What do you see – out on the landscape? If you were asked to describe how the last couple days have looked, how the year has looked, what the world looks like right now . . . A time of turmoil. The superpowers are changing. Corruption is on the increase, including both political and religious leaders. Wars continue. It seems like the rich get richer and the poor are getting poorer. Legal justice seems slow or corrupt in coming. I cannot tell you what you see, but this was the outlook of the prophet Habakkuk, in Judah around 600 BC, and maybe it isn't that different from our own.
I think sometimes it is easy to see words in the bible, even dialogues, between people, or people and God, as these blank, dry, historical moments. I picture dusty scenes from movies like the “Ten Commandments,” and outdated language like the King James version, spoken in predictable ways. But this prophet in our first reading today, Habakkuk, he cries out words of brutal honesty toward God. Who hasn't had some of these thoughts?
“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 justice comes forth perverted”
Maybe Habakkuk's questions seem a little far from you because of their dramatic fashion. They are bitter, cynical, questions. But this is real, everyday stuff, the sharp rocks under our feet on the journey of faith. Because who hasn't waited for an answer from God, or wondered if God is listening. Who has not cried out for relief and wondered why it isn't coming. We recognize suffering in ourselves and others, but sometimes we are afraid to even admit it and ask these questions. We think these “why” questions are diabolical, rebellious, and not very faithful or trusting in God. We've all asked these questions, haven't we. Why do we suffer? Where is God? Habakkuk asked them too.
It is so affirming to me that we have scriptures that don't ignore suffering or give some pat answer, but wrestle with it, and invite us to ask these questions to God.
So Habakkuk gives this list of lamenting questions to God, and then goes on to describe in more detail the current landscape that is falling around him. And then, when our reading picks up again, at the beginning of chapter 2, Habakkuk goes even further. Having made his complaint to God, he decides to wait – call God on it – and climb the wall of the city and wait on the watchpost. He says “I will stand at my watchpost, and station myself on the rampart; I will keep watch to see what God will say to me, and what God will answer concerning my complaint.” Habakkuk is bold. Not only does he ask God brutally honest questions, but he climbs up and waits, watches, for an answer. Can't you picture him – in the watchtower – stubborn, frustrated, desperately waiting for an answer from God?
Habakkuk asks God questions about suffering that we still have today. And God doesn't just reprimand Habakkuk or give him some simple answer. Because I don't think an answer would even be enough. What would you do with an answer to the question of suffering? It wouldn't change anything. What does change us is relationship. So God responds not with analysis or flat answers, but promises. God gives Habakkuk a promise, a vision of the future, that does not lie. And God's promises change him. They change us.
Habakkuk who was despairing, who saw no life around him, now proclaims even despite the world around him, the righteous live by faith. And what is faith? Trust, the assurance of things unseen, trust in God's promises. Faith is something that happens to you, in you, when God makes you promises.
Promises that change how you look at the landscape around you. Now I want for a moment to picture yourself, up on the watchtower. You are told to keep the night watch and not to leave your post. You do not know what to look for. Maybe you are supposed to look for danger, for some attacking force, for hints of revolt – who knows – it could be a scary place to be. Either that or up there on the watchtower you'd just get bored because there doesn't seem to be any point.
But what if you were sent up to that watchtower with a promise – it's coming, just watch. You would trust this promise, that something is coming, and it would change the entire way you view the landscape. Looking out from the tower now, every strong wave of movement in the grass, every new or different looking person, everything – would be seen in light of the coming promise. Oh! Is that it? Maybe it's a sign, a glimpse, of what's coming.
Look at the world today, look at the newspapers, and it is easy to see suffering, or apathy, or disunity. But you are not just anyone – you are my brothers and sisters in Christ, and you have been given a promise, a vision of the future, just as Habakkuk was. In your baptism God promised you eternal life, sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked by the cross of Christ forever. So go ahead, cry out to God, ask God the hard questions. But when you look out over the world, baptized child of God, filled with God's promises, what do you see? We see war in Afghanistan, but we also see the Lutheran World Relief Ingathering and Project Comfort sending almost 23 thousand quilts in 2009, to comfort those in need. We see unrest between Israel and Palestine, but we see schools in Jerusalem where the ELCA's young adults in global mission teach children of all faiths under one roof. We see unemployment and need in Lancaster, but we also see community meals, welcoming people, faces instead of figures. God's promises change how the landscape looks, because sealed with the cross of our savior, we are never the same. It does not mean we do not see the harsh reality out there, but that we know God's promise for the future, that the promise does not lie, and God is in control. There are signs, glimpses of God's promises, of what is to come.
Ask God the hard questions. But then wait, watch. Climb up and look out – examine what you see for hints of God's presence and promise. Even in all that might swirl around you, God is right there. God has given you faith, which is not some abstract, but how you live. You live by trusting the promises ahead, waiting and watching even in this very moment. Living in faith, God's promises change the way the landscape looks. Martin Luther reminds us of where God is in suffering – you “godly people are waiting for the Lord; therefore [you] live, therefore [you] are saved, therefore [you] receive what has been promised. [You] receive it by faith, because [you] hold the hand of the Lord.”
What a relief its all so simple Amen-1
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