The Rev. Frank Logue
King of Peace Episcopal Church
Kingsland, Georgia
October 7, 2001

Faithfulness to the Vision
Habakkuk 1:1-13; 2:1-4 

This week, we learn in scripture how small things can make a big difference. Jesus tells his disciples that if you had this much faith (hold up a mustard seed) you could tell a mulberry tree to cast itself in the sea and it would obey. A little bit of faith, just this much (showing the seed) makes a big difference. 

In the Old Testament reading, we see yet another example of how a small thing can make a big difference. The reading for today is from the book of Habakkuk. Sure, it is in the Bible, but Habakkuk will never make the bestseller list alongside giants like Genesis and Exodus or Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. The Bible itself relegates the little known book of Habakkuk to the back of the Old Testament along with eleven other slim books known collectively as the Minor Prophets.

The Minor Prophets are not called minor because they are of little value or importance. The Minor Prophets are called Minor Prophets because they wrote less. The Minor Prophets books are shorter, but no less important. This little book makes a big difference in the canon of scripture. Through Habakkuk, we learn more about God’s justice than we would know if this prophet’s words had never made it into the Bible. Habakkuk packs a wallop because he has some things to say about God’s justice that are not so easy to hear. 

What exactly is Habakkuk like? The best way I can explain it is to show how Habakkuk is a combination of some familiar forms. Like “What do you get when you cross a parrot with a 900-pound gorilla?” “I don’t know, but when he talks, you better listen.” 

Habakkuk is what you get when you cross a more traditional prophet like Amos or Isaiah with the not-afraid-to-complain-about-God-to-God’s-face character of Job. Like Amos or Isaiah, Habakkuk is righteously indignant about the moral decay of the world in which he lives. Habakkuk looks at the utter unfairness and sometimes downright evilness he sees all around him and he cries out to God with words that sound like they come from one of David’s Psalms of lament. The prophet says,  

“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.” 

Habakkuk is sick and tired of being sick and tired at the status quo he sees in Israel. Habakkuk wants God to shake things up, stop the violence, and make a dramatic stand for the poor and the oppressed. Then we get God’s reply to Habakkuk. God answers saying,

"Look at the nations, and see! Be astonished! Be astounded! For a work is being done in your days that you would not believe if you were told. For I am rousing the Chaldeans, that fierce and impetuous nation, who march through the breadth of the earth to seize dwellings not their own."

God goes on with a typical response to a prophet. God tells Habakkuk that the Southern Kingdom of Israel, which sees itself as invincible, will fall in battle to the Chaldeans. The people pervert justice and promote strife and contention. The people have turned their backs on God. So God will let a great enemy overtake the people. This is the type of judgment we read in other prophets, major and minor.  

The difference with Habakkuk is that this time the prophet gets mad at God’s answer. Habakkuk hears that God’s justice will come in the form of the Babylonian Empire of Nebuchadnezzar and the rest of his barbarous hoard out of Chaldea. Habakkuk says this is no justice at all.  

God says he will rouse the Chaldeans against Israel. That would be like telling people during the Cold War that God will rouse the Russians to sweep across America, taking it in battle. It would be like claiming that Hitler was bringing justice to Europe during the Second World War. It might have been as scandalous to Habakkuk as claiming that God’s justice was coming to America through the work of terrorists. 

What kind of justice is this? The prophet wants to know and he is not afraid to challenge God for a better answer. But note that the second time he speaks, Habakkuk changes his approach. The old “how long oh Lord, how long!” didn’t get the answer he wanted, so Habakkuk says, 

“Are you not from of old, O LORD my God, my Holy One? You shall not die. O LORD, you have marked them for judgment; and you, O Rock, have established them for punishment. Your eyes are too pure to behold evil, and you cannot look on wrongdoing;”

See how Habakkuk now sweet talks God. Surely you wouldn’t rouse those filthy Chaldeans. God you have marked the Chaldeans for judgment, how can they be the ones to bring justice to Israel. He goes on to tell God how God can’t even look on wrongdoing. Then he asks more boldly, “why do you look on the treacherous, and are silent when the wicked swallow those more righteous than they?” 

