Its appointed time… a meditation on Habakkuk & God’s wonderous ways

“…the vision is for its appointed time…” 
--Habakkuk 2:3

“Pestilence goes before Him

and Plague follows close behind.” Habakkuk 3:5

Its appointed time.  I like that.  The assurance that there is an appointed time and that what is to be revealed will be revealed when God wills it. There is great assurance in that phrase, even if it also feels a little like a warning.  There is a vision, and it has an appointed time.  That implies someone to view that vision (a prophet) and a time to reveal that vision to the world (a prophetic moment).  This very short book feels like a miniature Job.  It is 3 chapters long, and begins with the prophet demanding answers from God:

How long am I to cry for help while you will not listen?...
Why do you countenance oppression?... contention and
discord flourish… the law loses its grip… the wicked
outwit the upright and justice comes out perverted!” (1:1-4)

Followed by an enigmatic response from the Lord that includes a fearsome vision of destruction, pestilence and plague, and then almost abruptly, the prophet’s demands fade and we hear one of the most beautiful psalms in all of scripture.

As with Job—it is that strange, enigmatic (and somewhat frightening) vision of God’s glory that leaves me pondering. In both books, the vision God reveals is so awesome it seems frightening. God tells Habakkuk that He is about to do something “which you will not believe.” The Lord is stirring up the Chaldeans “that fierce and fiery nation”(1:6) to come and seize Jerusalem; they with their horses fast as leopards and fiercer than wolves at night (1:8) will come with their nets to scoop up their prisoners and drag them away to be devoured. 

What are we to make of a God who promises to stir up our enemies against us?  That is one of the questions Habakkuk wants God to answer.  Yes, Jerusalem has grown corrupt, her leaders become oppressors, and her merchants have begun cheating the poor and the vulnerable, but what about those poor and vulnerable, the innocent and the faithful? Won’t they too be gathered up in the Chaldean net like so many fish in a dragnet?  Won’t they suffer, too? Is that justice? Is that love?  In desperation, the prophet cries out: Even in Your wrath, remember mercy! (3:2).

And here I am 2700 years later, morning coffee and Covid mask easily within reach; pleading for the same thing. Contemplating going back to my library and classrooms, fearful of stepping outside the cocoon of “isolation” and distancing, I too want to cry out:  Remember mercy, Oh Lord. Like the prophet, I too am wondering what God is up too.  Because things don’t look fair, the world doesn’t seem just.  The enemy is at the gate and they’ve brought their nets!  Every day there are new totals of the sick and the dead.  Everyday there is some new opinion from someone about what should be done and an oped piece telling us why the experts are wrong! I read headlines about people or companies getting rich off the pandemic. And about people and families losing their jobs and homes. And political leaders claiming they can’t do anything to help.  The world feels like it is falling apart.  And though here at my house, we have plenty of toilet paper, plenty of coffee, peanut butter and refried beans in abundance, I fear my resources are waning. My sense of security falters, my hopefulness wavers, my goodwill fades under the constant sense of dread and anxiety fueled by the endless cycle of bad news: the virus, the politicians, the economy, and on top of that it is Summer in Houston!!  Aaargh!  Please, God! Remember mercy! And while Your at it, could send us some rain?

But then we come to that strangely beautiful ending:

“Though the fig tree blossom not

nor fruit be on the vines,

though the olive crop fail

and the fields yield no food;

though the sheep disappear from the fold

and no cattle in the stalls,

Yet will I rejoice in the Lord,

and exult in my God, my savior.” (3: 17-18)

Even when everything is against him, when there is nothing left to celebrate or rejoice in, the prophet says: Still I will rejoice in the Lord.

And the more I contemplate this powerful little book, the more I sense that is the real lesson of not only this prophet, but perhaps all the prophets. Rejoice in the Lord, even when things look bad, even when the world is falling apart, even when you have nothing left in the cupboard and the enemy is at the gate and he’s brought his friends: plague and pestilence with him… Yet will I rejoice in the Lord.

Perhaps the lesson is also a lesson of perspective.  How are you going to look at the difficulties in your life? What will you learn from them? Will they teach you despair? Will they teach you cruelty? Defensiveness? Selfishness? Or will you learn patience and endurance? Or will you let them teach you something even better: humility and faith?

