The Righteous Live By Faith

The New Revised Standard Version Chapter 1

1 The oracle that the prophet Habakkuk saw.

The Prophet’s Complaint

2 O LORD, how long shall I cry for help,

and you will not listen?

Or cry to you “Violence!”

and you will not save?

3 Why do you make me see wrongdoing

and look at trouble?

Destruction and violence are before me;

strife and contention arise.

4 So the law becomes slack

and justice never prevails.

The wicked surround the righteous—

therefore judgment comes forth perverted.

The New Revised Standard Version God’s Reply to the Prophet’s Complaint

God’s Reply to the Prophet’s Complaint

2 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.

2 Then the LORD answered me and said:

Write the vision;

make it plain on tablets,

so that a runner may read it.

3 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.

4 Look at the proud!

Their spirit is not right in them,

but the righteous live by their faith.

I know that sometimes, I really need to see something from a new perspective. Perhaps I’ve read the same story many times — what new knowledge could it possibly yield? But when seen from a different angle, it suddenly opens up with new possibilities and meaning.

One of the best books and musicals I’ve read and seen in the past decade is called Wicked. It’s the story of the Wizard of Oz, but told through the perspective of the Wicked Witch of the West. We get to know her backstory, they why behind her wickedness, and all the problems of the land of Oz that are taken for granted in the original telling of Dorothy’s walk along the Yellow Brick Road to the Emerald City.

In Wicked, we find out that the Witch had dealt with societal pressures and injustices that she fought against. We discover there were many classes of people in Oz, some who had much and some who had little, and like any society we know, there were divides among the people because of wealth and power.

In the end, we see that the Witch is not was wicked as we might perceive. Or at least, we see her from another angle, a deepening insight into her character.

We need stories to be told and retold to us.

One of the great strengths of modern biblical scholarship is that it has illuminated the Scripture texts for their cultural and social contexts — what is the historic dynamic facing Israel at this time, what are the geopolitical influences and social stratifications that impact this particular part of Scripture and how the people may have heard it.

This has done wonders for our ability to read and study the text with greater depth.

And, as with any advance, there are pieces we miss when we take a thoroughly modern, historical approach to the text.

We need to read passages from a prophetic book like Habakkuk from time to time. On a side note, when was the last time you heard a sermon from the book of Habakkuk? Yeah, me neither.

Thankfully to our cycle of lectionary readings, we have found ourselves in this minor prophet, this oracle of the impending siege on Israel, and we get to wrestle with a text that will cause us to read from a different angle. Like the Wicked Witch, we are invited to see the story from the side, or with a different style of interpretation, and discover the goodness of God’s faithfulness with fresh eyes and hearts.

Prophets are truth-tellers. But telling the truth doesn’t always look like laying out a factual argument about what is and what will be.

And that’s not what Habakkuk does here. Rather, this is a reading from the view point of an oracle. Think of oracles as vision states or almost trance like revelations — they are not necessarily pure, logical, reasonable, fact-checkable accounts. Rather, they paint a picture, they project a vision, of what God is up to and what the state of the world is.

A story like Wicked is a sort of an oracle — it’s telling something about our own society by the way it tells of the problems of Oz. All good fiction does this — it turns our own world back at us and invites us to see it in a new way.

Or think of satire or comedy as an oracle — oftentimes some of the most truth-telling revelations we get these days come from the cartoons in our newspapers and magazines or the stand up or sketch comedy from places like Saturday Night Live or Stephen Colbert.

What does the Oracle of Habakkuk’s prophecy tell us?

There are two important parts to our reading. First, there is the prophet’s complaint, the truth telling of the oracle that lays out the problem before God of how the world is.

Violence surrounds the people and God is not listening to their cries. God is questioned for why God watches while the evil continue to do what is wrong and destroy and sow strife and contention.

In this first part, we can map the oracles words quite easily upon our own world? Can we not? We wonder at why God allows such struggle and strife and dishonesty and violence to continue in our world. Why would God stand by while so much harm comes to the poor and the innocent? Why would God stand by while truth is dismantled and “the law becomes slack and justice never prevails?” Are not the wicked surrounding the righteous and judgement becoming perverted?

There are certainly practical, real world examples we can all think of as we hear these words. And so would be the same for the people crying out during the prophet’s time. But beyond facts and examples, this opening passage from Habakkuk gets at something deep within our condition as human beings — the lament at how things are and our longing for how they could and should be in God’s righteous way.

If you ever need justification to be mad at God, to cry out in anger and ask “why” and “how long?” you need to remember passages like this one. And the Psalms. And other prophets. And Jesus. Because deep within our tradition is a practice of lament — how long will this go on?

And so the oracle pauses, having named the world as it is.

In this conversation, the righteous have lifted up their voices to question God’s righteousness. Complaint is heard.

In fact, through the whole book of Habakkuk, there is a sort of back and forth of cry out for justice and a reply from God.

