an arrangement that extracts wealth and labor from the vulnerable to reassign it to the powerful who dominate society. Biblical faith, in both the Old and New Testaments, commends and practices an alternative economy of restoration that intends to restore well-being those who have had their produce forcibly extracted from them. The radical witness of the Bible amounts to the practice of an alternative to those ancient economies of greed. Clearly it does not take much imagination to see how the same dynamics are at work among us concerning extraction and restoration. For Sunday’s sermon at both the 8:30 and 11 o’clock services, Dr. Brueggemann will use Psalm 111 and the gospel reading from John 6. In addition to Psalm 111, he will appeal to Psalm 112, its partner.