November 2, 2025
William G. Carter
The
oracle that the prophet Habakkuk saw.
O
Lord, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not listen? Or cry to you
"Violence!" and you will not save? Why do you make me see wrongdoing
and look at trouble? Destruction and violence are before me; strife and
contention arise. So the law becomes slack and justice never prevails. The
wicked surround the righteous— therefore judgment comes forth perverted.
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.
We don’t hear a lot from the prophet Habakkuk, A text like this appears only once every three years if the church is lucky and the preacher is daring. There is a section of the Old Testament called the “minor prophets.” That’s where Habakkuk resides. He is one of the more minor of the minor prophets. The record of his life’s work takes up just a couple of pages from the sixth century B.C.
But his words matter a great deal. Did you hear his opening cry? “O Lord, are you listening? I cry for help, and it feels like you’re not there. I see violence on the streets, and you don’t rescue. I see destruction, violence, and division. Nobody’s paying attention to the law, and the wicked are getting their way.”
Here is a prophet who sees the world going amuck. There’s nothing he can do about it. He has the courage to speak up, and that counts for something. He voices his complaint which certainly is not his complaint alone. Habakkuk speaks for his people. They live in chaos and disorder. All the old certainties have crumbled. All the voices of good judgment have been muted. There’s danger. There is corruption. The nation – which in this case is God’s nation – is coming unraveled. So, he shakes his fast at heaven. “Why aren’t you coming to help?”
We don’t hear it in the cutting of our text, but God does answer. And it doesn’t get any better. In short, God says, “I’m raising up the Babylonians to come and teach your country a lesson.” Ouch! And that did happen. Rather than surveying the history lesson, I’m interested in the conversation. For Habakkuk declares, “God, how can you let this happen? You are a God of holiness. Your eyes are too pure to look upon evil.”
He goes on a good bit further with some slightly obscure Hebrew poetry. Then Habakkuk folds his arms and says, “I’m going to stand here and watch for an answer. I’m going to wait until God answers me.” And he stands there, and he stands there, and he waits…
Then the Voice of heaven comes in a whisper. “There is a vision, a holy vision. There is an end of suffering yet to come. Write that down. Write it down in 72-point font. Make it obvious. Make it clear. Habakkuk, can you see the vision?” (And I’m sure the prophet says to himself, “Oh yes, I can see it. I can see the vision – but when is it coming, this end of suffering?”) The Lord Almighty says, “Wait for it. It’s coming. Wait for it.”
Then, after what I can only guess was an hour-long interlude, God speaks again, “The righteous live by faith.” That’s really the message of the book. “The righteous live by faith.” To tell you the truth, that’s the invitation that God sets before us all.
The world is a mess. In the time of Habakkuk, it was a mess. Looking around our own time, it’s still a mess. So we may remember a time when things worked out pretty well, the sun was out, the flowers were blooming, the family was happy, everybody was well. I’ll bet you can remember a time like that. It was pretty good, wasn’t it?
But why didn’t it last? Precisely because the world is a mess. We have these seasons of goodness, and they are interrupted by seasons of evil. They come; they go. One person’s goodness may prompt another person’s evil. Life is complicated like that – because we are complicated by that.
No sooner does Habakkuk write down the vision, God’s glorious vision of healing and well-being, he begins to diagnose why life goes afoul. You can guess what he sees: greed that plunders other people, arrogance that shrugs off responsibility, violence that sidesteps accountability, self-indulgence that wallows in its own self-indulgence. As someone translates the prophet’s diagnosis, “Look at the one who is full of himself but soul-empty.”[1] It was true then. It’s true now.
Yet “the righteous live by faith.”
Faith in what? Faith in God. Every time something terrible happens, a lot of us will say, “That’s not the way it’s supposed to be.” People are not supposed to go hungry while politicians throw a Halloween party. A little schoolgirl in Dunmore is not supposed to have her father snatched away by the immigration police. Good people are not supposed to be taken from us by gunshots or unpredictable illness. Bad people are not supposed to plunder and cheat and live by their own corruption. Not the way it’s supposed to be!
The reason we can say, “That’s not the way it’s supposed to be” is because we have seen the vision – God’s vision, written plain for all to see. There is a benchmark for human behavior – to live in loyalty to God and love for one another. To offer an alternative to selfishness. To offer an antidote to isolation. To look higher and work for the benefit of all. To make financial sacrifices so that others can flourish. To lift up those who have been stepped on far too long. To sit with those who are diminished. To pledge that no person goes to bed hungry, especially while others are feasting.
We live by faith in a God who teaches us how to live. If, from time to time, we grumble at God as Habakkuk did, we still have the vision. It has been written down, and it is clear. Heaven waits to see if we will live by love of God and love of neighbor. That is the continuing invitation.
When this church invites you to make an offering of yourself, it’s asking for more than kicking in for the heat bill. It’s a pledge to support everything that happens in and through this building and these people. It’s more than buying the communion bread and paying for a preacher to break it. It’s a pledge to sing and pray and struggle together as the body of Christ broken to feed the world. It's a commitment to keep growing, learning, and loving.
When we say yes to the things of God – we say no to anything false that demeans, divides, or destroys. “Write down the vision,” God says to the prophet. Live it to the end. Stay at it. Persevere with all patience. And don’t be swayed by all the nonsense that the world throws at you to scare you or lead you astray. The righteous live by their faith.
There’s a great line from Wendell Berry, poet, tobacco farmer, and social critic. In his poem, “Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front,” Berry proposes an extensive list of alternatives to the insanity of the world. Here’s one of my favorites: “Be joyful though you have considered all the facts.”[2] In the face of a twisted and tormented world, this is not a simple solution, nor is it a finished answer. But it hints at how God calls us to live – with eyes wide open, with hearts wide open, with trust, hope, commitment, and joy.
(c) William G. Carter. All rights reserved.
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