In the sense of reading this book as something fresh, from a new perspective, we can think of this writing as a song, a theatrical or fantastic poem of drama describing the human struggle and our complaint and cry for God’s justice and restoration.

Loosening ourselves up from a strictly modern, factual reading of this texts allows it to breathe with poetic life and vigor of how it really feels to be human. It renews our hope that the Scriptures “speak out language”, one of emotion, struggle, and deep hope.

Now, let’s turn to the second part of the passage, where we see the surprising turn, the unveiling of the prophet’s words, the opening up of a new way of understanding the world and abiding more deeply in God’s loving way.

The oracle, through Habakkuk, begins again — he will wait and watch and listen for a reply.

The opening words of chapter two speak of a faithful waiting that the prophet does — he trusts there will come an answer to his complaint.

The New Revised Standard Version God’s Reply to the Prophet’s Complaint

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.

And God responds.

The New International Version (1984) The Lord’s Answer

Then the LORD replied:

“Write down the revelation

and make it plain on tablets

so that a herald may run with it.

3 For the revelation awaits an appointed time;

it speaks of the end

and will not prove false.

Though it linger, wait for it;

it will certainly come and will not delay.

4 “See, he is puffed up;

his desires are not upright—

but the righteous will live by his faith—

I have my own translation for this:

The Lord replied:

Quick, get a big Sharpie and write this down. Make it very big and clear, clear enough that someone running by will have time to read it. Like a road sign. Because there are people who will need to carry this message who will be coming and we can’t let it blur — it must be clear.

You cry out and lament. But what will be, what is coming, it comes when the time is right. Not before and not too late. Don’t worry, what will be revealed will be the end of all this sadness, all this pain, all of the power of the wicked. My revelation is not a lie.

So wait for it. Be patient. It will come. Hold fast.

Here’s what you need to write:

“Look at the proud! Their spirit is not right in them, but the righteous live by their faith.”

Wait, do you understand? Let me say it again, another way, from another angle.

The proud are not trustworthy. YHWH is faithful because YHWH is righteous.

Ok, let’s back up for a second here and hopefully clarify what is being said. This last verse, Ch. 2, Vs. 4 is difficult to translate.

And like I mentioned earlier, we have heard the story a certain way for a long time and expect this to mean one thing — taken with a proper logical reading of the text it means: IF you, me, us are the Righteous ones, we will live faithfully. Our faith will be the sign of righteousness. We will be upright and live because of our belief, our faith in God.

And the passage can read that way and that’s awesome.

BUT, and here’s where it turns and gets even more beautiful and good for us to hear.

It can also be translated, in the context of the whole reading, that it is God’s righteousness that will show forth in the end and be counted as faithful. Said another way, our faithfulness is not at issue here, it is a question and an answer that affirms that it is God’s righteous way that will overcome all the powers of evil and wickedness. It is God’s faithfulness that wins the day.

Why does this matter, you ask? Isn’t the pastor just a little too buried in his commentaries and language studies? Doesn’t this just mean I need to be faithful in the face of all that is unrighteous in the world?

Yes…and...

And, over and above this — it is God’s unrelenting goodness, righteous, love, power, and might that is above all of this fray we inhabit.

Again, you say, good, great, whatever…what is that supposed to mean?

Here’s where we bring in our rational minds and ignore the deep spiritual significance of what God is up to around us.

So let me map the logical and the oracle together.

Because God is faithful, we can trust that the problems we face are in God’s hands and our own abilities to make them better or worse doesn’t ultimately matter much — God is faithful and will be faithful and will restore God’s good way among creation.

It is not our faithfulness, or at least not our goodness and faithfulness alone, that will change things. God is in control, God’s righteousness will ring out and gather the nations to be redeemed and restored.

And so as we witness corruption and dishonesty in our world — we hear that the proud are puffed up, but it is God’s faithfulness that will overcome. So as proud and dishonest as they may be, we trust that truth will prevail.

As we wonder at whether there will be enough for tomorrow, enough money in the bank or enough food on the table — we bring our lament and our worry to God who we trust to be good, to provide, to meet our needs in miraculous ways. And doesn’t God do this?

We look around in our community and our nation and see so many examples of confusion and disillusionment about church and religious community. And yet we entrust our lives to a God who is faithful and, as we do so, see that God is planting seeds of new life, inviting us into new expressions of church together, calling us to gather in new configurations of friends and family and church belonging, as we witness here among ourselves, restoring things. Not because we were faithful or good enough ourselves, but because God is faithful.

God restores the exiled.

God provides the resources we need.

God calls us to our work.

And God welcomes us to the abundant table.

A new way is coming, not by our own righteousness, but by the faithfulness of God’s lovingkindness.

Let us rejoice in this prophetic truth today.

And let us pray.

Righteous conversation with God

Prophet complains

God responds

“For there is still a vision for the appointed time...”