Habakkuk 1:2-11

History has been rather stingy where Habakkuk is concerned. We know nothing about the prophet other than what is credited to him in the three chapters. From them we know that he lived roughly during the time of Jeremiah, a crucial period in the life of the people who saw themselves as God’s chosen nation. Even Habakkuk’s name is uncertain, for the Greek text calls him Ambakoun.

The book of Habakkuk owes its present form to the needs of the worshiping community. Not only does it include a couple of disturbing prayers and responses, but it also has five threats against evil ones and a majestic hymn. Twice within the threats we are required to purify our minds from even the hint of self-exaltation. Once we are assured that the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters fill the sea, and later we hear that the Lord is in the holy temple, and in hushed expectation we are urged to let all the earth keep silence in such presence.

The use of this book in worship long ago suggests that ancient Israelites faced life’s difficulties much more openly than the contemporary church is willing to do. We live in an age when easy answers are served on silver trays for hungry souls, a time when religious charlatans amass fortunes by appealing to the human desire for simple solutions to life’s perplexing problems. While we spend our waking hours engaging in petty infighting over trivial matters like whether or not the Bible has any historical errors, the whole world suffers poverty, disease, and loneliness. Perhaps Habakkuk can expose this sorry spectacle masquerading as true religion and point us to the way we can see beyond our own petty struggles.

The prophet experienced a crisis in his religious conviction. He could not understand why foreigners freely suppressed the people of God. Having been taught that the nation was especially chosen, he saw no evidence that such was the case. Rather than surrendering his religious convictions, he took them to God in prayers. His was no ordinary prayer, but one filled with doubt and perplexity. Habakkuk begins with a universal cry: “How long?” What he really wants to know is whether or not God cares what happens to the chosen people. “How long will you stand idly by while cruel men spill blood?” Of course, this cry echoes through the corridors of human history: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” From early Christians who were facing death for others’ sport, to women accused or witchcraft, to Jews in Europe and African-Americans in the United States, and GLBT folks everywhere, the same cry has bounced off the heavens. This is the awful request for information: “Will it never end?” “Can we count on help at some time in the future?” If so, perhaps we can hold on just a few days longer. Is there any hope left for us? In our own way, who among us has not uttered Habakkuk’s heartrending prayer?

Astonishingly, the prophet answers his question in a manner that only increases his anxiety. Habakkuk becomes convinced that God is actually rousing a nation that will punish the Assyrians, who brought about the prophet’s complaint in the first place. However, these Babylonians will be even crueler taskmasters. In this instance, the treatment is worse than the disease itself. Habakkuk imagines that these mighty Babylonians will be cruel beyond belief, and that they will be irresistible as well. If he thinks justice has become twisted under the present circumstances, it will become that much more so when the Babylonians arrive, for they establish their own brand of justice, and they worship their own might.

Small wonder that the prophet wanted to understand why God strengthens such cruel people. So we hear a second prayerful complaint from his trembling lips: “Why do you allow relatively good people to fall at the hands of those who are more wicked than they?” The prophet knows that his own people are far from perfect, but he also knows that some of them try to practice common decency. Why, then, must they die when their murderers are totally devoid of goodness? This, too, is the universal cry when innocents perish and worthless people thrive. Is there one among us who has not uttered this cry at some time or other? It is a protest against wasted lives, the early death of a loved one who might have brought so much happiness to others, now forced to endure great loss for no apparent reason. At its very heart this is a question about the way God runs the world. From our perspective, God is not doing a very good job.

It seems that Habakkuk is not sure how to answer this difficult question, for he gets mixed up about whether the answer is a vision or an oracle, something seen or heard. Furthermore, the text is awfully corrupt, so that we cannot be sure exactly what it means. One thing is clear; the prophet believes that survival depends on being faithful to God. The operative word is simple: righteous people will live by being faithful. In other words, he realizes that God’s actions defy human understanding, but he also believes that this is no reason to give up in despair. Therefore he concludes that even this mysterious God deserves his trust in spite of everything.

We have not heard the last of Habakkuk’s frustration. Convinced that evil people will eventually pay for their deeds, he endeavors to find comfort in thoughts about their downfall. The scenario consists of five acts: 1) plunderers will be despoiled; 2) houses built by force will cry out; 3) towns constructed by bloodshed will go up in smoke; 4) those who give others wine for lecherous purposes will drink the cup of God’s wrath; 5) idols are dumb, lifeless, and cannot reveal anything.

