“Wait for it…”

(Habakkuk 1:1-4; 2:1-4)

The oracle that the prophet Habakkuk saw.

O Lord, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not listen?

Or cry to you “Violence!”  and you don’t deliver us?

Why do you show me injustice and look at anguish so that devastation and violence are before me?

There is strife, and conflict abounds.  The Instruction is ineffective; justice does not endure because the wicked surround the righteous.  Justice becomes warped.

I will stand at my watch post and station myself on the fortress;

I will keep watch to see what the Lord says to me and what he will answer concerning my complaint.

Then the Lord answered me and said:

Write the vision and make it plain upon a tablet, so that even a runner can read it.

For there is still a vision for the appointed time; it speaks of the end and does not lie.

If it delays, wait for it; it will surely come; it will not be late.

Look at the proud!  Their spirit is not right in them, but the righteous person will live honestly.

            I texted with a friend from Wellington the other day.  We don’t see each other much since I left, but we know each other’s heart.  I responded to an essay she had forwarded to me.  These words from her in response to the thoughts that had been going back and forth between us about the essay have stuck with me.  She said, “I have to say that if Christians really acted like this (as discussed in that piece), I’d have way less to argue about with God.”

            This made me think about the first section of today’s reading: “O Lord, how long will I call for help and have you not listen?  …There is strife and conflict.  The Law seems ineffective; justice does not endure because the wicked surround the righteous.  Justice becomes warped.” 

            …Today I have been somewhat guided by the Rev. Mary Barnett who wrote a commentary for this lesson from Habakkuk in the Christian Century. 

            First, though, let me quote my Old Testament Professor from way back in 1979.  He was a middle-aged German man, well-respected in the scholarly field, and I wish I could remember how he pronounced Habakkuk. He was very clear in telling us that the prophet Habakkuk and his people were dealing with these questions: “What’s going to happen to us?  And how shall we live through this time?”

The fact that Yahweh (God) doesn’t seem to act does not mean that he does not see or know.  Habakkuk asks, “How long, O Lord?”  God’s answer is “Wait.”  And in fact, in our lives we don’t often experience the revelation of God, but more often, we are frustrated by God’s hiddenness.  Sacred history, as we look back on it, often reveals how God has acted.  But when God seems hidden, we have the responsibility to rebel against the human chaos and violence that we observe; we have the right to insist upon peace and order.

            We have to remember that our faith does not constitute righteousness, but it is a mechanism by which we survive the hard times.  By relying upon God, hope and faith are what will carry us through.

As you may know, the prophet Habakkuk is not read a whole lot.  He’s not very popular.  Now, he was working in Judah, the Northern Kingdom, at the same time as the well-known prophet Jeremiah.  The two of them had very different approaches.  Jeremiah was not convinced that there was even one righteous person to be found in all of Judah.  On the other hand, Habakkuk trusted in the righteousness of the religious community.  So, keep that background in your mind as we talk more about this lesson.

One of my guides today, the Rev. Mary Bennett, as I mentioned, talks about how she was taught in seminary to avoid reading the lectionary selections as direct commentaries on what’s going on in the preacher’s world right now.  We preachers need to understand that those readings are coming out of their ancient world contexts. 

…But, who could not hear our own concerns called out in today’s Habakkuk text?  “O Lord, how long shall I cry for help, and you seem not to listen?  The wicked surround the righteous; therefore justice comes forth perverted.”  To quote Rev. Bennett, “To not hear Habakkuk’s words resonate in our current context is to be purposefully deaf.  But, still, to understand precisely what they might be saying about the nature of God and the consequences of injustice in today’s world can get complicated….”

It’s hard these days to find our own voices in order to stand up for how we hear God calling us.  Any understanding of God being the puppeteer moving us around so that evil cannot prevail—well–that’s just not working. 

…And then when we do hear God’s voice, our own interests kind of get in the way.  Is it our money or our power or other things that we hold dear?  Is it the way we were taught to be good and not bother anyone?  Is it averting our eyes when, for example, immigrants in our country are rounded up wholesale and sent back to their mostly cruel and violent lands (a situation that is, unfortunately, quite invisible to most of us)? 

So, what does energize us?  I’m afraid that we all protect our own interests.  It’s like we can’t help it.  It truly is how we are made.  Then we look around for who or what we can blame for all the bad stuff that’s going on around us, whether it be God or capitalism or anything that is out of our control…and so much is out of our control.

But, here’s the thing, Jesus calls us to repent and believe in the Gospel, that is, turn our own selves around or be turned around and take seriously what Jesus has taught us in the Gospel.  We’ve been talking a lot about the Gospel of Luke over these past few weeks, and Jesus has been pretty direct in the teachings and the parables about looking after the poor, the children, the imprisoned, and about not putting ourselves first.  He was very clear about these things. 

There is no place to stand as a hearer of the Gospel where we are not implicated.  The task of the preacher is to first hear the message of the sermon before it is ever to be preached.  That is, I am not to stand here and say, “You need to do this and that and you need to change and you need to hear the word of the Lord.”  It is always we.

We know the right way to live as God’s children–as Jesus People.  God says, “Tell the truth.”  How do I fit into this better world we’re begging for?  Speak from where we are.  Speak from the place of my assets, my degrees, my bank account.  Still, folks are gonna have trouble hearing the word. 

Habakkuk will say we must stand at our post, listening for what God has to say to you and to me.  We can’t budge from our post.  Listen to what God will answer when I register my complaint about how I think God should be answering. 

God’s answer, according to Habakkuk is this: “Write the vision, and make it plain enough so that even someone running by can see it, so that even I can see it.  And, if the answer is delayed, wait for it.” 

But don’t do nothing in the meanwhile.  Show the world what God’s mandate is for us human beings.  Understand it for yourselves.  Live as those who believe that God is watching and longing for us to be those who have been made in God’s image.  Stand up for honesty, for compassion and for love.  Stand up, folks. Stand up in whatever way you can.  Amen.