What Would He Say Today?
We don’t know much about the prophet Habakkuk, not even his father’s name, but we know he likely spoke during the height of Babylonian power (608-598 B.C.) and that he asked hard, searching questions. Looking at his homeland of Judah, observing the violence and injustice on every hand, he cries out to God with some difficult questions that still echo today. Why do the wicked prosper? Why are the just and faithful beaten down? Why is God and why are so many people seemingly indifferent and apathetic in the face of wickedness, injustice, exploitation, and violence? The prophet asks God (1:13) “Why do you look on the treacherous, and are silent when the wicked swallow those more righteous than they?”
January 18, 2015
Habakkuk 2.1-4, What Would He Say Today?
Pastor Doug Scalise, Brewster Baptist Church
Audio only – below[powerpress]
Habakkuk, like most of the prophets and some of us, struggled with his faith when he saw people flagrantly distort justice on every level without any fear of God. He wanted to know why God was allowing iniquity to go unpunished. Eventually Habakkuk reached the point where he could trust God even in the worst of circumstances and that trust enabled him to seek to live faithfully and to keep on pursuing justice and to go on believing in a just God in an unjust world. Habakkuk 2:1-4 states: “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. 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.”
The times in which we live are challenging and Habakkuk’s questions are still applicable and remember, he was asking his questions about his own nation, not their enemies or some other country. Habakkuk was a daring thinker who openly expressed his doubt to God based on what he was seeing among the people from the highest leaders to the ordinary folks in the land. One wonders what Habakkuk might say today looking at our nation. While it may make us uncomfortable, we cannot escape the message of the prophets, it would be less than faithful on our part to ignore what God is saying to us not only individually but as a nation through God’s word. This weekend we also remember Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, who like Habakkuk had a lot to say about justice and faith.
At a time when God’s vision of establishing justice is not yet reality, Habakkuk calls us to join him in trusting God, remaining faithful, and advocating for justice. The prophet and people are directed to maintain a faithful commitment to God’s justice and to persist in God’s principles, even when that justice seems to be absent from the world around us. The poet Wendell Berry wrote, “Be joyful though you have considered all the facts.” The righteous, the truly faithful, those who long for and work for justice not just in their own lives but in their nation as well, they will receive the strength to go on, not because the world is just (it isn’t) and not because the world rewards those who work for justice (it doesn’t – it often hurts or kills them like Rev. Dr. King), but because these persons possess a larger vision of the way things should be.
The tension between the idea of a just God and the world we live in is often stretched to the breaking point. It was for Habakkuk and other faithful Jews in the 6th century B.C., it was for persecuted Christians in the Roman Empire. It has been especially for African Americans throughout most of our nation’s history. It still is for many people today and each tragedy, whether individual or communal, national or international revives this tension and reminds us to remember Habakkuk’s vision of faithful and steadfast endurance – such as that shown by people through the ages like Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
I encouraged people last week to see the movie Selma which is about the Civil rights movement and the difficult effort to secure the right for African Americans to vote in Alabama in 1965. Too many people either forget or don’t know that while African Americans have been in North America for some 400 years for most of that time the vast majority of them were slaves, couldn’t own property, had no legal rights that a white person was obligated to respect, were systematically disenfranchised, discouraged from learning to read or get an education, had their families broken up and children or spouses sold so that even when they got married it was said “until death or distance do you part.” They were terrorized both by representatives of the government and hostile citizens and frequently killed without consequences for the perpetrator. We may not like to hear all that, but it is not an opinion – those are the facts of our history that we need to know because that history still influences relationships, dynamics, and institutions in our nation today.
“During the less than 13 years of Rev. Dr. King, Jr.’s leadership of the modern American Civil Rights Movement, from December, 1955 until April 4, 1968, African Americans achieved great progress toward racial equality in America. Rev. Dr. King, a Baptist pastor from Georgia, is widely regarded as America’s pre-eminent advocate of nonviolence and one of the greatest nonviolent leaders in world history. Drawing inspiration from both his Christian faith and the peaceful teachings of Mahatma Gandhi, Dr. King led a nonviolent movement in the late 1950’s and ‘60s to achieve legal equality for African-Americans in the United States. Martin Luther King, Jr. used the power of words and acts of nonviolent resistance, such as protests, grassroots organizing, and civil disobedience to achieve seemingly-impossible goals. He went on to lead similar campaigns against poverty and international conflict, maintaining faithfulness to his principles that men and women everywhere, regardless of color or creed, are equal members of the human family.”[1]
I wonder what Rev. Dr. King, a Baptist pastor, who went to Boston University School of Theology to earn his doctorate, would say to our nation today if he were still preaching, especially in light of some of the stories that have been in the news in the last year with which we’re all familiar. Since Dr. King’s murder almost 50 years ago, there has been significant progress in terms of some issues related to race yet in other ways we seem to be stuck replaying the same kind of issues that existed before I was born. While I don’t know exactly what Rev. Dr. King, Jr. might say, I want to share ten things he did say in the order in which they were spoken during his 13-years as a public figure that defined what he stood for that the church and our country would do well to remember and heed.
