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.

Keep silent— A meditation on prophets & prophecies

“Keep silent!”

(Amos 8:3c)

“…and they will never be uprooted again.”

(Amos 9:15)

Keep silent!  Last time I was reflecting on the fascinating question of who was actually speaking in the Bible, especially when it was supposed to be God.  But now, I am wondering:  Who is being spoken to?  The other morning, sitting on the porch with my coffee and my Bible, waving to the few people who walk by at 6:45 in the morning, listening to the cars pass on the distant tollway, and wondering what will be for breakfast, I was reading this section of Amos and getting kind of lulled into a scriptural stupor by all the woes and unto yous and thus says the Lords –as often happens when I am reading—my mind began to wonder. I probably was starting to drift off into a daydream of famine and drought, locust and destruction when all of a sudden I read:

That day, the palace songs

will turn to howls,

--declares the Lord, Your God—

the corpses will be many

that are thrown down everywhere.

Keep silent!

And I was startled out of my drowsing.  I was stunned by how direct that final command felt. And my immediate thought was: who is God talking to?

Was He talking to the Israelites who are howling in their palaces and throwing bodies everywhere?  Telling them to hold it down; what did they expect after all their sin and betrayal?  Was He talking to Amos?  Telling the prophet to keep this horrible secret to himself; i.e. Keep this between us! Don’t speak a word! Don’t tell the Israelites what is in store for them! Let it be a surprise.

A little research and I soon discovered that other translations have interpreted that “Keep silent” as a description of how the bodies of the slaughtered will be disposed: “Many shall be the bodies. They shall cast them forth in silence.” (NASB)

But I was still struck by that “Keep silent.” It sat there in front of me; a directive, a command even.  And I couldn’t help but wonder, if this is God’s word, in the end isn’t God really talking to me?  I was the one reading it? I was the one whose mind was wandering. Whose head was full of blue jays and car sounds and strollers and scrambled eggs. I was the one who was drifting aimlessly through God’s word, watching only for some new phrase to hang another essay on.  I wasn’t really paying attention. I was too busy being distracted by all the voices in my head…

Keep silent.

And from that moment on, I was focused. The voices inside me, the distracted anxious voices telling me I was wasting my time stopped. They were quiet. Even that voice that kept asking about those dishes in the sink from last night. Shouldn’t I get to those first. After I finished those dishes and made another pot of coffee, then I’d be able to give the Word of God the attention it deserved! Then… then… then… For the moment, they were all still. Silent.  And I read on.

Toward the end of Amos there is a beautiful simple statement:

“…and they will never be uprooted again.” (9:15)

Reading that I began to ponder anew: In hindsight what does a statement like that mean to a people who were to see their temple destroyed, their kingdom conquered, and so many dragged off into exile? A people who have (it seems) never really known the kind of stability it seems to promise; at least not for over 2500 years?   

It comes at the end of a prophecy of destruction; God’s wrath unleashed.  And yet God promises to plant them in their own soil and “they will never be uprooted again.” It seems to be a promise of peace and harmony, of permanence and stability in Israel. And yet, reading this promise 2500+ years later, one has to ask:  Is it just some words in a story? Is it a fairy tale? Some kind of magical thinking? Or worse, a lie? 

If it is a prophecy of God’s chosen people finding permanence and stability in the Promised Land, then it seems like foolishness. Historically the Jews have been displaced time and again.

But, as I sat –being silent—quietly contemplating this phrase, I began to wonder: is it possible God means something else entirely? Is it possible God is speaking not to a limited group of people here, but to all of His people everywhere.  Is it possible that this promise, though made specifically through the prophet Amos to the people of Israel, was actually meant to transcend that time and place; was meant not for a specific tribe or race, but for all God’s children? It is a promise to all of us, from God, that we can never again be uprooted; because He has planted us beyond the reach of the one who would uproot us. 

The LOVE of God became flesh, became a gardener (cf. John 20:15), a gardener who plants the seed so deep and so true it can never be uprooted. And His plow, His shovel, His spade, is the Cross. By His plow He opens the universe, opens eternity, opens even His own heart, and plants us so deeply within His love that we can never again be uprooted.

It is not by our efforts that we are saved, not by our lack of sin, but simply by His love, His grace, His Cross.  The peace, the harmony, the stability comes not from our prayers, not from our fasting or sacrifices, not from any restraint or self-control on our part, but from God’s love.

However, teaching our ears to hear and appreciate the harmony and beauty in God’s love takes some effort, at least for some of us.  We can’t find peace in it while we are letting our ego wnder, our eyes wander, our desires wander freely, and so we may find ourselves tugging at our own roots, agitated by wants and old nurtured longings.  And so, in such cases, we may find that prayer and fasting make good choir masters for the soul. They can help us train our ear to hear in God’s mysterious melody a beauty and glory we could never imagine on our own. All our desires are fulfilled in it, this endless glorious song of permanence and peace, if only we allow ourselves to hear it. 

If only we “keep silent” and listen.