It isn’t easy, but I am going to try and learn to praise God even when my stalls are empty and my fields are barren.  Even when the Instacart person brings me the wrong ice-cream! And it’s half melted!! I am going to try and learn to rejoice in the Lord…

And it all goes back to that “appointed time.” The assurance that God is in charge, and that there is a plan, an appointed time when all will be revealed and all will be made clear and beautifully, mercifully, better than anything we could imagine.  The vision will be revealed in “its appointed time.” And until then we have a practice we need to work on: gratitude, patience, humility, faith. Even when things look their worst, we rejoice in the Lord. Not because we are blind to the suffering, but because we are –each and every one of us—candles lit with the flame of God, called to set the world on fire! And so we rejoice in the Lord, exult in our savior.  That is how we share the light we’ve been given to share. Because that is what we were made for.

Read Habakkuk –you can finish the whole thing in less than 15 minutes. And then, take a little time to let the words seep down into your soul. You may find this ancient little work sticks with you, haunts you for days, weeks, after. Heck, it may even change your life.

Jonah & the comedy of Faith

“Man and beast shall be covered with sackcloth
and call loudly to the Lord…” (Jonah 3:8)

The book of Jonah is collected with the prophecies of the Minor Prophets in the Old Testament, but it contains no actual prophecy, instead it is a comical short story about what it means to be a prophet.  It is such a simple story it feels like a fable. And because it is so very familiar to all of us with its story of a man swallowed by a whale, we feel like we know it, even if we’ve never read a word of it.  But, I challenge you to open your Bible and find it (between Obadiah and Micah) and take a few minutes to read it.  It truly is a SHORT story. Four brief chapters, in my New Jerusalem Bible Jonah takes up two pages; if the print in your Bible is larger it may stretch to three. But you can definitely read this story in about 10 minutes.  I highly recommend it. Ten minutes will rarely be spent more productively and delightfully.

It is a masterpiece of comedy. A satire about an unwilling prophet and his efforts to escape God’s call, it also contains a beautiful message of hope about the mercy of God and His transcendent love. 

The basics of the story are this: God calls Jonah to go to Nineveh and preach to them about their wickedness. Nineveh was the capital of Assyria, a nation that had been terrorizing the world (and the Israelites) for a century or more, sacking, looting, plundering, dragging people off to slavery and worse.  Jonah doesn’t want to go, so he runs away from God’s call and tries to hide in a distant land. That is where the whale comes in and before long Jonah is spit out on the shore and walking the streets of Nineveh proclaiming that the end is near!  But the people of Nineveh hear this and take it to heart and they repent and God relents and shows them mercy and Jonah falls down in the dirt like an angry child and says: See!  I knew you were going to do that! That’s why I didn’t want to come here in the first place.

What I find so fascinating in this tale isn’t the famous whale that swallows the prophet and vomits him up on the beach, but the depiction of a man (Jonah) trying to escape God’s call, because he thinks he knows better.  There is a great deal of spiritual sustenance to be found in this tale. Heck, even Jesus found it important enough to mention it a couple of times.  But, you have to read it yourself.  Let yourself get lost in the story. Let yourself laugh at the foolishness of men, and the strange wonders of God’s workings. Let it seep down into your soul. And when you get to the part about even the sheep and cattle dressing up in sackcloth and ashes, see if you don’t find yourself grinning at least a little. 

Something we too often forget is that reading the Bible can also be fun. If you are curious about reading scripture, this story is a great place to start.  And when you are done, you may want to look up the charming Veggie Tales movie version, too! I love those darned pirates who don’t do anything, and their catchy theme song.

The voice of God—Who is speaking? Who do we hear?

The voice of God—Who is speaking? Who do we hear?

“However much of My law

I write for him,

Ephraim regards it as alien...”

(Hosea 8:12)

This reading from Hosea gives me comfort and gives me a question.  It gives me comfort in the assurance that God writes His law not against us, but for us.  God’s law is not a barrier or a constraint (a wall) set up against us, created to keep us from having too much fun or make sure we don’t stray into the deep end of the pool.  God’s law is written for us, to aide us and guide us (like an owner’s manual) as we learn how to live and become the best us we can be.  God made each and every one of us to be gifts, to be blessings for the world.  To be fruitful and multiply. We are all beloved children of God—all of us.  And God wants only the best and the fullest lives for us, that we might each express the giftedness of who we are fully in the world, share the blessing of who we are fully with the world, and so God writes laws that set us free to live fully; never shackling us to rules and regulations, but always opening doors and windows of grace that we might see more clearly and live more wholly (and Holy) the life we have been given.

