Habakkuk

               Habakkuk is one of the prophets whose words are written as poetry.  But unlike many other prophets, Habakkuk is a prayer to God.  More than that, it follows the format of many of our psalms of lament.  Next lent I expect us to focus on the different types of psalms.  We haven’t done that yet, so to give a preview, there are many different types of psalms, and like with hymns or other kinds of poetry, the different genres of psalms follow different formats.  Psalms of lament usually include most of the following components:

               Intimate Address to God

               Complaint

               Petition

               Argument in favor of the petition

               Vengeance

               Rejoicing and praise

               The main difference between Habakkuk and another writer of a psalm of lament is that unlike the psalms, which usually offer the complaints, petitions, etc. on behalf of the speaker, Habakkuk is speaking on behalf of the people.  He was one of the Southern prophets, speaking very close to the time of the Babylonian exile, anticipating the exile, and pleading for God to intervene, to save the nation, to save the people. 

               As I listened to Habakkuk’s words, I am reminded of an exchange that I’ve seen several cartoonists recreate in which one person is complaining and loudly lamenting, “I want to yell at God and demand to know why God allows so much suffering, so much pain!  I just want to demand that God tell me why God hasn’t done anything and I want to scream at God that if God really cared, God would DO something.  I want to demand to know why God hasn’t done it!”  To which the listener to this rant asks, “Well, why don’t you?”  The original speaker responds, “Because I am certain God would ask me the same thing.”

I think this is summed up well in the words to one of my favorite praise songs, sung by Matthew West entitled “Do Something”:

I woke up this morning

Saw a world full of trouble now, thought

How’d we ever get so far down, and

How’s it ever gonna turn around?

So I turned my eyes to Heaven

I thought, “God, why don’t You do something?”

Well, I just couldn’t bear the thought of

People living in poverty

Children sold into slavery

The thought disgusted me

So, I shook my fist at Heaven

Said, “God, why don’t You do something?”

(God) said, “I did, I created YOU”

I’m so tired of talking about

How we are God’s hands and feet

But it’s easier to say than to be

We live like angels of apathy who tell ourselves

“It’s alright.  Somebody else will do something.”

Well, I don’t know about you

But I’m sick and tired of life with no desire

I don’t want a flame, I want a fire and

I wanna be the one who stands up and says

“I’m gonna do something”

We are the salt of the earth

We are a city on a hill

But we’re never gonna change the world

By standing still

No, we won’t stand still

If not us, then who

If not me and you

Right now

It’s time for us to do something

If not now, then when

Will we see an end

To all this pain

It’s not enough to do nothing

It’s time for us to do something

Habakkuk is speaking words that almost all, if not all, of us have felt at one time or another.  We, too, want God to fix the pain in the world - ideally in the way we think it ought to be fixed.  There are many times when we feel if God really loved us, really loved the world, God would surely step in and fix things.  For many this is reason enough to believe that God doesn’t exist at all.  After all, if there were a God, why wouldn’t he/she step in a fix everything?  But the response of God?  Well, according to Habakkuk, the response is, again and again, to throw it back at us.  We have been given this world, we have been blessed with unbelievable abundance, with good minds, and with each other.  We have been given all the tools we need to confront the pain in the world.  We’ve been given all the resources we need so that everyone could have enough, should have enough.  If they don’t have enough, we have no-one but ourselves to blame.  I’m reminded of the saying, “Pray as if everything were up to God.  Act as if everything were up to us.”

This is, indeed, the message of all the prophets.  A message that Jesus echoed every time he told us to love all people even our enemies, even those people we don’t understand, even those people we don’t like, as we love ourselves.   If we were experiencing hunger or oppression or pain, we would fight for better.  But we don’t do this for those among us who are, in fact, facing these things.  We don’t give to others to the same degree that we take care of ourselves.  Extremely few people do.  But that’s the call.  It’s the call of the prophets, it’s the call of Jesus.

And perhaps it is a hard message to hear.  I know it is for me.  I wonder how I can be better at not contributing to the pain and suffering of the world, how I can use my resources for the good of everyone.  None of us is wealthy by American standards.  But we are wealthy in comparison to most of the world.  How can we better use our resources to further God’s kingdom and to care for our brothers, sisters, siblings throughout the world?  How can we use our power for good?  To change the systems that oppress and keep resources from those who need them the most?