In an address at Holt Street Baptist Church, Montgomery, Alabama, 1955, “We are not wrong, we are not wrong in what we are doing. If we are wrong, the Supreme Court of this nation is wrong. If we are wrong, the Constitution of the United States is wrong. And if we are wrong, God Almighty is wrong. If we are wrong, Jesus of Nazareth was merely a utopian dreamer that never came down to Earth. If we are wrong, justice is a lie, love has no meaning. And we are determined here in Montgomery to work and fight until justice runs down like water, and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
On April 16, 1963 in his Letter from Birmingham Jail, which is something everyone should read at least once, he famously stated, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” In the 1963 book, Strength to Love he challenged all of us with these strong words, “The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy. The true neighbor will risk his position, his prestige, and even his life for the welfare of others.”
Speaking in Detroit on June 23, 1963, “There are some things so dear, some things so precious, some things so eternally true, that they are worth dying for. And I submit to you that if a man has not discovered something that he will die for, he isn’t fit to live.”
In probably his most famous speech at the Lincoln Memorial on August 28, 1963 he declared, “We refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. And so, we’ve come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice. We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of Now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God’s children.”
On the occasion of accepting the Nobel Peace Prize, December 10, 1964
“I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. That is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant.”
In a sermon at Temple Israel of Hollywood in June 1965, “We’ve been in the mountain of war. We’ve been in the mountain of violence. We’ve been in the mountain of hatred long enough. It is necessary to move on now, but only by moving out of this mountain can we move to the promised land of justice and brotherhood and the Kingdom of God. It all boils down to the fact that we must never allow ourselves to become satisfied with unattained goals. We must always maintain a kind of divine discontent.”
Speaking to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference on August 16, 1967, “When our days become dreary with low-hovering clouds of despair, and when our nights become darker than a thousand midnights, let us remember that there is a creative force in this universe, working to pull down the gigantic mountains of evil, a power that is able to make a way out of no way and transform dark yesterdays into bright tomorrows. Let us realize the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.”
In a sermon at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta on February 2, 1968
“We all have the drum major instinct. We all want to be important, to surpass others, to achieve distinction, to lead the parade. … And the great issue of life is to harness the drum major instinct. It is a good instinct if you don’t distort it and pervert it. Don’t give it up. Keep feeling the need for being important. Keep feeling the need for being first. But I want you to be the first in love. I want you to be the first in moral excellence. I want you to be the first in generosity.”
In his final speech at Bishop Charles Mason Temple in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 3, 1968 the night before he was killed, “Well, I don’t know what will happen now. We’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn’t matter with me now. Because I’ve been to the mountaintop. And I don’t mind. Like any man, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people will get to the promised land. And I’m happy, tonight. I’m not worried about anything. I’m not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.”
On Thursday protestors associated with the activist group Black Lives Matter blocked Interstate 93 in Boston in both directions during the morning rush hour to try and bring attention to their cause. I question whether what they did converted anyone to their position. I know I have to be careful in saying this as a white person, but I think even the slogan Black Lives Matter is a tactical mistake. I think the point to be emphasized is that All Lives Matter – Black lives and white lives, red lives and yellow lives, lives of every hue and color; Republican, Democrat and Independent lives; African lives and European lives, Asian and Australian lives, South American and North American lives. Poor lives, rich lives, healthy and addicted lives, gay lives and straight lives, educated and uneducated lives, old and young lives, atheist and Christian and Jewish and Muslim and Hindu and Sikh lives – all lives and all life matter to God and should matter to us and until they do things are not going to change for the better.
God’s will is not going to be done on earth as it is in heaven until humans beings get over their narrow, ignorant, racist, prejudiced, hateful, parochial views and grasp what God has been trying to communicate from the beginning: all lives matter to God and are of tremendous value and are to loved, cared for and respected. Like Rev. Dr. King we want to be found with those who believe that men and women everywhere, regardless of color or creed, are equal members of the human family and deserve to live with justice and freedom.
Prayer – an updated version of a prayer by my grandfather Rev. Victor F. Scalise Calvary Baptist Church, Lowell, MA July 12, 1967.
Infinite Lord of Creation, you have created all that is and all that is to be. Your Spirit pervades the whole universe of reality. You are so great that the heavens of heavens cannot contain you, yet you’re so small that you dwell in the human heart.
In a world that has become so small we must learn that the heart must become larger to take the whole world in. Help us to understand that there are no strangers in your created world to you – for we are all your children – white, black, yellow, or red.
Help us to put away all our small prejudices, petty reservations, and blind obsession against our fellow human beings and let us meet them in love so that together we may able to build a better world, a finer society, and enduring relationships through your love, through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.
Questions for Reflection or Discussion
Habakkuk cries out to God with some difficult questions: Why do the wicked prosper? Why are the just and faithful beaten down? Why is God and why are so many people seemingly indifferent and apathetic in the face of wickedness, injustice, exploitation, and violence? How do we answer those questions?
How do we believe in just God in an unjust world?
If Habakkuk and Rev. Dr., Martin Luther King were still preaching and speaking today what sort of issues do you think they’d be addressing?
What do you think they might be challenging the church and followers of Jesus to do?
Which of the quotes by Rev. Dr. King do you find the most convicting for your life of faith?
Which of the quotes by Rev. Dr. King do you find the most inspiring for your life of faith?
[1] – See more at: http://www.thekingcenter.org/about-dr-king#sthash.oo4SyJeM.dpuf