But, like Ephraim, we too often regard the law of God as alien. As a barrier to experience and pleasure and fulfillment.  I wonder if it doesn’t have something to do with our ability to see.  When I first come out of the house to go for a walk on a bright sunny afternoon, I often find myself squinting into the glare of the light. The brilliance of it is almost blinding.  Even the reflection from the driveway and the street is too much. Just out of instinct, I close my eyes, perhaps turn away. There is a temptation to even retreat back into the shadows of the house (or porch).  I could tell myself, it’s too sunny to go for a walk. Too bright and too hot! But, if I pause for a moment, let my eyes adjust, become accustomed to the light and the warmth of the concrete, I soon find that I am quite comfortable. And after a half mile or so, I don’t even notice it anymore. It’s just part of my walk, part of my quiet, peaceful afternoon.  I quickly come to love the sunlight and even the heat. I don’t think of it as “sacrifice” or effort or work –in fact, very quickly I find that I don’t even think about it at all.  Stepping out of the cool airconditioned shade of my house, the sunlight feels alien at first, but with little effort it soon it becomes so natural I don’t notice it.

All right, so that was my little insight; here’s my question:  Whose speaking?  It seems pretty clear to me that the voice we are supposedly hearing is God’s.  But isn’t that pretty amazing? Audacious, I would say!  Quite audacious. That a writer (or prophet, anyone...) would stand up in front of people and say: This is the Word of God. This is what God said! God is speaking through me! These are HIS words.  Not: this is what I think God wants us to believe, this is what I THINK God wants us to do. This is what I THINK God is thinking.  No. He just speaks in the voice of God and says things like:

I shall slaughter the darlings of their wombs! (9:16)

And says it without any hemming or hawing. Look at the prophets and how often they speak in the voice of God, without any hesitation or literary equivocations. And often it will come in the middle of a prophecy that seems to be in the voice of the prophet but suddenly changes to the voice of God without explanation.  For instance, the line I just quoted, transitions immediately back to the voice of Hosea after this monstrous vision.

“I shall slaughter the darlings of their womb.  Because they
have not listened to Him, my God will cut them off…”   (9:16-17)

And we are left to ponder: who is speaking? When God speaks in scripture, what did that mean to the human author?

Here is an example from my own life.  The other morning, as I walked, I saw some birds darting in and out of the branches of an oak. Watching them, I remembered that my father used to tell me stories about how I was raised by blue jays. And in my head I heard a poem forming:

My father spoke to me

of blue jays

of how they cared for me

when I was young

Like you were one of their own

he said

The year your mother left us

for Tulsa

with that shoe man
she couldn’t stand…

I heard a voice speaking these words to me. In my head I actually heard these words. And I had a desperate urge to get home to my notebook and write them down.  Was I experiencing something like a prophetic moment?  I certainly don’t think I was hearing God.  Heck, I wasn’t even hearing my actual father!
Clearly it was my imagination. I was contemplating the blue jays and remembering my father’s stories— and my imagination became untethered and began to play and suddenly this voice was there.  But was it just play?  I can assure you, my mother never left us. And (as far as I know) none of us ever lived in Tulsa.  Though my dad (and I) used to sell shoes. But... was it just play?  And whose voice was I hearing? My own? My father's? The muse? Who was speaking this to me?

And so, coming back to Hosea and the prophets, I am pondering: Whose speaking? Hosea or God? And how do we know? In fact, when he heard the voice, how did Hosea even know?

Could it have something to do with how we see the law? How we listen to God’s word? Do we regard it as alien, as the voice of rules imposed from the outside? Or do we regard it as a light to help us find our way? Do we hear it as an angry voice of judgment? Or do we hear a still quiet voice calling us. Saying: I know you. I made you.  You are my beloved child.  Come, let us go for a walk in the quiet of the day and let me tell you something new. A blessing unto the world.  I will speak your name.