Habakkuk goes on to paint a picture of the Chaldeans as a people who prey upon other nations of the earth. The prophet refuses to accept this as God’s judgment. So Habakkuk lays it all on the line. Having complained to God, he says that he will wait, not moving until he gets a more satisfactory answer from the most high. 

“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.”

God doesn’t make the peeved prophet wait for long. Habakkuk writes, 

“Then the LORD answered me and said: 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 live by their faith.” 

God says that there is a greater vision of justice still coming. We have to wait for the greater justice. In the meantime, the righteous are to live by faith. But the translation faith is not completely right. If you look it up in a New International Version or New Revised Standard Version of the Bible you’ll see a text note suggesting faithfulness as another translation. Faith is agreement to a belief. Faithfulness is the practice of being faithful. More than just head knowledge, faithfulness comes with action. 

Let’s stop to see what we have learned. God’s metes out justice on a national scale two ways. The first is that some justice is hard-wired into creation. You cannot oppress your people forever. The rich can not always get richer while the poor get poorer. If you have an unjust nation, that nation will fall. It’s just the way the world works. As Habakkuk finds out, the unwanted side effect is that the nation that replaces the unjust one is often unjust as well. This fact of how the world works has been proved again and again through history. Great nations rise, become unjust and fall only to be replaced by yet another unjust kingdom. It’s a fallen world and any political system falls short of the peace and justice for all creation which God’s promised kingdom will bring. 

That brings us to the second form of justice. God promises that the future will bring an age of perfect peace and justice. God says that even if this vision seems far off, to wait patiently for it. There is a better way coming. We have to hold fast to that vision even when what we see all around us is an unjust world.  

We are to wait, and to watch for the promised vision to come true. As we wait, we, the righteous, are to remain faithful. We are to practice faithfulness. How can we do this and what difference would it make if we do. I want to try an analogy. 

Jesus was fond of saying, “The Kingdom of God is like….” And then he compared God’s promised kingdom to something more familiar. I offer that the Kingdom of God is like a Magic Eye picture. When you look at a Magic Eye picture, you first see jumbled shapes and colors. It doesn’t make any sense. There is also a lot of visual noise in the picture. The idea behind the Magic Eye pictures is that if you change your focus, a different picture emerges from the one you first saw. The makers say that if you focus on the distance, instead of the printed page, when you look at the picture, a three-dimensional image will rise out of the page.  

Now, I don’t know how many of you have tried these things, but they are exasperating. Magic Eye pictures can make you cross-eyed trying to see the three-dimensional picture. But, I have worked at it enough to be able to see that it does work. If you hold it just right and can force your eyes to focus on the distance with the picture close in front of you, then a new picture does emerge. Blink your eyes and it’s gone, but for just a second, you glimpse a different world. Afterwards, I look at the pictures differently, seeing something of the three-dimensional picture in the confused, flat picture on the page. 

In the same way, we can look at the jumbled mess and confusion of our world and see nothing of the Kingdom of God. But we can hold fast to God’s promise, switch our focus from the present to look for that promised future. Look at God’s vision for the world and then see how the world looks to you. You can start to get glimpses of the love, peace, and justice God promises. Even we fallible humans get it right and can be for each other a sign of the better by and by promised in scripture.  

Examples are all around us these. We see the faithfulness of a Firefighter chaplain dying as he gives last rites to a fallen comrade. The faithfulness of volunteers and city workers alike who go day after day to Ground Zero patiently working through the wreckage for they know it contains the remains of someone’s friend or family member. Here and there, we get glimpses of other people who are faithful to God’s bigger vision for our world. We get glimpses of something more than the earthly justice that comes when one corrupt nation takes over another. The acts of faithfulness we see may be small. But today is a day for finding out what a big difference a small thing can make. 

Can’t we find some faithful way of living that is different because we have glimpsed God’s vision for our world? What would the world be like if each of us were to put our mustard seed of faith into some faithful action. Even with little bits of faithfulness, we might see our world transformed to something closer to God’s vision. Our faithfulness in small things can make a big difference. 

Amen.