Sermon on Habakkuk, Suffering, and God’s Plan – October 6, 2019

Today we had the joy of celebrating the baptism of Gabriel Spratt at the 11:00 service. My sermon this weekend focuses on the book of Habakkuk, specifically Habakkuk 1:1-4, 2:2-4. 

I’ve learned a lot about Habakkuk this week, particularly from Rolf Jacobsen’s sermon here and Working Preacher columns from Karl Jacobsen and Kathryn Schifferdecker.

How many of you would say Habakkuk is your favorite book of the Bible? How many of you would say you’re familiar with the book of Habakkuk? Without looking, how many of you can spell the word Habakkuk?

Habakkuk is one of the minor prophets of the Old Testament-there’s 12 of them-and he’s probably living about 600 years before Jesus. This is the only time in the three-year lectionary when we hear from him. We get a few verses from chapter one, skip a bit, and then a few verses from chapter two.

Like many of the prophets, Habakkuk is living in a tough time in Israel. He starts off with a prayer of lament, “O Lord, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not listen? Or cry to you “Violence!” and you will not save?”




Then in the section we skip, Habakkuk lists some of his specific concerns. He wants to make sure God knows what’s going on.

First, he’s concerned about an invading army from Babylon, who are violently taking over places that don’t belong to them. Second, he’s concerned about evil and treachery happening around him in Israel. “Why, God, are you tolerating wicked people? Why don’t you don’t something about them?” Chapter 1, verse 13 (NIV): “Why are you silent while the wicked swallow up those more righteous than themselves?”

Again like many of the prophets, Habakkuk shows us it’s ok to complain to God. It’s ok to have questions and concerns about what God is doing or not doing. God can handle our complaints.

Now, maybe our complaints are less dramatic than invading armies. One of my complaints right now is, “Dear God, why when we’re so close to being done paying for one elevator does the other one break?”

But some of our questions are just as serious as Habakkuk’s. Why do good, hard-working farmers have their crops flooded out? Why do dementia and Alzheimer’s exist?

How come there are children who never get the chance to grow up? Why do teenagers have to die in car accidents, or school children have to fear getting shot, or neighbors die of cancer?
God, why don’t you do something?

You have your own questions for God too. O Lord, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not listen?

So Habakkuk spends the first chapter laying out some of his complaints. Then in chapter two, he declares, “I will stand at my watchpost and wait for God to answer.”

Ever done that? Have you gotten frustrated enough with God to give an ultimatum, or go on strike against God? I’ve never literally gone and just stood somewhere until God answers, but there are times when I’ve gotten pretty frustrated with what I see God allowing to happen.

“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.”

I don’t know if Habakkuk expected an answer, or if he just needed some time to be upset, but in this case, not only does God answer him, God says to write down the answer and display it. I love the image in this verse. It says, write the vision; make it plain on tablets, so that a runner may read it. Basically, put it on a billboard. Proclaim it to the world.

God’s answer goes on for 19 verses, the rest of chapter 2, and then the third and final chapter of the book is Habakkuk’s prayer responding to God.

A good portion of God’s answer is to tell the people to shape up, because a lot of the suffering in the world is attributable to human sin. If we humans would just treat each other the way God says, the world would be a lot better place.

Part of God’s response is even God turning the question around. We ask “How long shall we cry for help?” and God responds, “How long will you take advantage of your neighbors? How long will you act out of greed and selfishness, rather than service? How long will you act with violence, rather than love?”

We can see how human sin explains some of the suffering in the world, but sometimes bad things just happen. Trying to find a cause for everything is a dangerous game, because too often, there is no explanation other than the reality of living in a broken world.

And to that, God says, “Don’t give up. There is still a vision for the appointed time…if it seems to tarry, wait for it; it will surely come.” Basically, have patience, it gets better.

I don’t know if that’s the answer Habakkuk was looking for or not. Frankly, I find it pretty frustrating. I want clear explanations. And beyond that, I don’t just want to know why someone is sick, I want God to step in and cure it. I want the world to make sense to me.

But the message of Habakkuk is that God is not bound by my logic. God doesn’t promise the world will make sense, or evil won’t happen. The key phrase of the entire book of Habakkuk is right at the end of our reading: “The righteous live by their faith.”

Faith means accepting that you and I are not God. We are not the ones in charge, as much as we might want to be.

Living by faith doesn’t mean we can’t ask questions. In some ways, living by faith can make life harder, because through the lens of faith, we see the world with a new perspective, through God’s eyes.

Faith opens our eyes to the way the world is, and how far it is from the way God intended it to be. We can see the corruption, the brokenness, the suffering caused by sin. If we live by faith, we have to care about our neighbors. We can’t just accept that people suffer; our faith calls us to care and work to make a difference.

The word faith means trust. Just about every time you see the word “faith” you can replace it with “trust.” The call of Habakkuk is to live trusting in God, trusting even when we’re in the midst of tragedy, even when we have all kinds of questions, God is still God.

Sometimes we think faith means believing everything is part of God’s plan. We try to credit God with everything that happens, good or bad. That’s a misunderstanding of faith.

Maybe saying “Everything happens for a reason” seems comforting on a surface level, but sometimes things happen that are not part of God’s plan.

God does not plan for people to get cancer. God does not plan for people to fall asleep at the wheel, or for electrical faults to cause fires. If everything happens for a reason, the reason is that this world is broken by sin.

God is in the process of restoring creation to the way it was meant to be, but it’s not there yet. This is not heaven. As Christians, we know there is something better than this broken world. We believe in a future where there will be no more tears and no more suffering. We believe Jesus has defeated sin and death, even though we don’t see it yet.

That’s what God is saying to Habbakuk (and to us) – wait long enough, and I will act. The appointed time is coming. Right now, we are living in the in-between time, where we know Jesus is alive and has won the victory, but sin and evil are still realities in our world. We know death has been defeated, but people still die.

Living by faith does not mean everything in this world gets better right away, or even in our lifetimes. When you run into a tragedy in your life, faith does not fix it; faith gives you strength to get through it.

With the help of the Holy Spirit, we can trust God and live by faith no matter what happens to us, or around us, or in our world.

By chapter 3, Habakkuk listens to God’s promise, and he trusts God. The book ends with this:

Though the fig tree does not blossom,
and no fruit is on the vines;
though the produce of the olive fails,
and the fields yield no food;
though the flock is cut off from the fold,
and there is no herd in the stalls,
yet I will rejoice in the Lord;
I will exult in the God of my salvation.

Nothing seems to have changed for him; he’s still in the same situation as at the beginning when he questioned God. But now he trusts that God is with him.

Beloved of God, have faith. Trust that God is with you in whatever you are going through. Trust that God can bring good out of even the worst situations, not that God causes them, but that God can redeem them.

Trust that God has claimed you and redeemed you. You are a child of God. Trust God’s promise. Have faith.