I remember in my Prophets class as a seminary student our professor telling us that all of the prophets were speaking to the elite of Israel and Judah: those who had both the power and the resources and were using it for their own gain to the great loss of those they were supposed to serve and love.  Our professor told us that while in some ways these words apply to us as well, there is a difference in that while we have many resources, most of us have very limited power. I shared with you a few weeks ago that a Princeton University study showed that public opinion has absolutely zero impact on the decisions made by our federal government.  The limited power we do have comes in the form of how we vote, and in the actions we take locally.  But still, our power is not that of the people being addressed by the prophets.  Their words were meant to convict the leadership.  Well, we know that that fails to happen.  Those in power STILL use their power to better their own positions and rarely, RARELY, consider the “least of these” as the people they most need to care for.  But as I said in my first sermon on this series, the prophets were extremely political.  They were speaking to those in power and condemning them for not caring for their own.  And while it may be a relief to know that we don’t carry that kind of power, normally, I think that we must consider that these words are being spoken to us as well.  As I was working on this sermon, my Facebook paged dinged at me and this quote popped up from the Lord of the Rings: “Some believe is it only great power that can hold evil in check, but that is not what I have found.  I found it is the small everyday deeds of ordinary folk that keep the darkness at bay… small acts of kindness and love.” 

There was a farmer who grew excellent quality corn. Every year he won the award for the best grown corn.  One year a newspaper reporter interviewed him and learned something interesting about how he grew it.  The reporter discovered that the farmer shared his seed corn with his neighbors. “How can you afford to share your best seed corn with your neighbors when they are entering corn in competition with yours each year?” the reporter asked.

“Why sir,” said the farmer, “Didn’t you know? The wind picks up pollen from the ripening corn and swirls it from field to field. If my neighbors grow inferior corn, cross-pollination will steadily degrade the quality of my corn. If I am to grow good corn, I must help my neighbors grow good corn.”

None of us truly wins, until we all win!  None are whole if we are not all whole. 

I'm reminded again of the story of Ubuntu: I am because we are.  Some children were approached by an anthropologist who said whoever could run the fastest would win a bag of candy for himself.  He put the children all on a starting line, but when he said "go!", all the children took each other's hands and ran together so they would win together.  The confused anthropologist asked them why they had done this.  The children answered that they could not be happy if even one of them was unhappy.  They had to win together because then they would all be happy together.  They understood at a much deeper level than we do that we are all interdependent. I am who I am because of all the people who have gone before me as well as all the people I now know.  We create our future together.

Today we end our series on the prophets and so there is one other piece that I want to discuss with you this morning.  Several of you have asked me after hearing these fiery words from our prophets each week if I really believe that God punishes people in the way that the prophets believed happened when the Israelites were exiled to Babylon.  I’m sure it will come as no surprise to you that I do not believe this.  Just as I do not believe in a God who will step in and fix things because that God has already given us all we need to fix it ourselves, I also believe very deeply that God is not a wrathful being who will harm or hurt us.  God wants genuine relationship with us.  Genuine relationship means that there must be freedom to be who we choose to be, act how we choose to act, and either fail or succeed at bringing love, peace, and grace to a broken world.  That leaves us then, as we reflect on the prophets, perhaps to wonder if their words of threat actually mean anything.  While I do not believe that God brings wrath upon our heads, I do think that in life there are consequences for our actions.  Our behavior changes the world.  It affects the world.  And the world is then the one that we live in and live with.  If we want a world that is kind to us, we must create that world by being kind to others.  When we fail to seek justice for one another, all of us are lessened, deeply and truly.  The call of the prophets, and the call of Jesus to love all – all creation, as we love ourselves: that is not just for the “other”.  That is for our well-being as well.  The prophets threat is real: if we do not care for one another, all will be lost.  If we do not take care of our poor, our marginalized, those we don’t want, those we don’t like, those we fear, those we ‘hate” – if we cannot learn to see them as the brothers and sisters that they are, the threat to us is real.  I don’t believe it’s because God will harm us.  God’s love for us is genuine, deep and sincere.  But if we continue to create a world in which others live in terrible ways, if we accept this as okay, as the norm: if we continue to think in terms of “us and them”  then at some point, we will be the “them” who are hurting as well.  Maybe not in our lifetimes.  Maybe it will come for our grandchildren or their grandchildren.  But it will happen.

The call of the prophets, as I have said, is the same as the call of Jesus: love God, love yourself, and love each other with all that you are and all that you have.  It’s not easy at all.  But it is simple.