Naturally, these threats function to reinforce Habakkuk’s religious convictions, which have suffered as a result of current events. The final hymn also offers another reason for trusting God. It describes the God of sacred memory who fought at Israel’s side. Although Habakkuk realizes that times have changed and such a God is no longer believable, he wishes to keep the memory alive. Thus he pictures God doing battle with the Egyptians and the Canaanites, a memory so compelling that Habakkuk shakes with terror, and so realistic that he decides to wait in hope for God to live up to what others have said about the Ancient of Days. Again, who among us has not experienced the disparity between what we have been taught about God and what we actually experience as real? And yet we continually surrender to the power of sacred memory, reciting the story anew in the hope that the very telling of the story will make it come true.

This book closes with one of the most remarkable statements in the Bible: Even if the fig tree fails to blossom, and no fruit appears on the vines, the produce of the olive fails and fields yield no food, small animals are cut off from the fold, and cattle are missing from the stalls, yet I will exult in Yahweh, I will rejoice in the God of my salvation. The prophet who has just had his religious convictions shattered by reality speaks the unspeakable, utters the great “nevertheless” of faith. I may have no food in the pantry and no prospects of any, yet I will still praise the Lord - nay, more than that, I will truly experience joy in the God who defies human understanding.

The older I get, the less certain I become about everything, particularly the profound mysteries of life. That is true even though others around me seem to harbor no doubt about the things we have been taught from childhood. I watch as human beings suffer and die, and I can see no evidence that good people enjoy God’s special favor. Indeed, it often seems that persons with sensitive hearts bear their own form of the Cross of Calvary, and that stark reality forever fills my lips with the two questions Habakkuk laid in God’s lap: How long?” and “Why?”

The suffering that I see on every hand is only half the picture, however; for I also witness acts of love and caring that equally defy understanding. That is the secret to the amazing power of sacred memory, and that is why we who dare to ask God about the way the universe is run also life our eyes in adoration and praise. In the final analysis, the prophet who came to question God tarried to worship. That is what I invite you to do today.

Over the years that I’ve served as a minister, I’ve noticed that when people experience trouble in their lives, they tend to absent themselves from public worship. It’s not always the case, but many of us stay away from church in times of trouble. You’d think that people would come when they’re troubled, if no other time. But sometimes we feel that our agony and tears don’t belong among the shining faces on Sunday morning. Or maybe when we’re miserable, we just don’t feel presentable anywhere.

This being the case for so many, it is something of a shock to hear characters in the Bible venting negative emotions - grief, anger and bitter complaint. - to God. A whole section of the psalms is devoted to cries of grief and pleas for vindication. Scholars call them psalms of lamentation. Lamentation? I thought church was for praise and thanksgiving. Habakkuk shatters this impression with his questions: “How long shall I cry for help and you will not hear? Or cry to you, ‘Violence!’ and you will not save?”

Sometimes, constrained by a sense of what’s proper, permissible and prudent, we withhold - even deny - our true emotions. We may do this out of respect for others, and there’s nothing wrong with respect. But we may also be avoiding the risk of honest encounter. Habakkuk takes the risk, places his brief before God and finds a high-profile perch from which to see what will happen next.

In the Bible, salvation is always about rescue, but not necessarily rescue from sin and death. Sometimes it’s rescue from unfair accusation and calumny. Habakkuk and his generation waited for deliverance from the bloody violence of the neo-Babylonian Empire and vindication of their integrity.

Up in his watch tower, Habakkuk waits. And he does not wait in vain. God answers him: “Here is a vision by which you can live. Write it down and write it big. Put it on a neon billboard along the expressway so that even the speeders can’t miss it. This is what you’ll tell them; ‘There is a day coming when the innocent will be vindicated. If it seems slow in arriving, wait for it. You hear? Wait for it. Meanwhile, if you would be found among the righteous, then you shall live by faith.’”

What does it mean to live by faith? We can still affirm that God’s activity in the world is related to our expectation and our willingness not just to wait, but, while waiting, to live by faith.

To all who wait faithfully, the Russian poet Konstantin Simonov, a survivor of the Gulag speaks:

Wait for me, and I’ll return
Only wait very hard.
Wait. For I’ll return, defying every death.
And let those who do not wait, say that I was lucky.
They never will understand that in the midst of death,
You with your waiting saved me.
Only you and I know how I survived.
It’s because you waited, as no one else did.

The Rev. Esther Hargis
February 25, 2001

© 2001, Esther Hargis

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