Proper 22 – October 3, 2010

Habakkuk 1:1-4; 2:1-4

It’s not every Sunday we get a Lectionary text from Habakkuk.  In fact, this is pretty much it, though the same text is also an option for Proper 26 here in a month or so.  My first observation is that this is one of those broken-up readings with a big chunk out of the middle, which is always a signal to me: Read the part that’s left out!  It’s probably important – or at least illuminating.

The opening verses tell us there’s serious stuff going on.  “How long shall I cry to you for help, and you will not listen?”  In effect, this prophet is taking God to task for God’s failure to save his people from suffering at the hands of others.  The prophet says he’s cried “Violence!” (as in, “Look!  Right there – did you see that?!”) and God has just stood by.  The result, says the prophet, not beating around the bush, is that God’s law “becomes slack.”  I like that image – like a rope that’s not tied to anything, so that when you pull it nothing happens.  The prophet also complains that God’s judgment is “perverted”—God’s people have for some reason become the target of God’s judgment instead of its beneficiaries.  Habakkuk has thrown down the gauntlet, and this is one reason I love the Old Testament: because God’s people aren’t afraid to tell God when they think God has failed them.  Also, they don’t have this preconception that we American Protestants have so much of the time, that God is just always supposed to be nice.  Habakkuk is not letting God off the hook.

But in verses 5-11 (excluded from the Lectionary reading), we hear God’s comeback: God isn’t going to let the people off either.  God is “rousing the Chaldeans” (the Babylonians) to come and tear Judah down.  Make no mistake, God doesn’t like the Babylonians one bit: “Their justice and dignity proceed only from themselves…their own might is their god!”  They’re like a big tornado that just violently rips apart everything in its path.

In verse 12, Habakkuk responds, and you can see why I say we’re missing something by not reading this section – this is an ongoing dialogue between the prophet and God, and there’s a real pathos to it.  The prophet reflects on God’s nature – eternal, just – so why is God standing idly by?  He says God’s people are like fish just swimming around in the wide, chaotic ocean so any fisherman can indiscriminately net them to feed his own belly.  Habakkuk challenges God again:  “Is he then to keep on emptying his net, and destroying nations without mercy?!”

Now that we have an idea of the kind of back-and-forth that Habakkuk and God have been having here, I think we can appreciate the second part of the Lectionary text a bit more.  Habakkuk, for all his frustration, anger, and near-despair, is not giving up on God.  “I will stand at my watchpost, and station myself on the rampart; I will keep watch to see…what he will answer concerning my complaint.”  And in 2:2-4, God answers.  To our ears (we who want to see something happen, now), God’s answer may be something of a letdown, because God doesn’t say, “OK, Here I am!”  God says, Wait.  Trust.  There is still a vision for God’s people, and it will come about at the right time.  If it seems like it’s not coming, just keep waiting.  Keep trusting in God.  That is the essence of faith – ultimately, we have to hang in like Habakkuk and take God at God’s word.

2 Timothy 1:1-14

            I notice several repeating words in this text: shame, suffering, gospel, and power.  I call attention to them because they’re not words that we necessarily think of as going together, yet for the author of 2 Timothy they are intertwined in important ways. 

The author reminds his younger protégée in ministry, in verse 7, that God has given us a spirit of power, not cowardice.  And how is that power acted out?  In not being ashamed of the testimony about Jesus or of those who suffer for his sake (verse 8).  (The author of 1 & 2 Timothy purports to be Paul in prison; but the vocabulary, style, and concerns of these letters differ in significant ways from Paul's other letters.)  Why would we be ashamed of the testimony about Jesus, or those who suffer for him?  Because the “testimony about Jesus” is essentially that God’s world-changing self-revelation was to be crucified in the person of Jesus – not a show of power, but of weakness.  And having your leader in prison perhaps isn’t the kind of calling-card you want for your fledgling religious movement.  So we might be tempted to cower a bit in the face of the world’s displays of power, the world’s notions of success.

The author says we’re not to be ashamed, though, because we rely on God’s power.  And it was through God’s power that the crucified Jesus became the risen Christ, “who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.” (verse 10)  The deep irony is that we find our power precisely in embracing the weakness at the heart of our story.

Luke 17:5-10

            I’ve always thought this was an odd choice for a Lectionary Gospel reading.  In my NRSV Bible, the heading over the section that includes this text is, “Some Sayings of Jesus.”  (I imagine the Bible translation people saying, “We gotta call it something.”)  Then, too, we don’t get all the sayings, just some of them.  I think it’s helpful to look at what comes right before this text.  Jesus has just told the disciples that they have to keep on forgiving people who hurt them, even seven times a day (verse 4).  So it’s no wonder that the “apostles” (the inner circle of Twelve) then say, “Lord increase our faith!”  As in, we’re going to need a bigger budget to accomplish what you’re asking.  And Jesus says this thing about the mustard seed, that the tiniest bit of faith has limitless power.  I think what Jesus is getting at is that it’s not about quantity but quality – it’s not about how much faith we have, but rather what our faith is in.  I think back to the Habakkuk reading: faith is about hanging in with God, continuing to stay engaged with God in spite of our frustrations and disappointments, waiting for God.  I think again about the 2 Timothy reading: faith is about relying on God’s power which looks so different from our own.

            With that in mind, it kind of makes sense that the next “saying” follows in verses 7-10.  Though these verses have a harsh ring to them ("We are worthless slaves!"), I think what Jesus is getting at is that faith, discipleship, isn’t about us – it’s about God.

Works Consulted

Notes to the readings in the HarperCollins Study Bible

Studying the Old Testament: A Companion, by Rhonda Burnette-Bletsch (good book by a good friend)