The Old Testament prophets can easily make us feel guilty as 21st Century Americans. Amos and Micah are especially hard hitting. The dynamics of our own lives is very similar to the dynamics they strongly condemn. We do well to listen to them and take their words to heart. Habakkuk is also a hard hitting prophet, but more so he takes us into a deep struggles that all people of faith have. That is, injustice occurs in the world but God doesn’t seem to do anything about it. And suffering people cry out to God but God does not seem to reply.
Let’s put Habakkuk in context. It’s impossible to date the book precisely
but internal clues strongly suggest it was written near the end of the 7th
century B.C.E. or early in the 6th century. The prophets we have looked at to this point
were from the 8th century B.C.E.
They were mostly interested in the threats posed by the Assyrian
Empire. You’ll remember that the
Assyrians did indeed conquer the northern kingdom of Israel and they seriously
threatened the southern kingdom of Judah.
Over a century has gone by and the
Assyrian Empire is waning. A new threat
was appearing on the horizon – the Babylonians, or Chaldeans as Habakkuk calls
them. The Babylonian Empire was
vast. It was growing quickly. It seemed to be gobbling up everything around
it. I’m hardly an expert in these
ancient empires, but at that time I believe Babylon was one of the most powerful
and fasting growing empires to ever develop.
Recognizing this threat, the weakening
Assyrian Empire joined forces with the Egyptian Empire to try to hold off the
Babylonians in a great battle at Charchemish in 605 B.C.E. The combined forces of both empires were not
enough to hold off the Babylonians. The
Egyptians were able to retreat and hopefully fight another day. The Assyrian Empire was effectively
ended. That left Babylon on the doorstep
of Judah. Weak and small, Judah didn’t
stand a chance against the rampaging Babylonians. It would only be a matter of time before they
were eliminated, in what would probably be (for the Babylonians) a whimper of a
battle.
That is the world prophets like
Habakkuk, Zephaniah (who we’ll look at next week), and Jeremiah give messages
to. These three prophets all have the
same basic message. Destruction is
sure. They will not be able to remain
independent for long. And why? Why would God abandon the chosen people? Why would God go back on promises made ages
before? Was God really so weak? Did God not care?
These prophets all give the answer:
the Babylonians are God’s instruments to punish them for their misdeeds and
unfaithfulness. These prophets proclaim
that God’s chosen people have become so hopelessly twisted, unfaithful, and
corrupt that God’s patience has run out.
They’re gonna get it. And perhaps
worse, they deserve it!
That’s not a nice message to have to
deliver to your own people. These
prophets were not popular in their day!
While
Habakkuk has that as the background to his message he takes it a different
direction. That different direction is
to ask God why?
We
didn’t read it, but Habakkuk 1 starts off with the prophet crying out to God
with this, “O Lord, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not
listen? Or cry to you ‘Violence!’ and
you will not save? Why do you make me
see wrongdoing and look at trouble?
Destruction and violence are before me; strife and contention
arise. So the law becomes slack and
justice never prevails. The wicked
surround the righteous – therefore judgment comes forth perverted.” Thus is Habakkuk’s question to God. How come there is so much injustice among his
own people? What is God going to do
about it?
Then
God replies! As we move through chapter
1 God says that the coming invasion by the Babylonians is God’s way of
executing justice against the corruption among his own people.
But
Habakkuk questions again. How can God,
or perhaps how dare God, use an evil enemy of his own people as the instrument
of punishment?
That
takes us through chapter 1 and to the chapter we read today. Habakkuk says, “I will stand at my watchpost,
and station myself on the rampart; I will keep watch to see what he will say to
me, and what he will answer concerning my complaint.”
And
God answers again! “Write the vision;
make it plain on tablets so that a runner may read it. For there is still a vision for the appointed
time; it speaks of the end, and does not lie.
If it seems to tarry, wait for it; it will surely come, it will not
delay. Look at the proud! Their spirit is not right in them, but the
righteous will live by their faith.”
No
one’s exactly sure what is meant by, write the vision; make it plain on tables
so that a runner may read it: But we can
easily get the gist. Make the message
big, easy to read, and enduring. The
message is a powerful one. It is a
message we Christians know well, but we don’t like to hear it.
The
message is 2:3, “For there is still a vision for the appointed time; it speaks
of the end, and does not lie. If is
seems to tarry, wait for it…” Or in
words I often say, the future belongs to God.
The future is solidly and securely held in God’s hands. There is nothing to fear no matter how bad
the present is and the future looks.
God’s got this!
In
the midst of suffering those aren’t easy words to hear. We want to have answers! We want solutions! We want a path, a plan, to move forward
with. I often tell people who are
recovering from an injury or undergoing physical therapy that if I put myself
in their shoes I think I’d be okay with the pain – no matter how bad the pain
was – as long as it was leading to improvement down the road. What I don’t say, but is very true, is that I
think I’d become discouraged if I didn’t see improvement for my efforts.
And
so the message that God holds the future securely sounds all fine and good, but
what happens when things keep getting worse?
What about when things seem to have no hope? That is why Habakkuk is told to make the
message plain on tablets – big, bold, enduring.
NO MATTER HOW BAD THINGS ARE, God still has the future! Don’t doubt it. Live in faith of it.
Indeed
we see that exact message in 2:4, “…the righteous live by their faith.”
St.
Paul picks this up multiple times in his letters. It shows up in Hebrews as well. Let’s make sure we understand. “The righteous live by their faith,” does not
mean that you hold intellectual belief in the truth of a doctrine or the
historicity of a Bible story. The
righteous live by their faith must be kept in the context that Habakkuk originally
wrote it. This is a gritty, stubborn,
not-very-pretty sort of faith. This is
the enduring faith that God sees and knows what is going on, and that God will
eventually act.
I
always want to encourage people to pray.
Pray authentically to God for everything you need. Give prayers of joy. Give prayers of need. Give prayers of anger and frustration. Be brutally honest with God! And be persistent! Never quit.
Don’t give up.
But
also don’t be surprised if you don’t get what you asked for. In the children’s sermon we talked about God
not giving you things that are harmful to you, even if you want them very
badly. That is true. Sometimes people take a more sophisticated
approach and say God didn’t answer a prayer because it didn’t fit with God’s
will. That can be true too. However, lets keep in mind Habakkuk’s
message.
Habakkuk’s
message is for all the people. It’s for
the community. It is not just for
individuals.
Sometimes
it feels like people think life is a one on one journey with God. Indeed God does know us and interact with us
as individuals. But the main message
from the Bible is that God works with communities – with the chosen people, or
with the larger church.
Yes,
when there seems to be no hope live in faith.
Trust that God holds the future secure.
But know that you aren’t alone in that belief. You don’t hold that as an individual. You hold it as part of a community.
God does have the future in hand. But the future is not about you as an individual. It is about the whole of humanity. God is not in the business of customizing individual lives for us. God is in the business of saving the world. And we are invited to be part of it. So, unanswered prayer may be because it isn’t God’s will. But remember God’s will is at a grand and universal scale. Ultimately that is best for us as individuals as well.
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