The scriptures referred to are Habakkuk 1:1-4, 2:1-4.
Another week, another spate of shootings. Reacting to one in her community, a friend of mine on Facebook complained that the world no longer made sense. I commented that the problem is that the world almost makes sense but not quite. That is, the world is not so irrational that we can't understand or haven't figured out how to act in the majority of situations. Generally speaking, if you treat people well they will do the same to you. If you ask for help with something, most people will try to help. But it's the exceptions to these rules that throw us off. When someone that you've acted properly towards responds with anger or when someone you've never mistreated, or whom you don't even know, inflicts violence on you, you don't know how to make sense of it. It seems to come out of nowhere.
My theory is that these acts of mass violence arise when someone thinks that their feelings are more important than the lives of others. They are expressing the bad feelings they have by making others feel as bad as they do. They feel their cause is so righteous that those who oppose it, or who simply aren't as outraged as they are about it, must suffer. Or their feelings of despair are so painful they want to die but they want others to die as well so that the world knows how they feel. And often this is the way that people who also feel overlooked can get the world to pay attention to them, if only in a negative way and after they are gone. Other people express these feelings of depression, pain, anger and indignation at what is wrong with the world in their art, in poetry, in song, in writing or in activism. But some can't think of any better way to express this than by simply hurting or killing other people. As the saying goes, hurt people often hurt people.
For most of us, just seeing such violence and injustice is painful. And those of us who believe in a just God often ask him, “Why?” That's what Habakkuk is asking in our Old Testament reading. J.M. Smith captured the strong emotions the author expressed in the translation that he made for his teaching videos on his You Tube channel Disciple Dojo. He renders the first 4 verses of the book this way: “The 'burden' (oracle) that Habakkuk the prophet beheld: How long, YHWH, must I scream for help...and you not listen? I cry out to you, 'Violence!'...but you don't save! Why do you show me iniquity, and toil you [just] watch? And destruction and violence [are] before me and there is lawsuit, and [the] strife it carries. Because of this Torah has grown cold/limp and justice never goes forth! Indeed wickedness is surrounding the righteous! Because of this justice goes forth crooked!”
Habakkuk's book is different from the books of other prophets because he doesn't begin with what God revealed to him but with his questions directed at God. To understand what he is so upset about, it helps to know what was going on during his time.
Israel and Judah were always surrounded by large empires: Egypt to the southwest, Assyria to the north and now Babylon gaining strength to their east. Assyria had already conquered Israel and taken the elite of the ten northern tribes into exile. Babylon was such a threat that Egypt and Assyria joined forces to fight them. Habakkuk lived either during the last fraught days of King Josiah who died fighting the Egyptians or during the reign of his successors, who were puppets of the empires. But Habakkuk is initially concerned about what he is seeing within the kingdom of God's people. He is observing conflict, violence, justice being weakened and ultimately coming out all twisted.
Israel's mission was to be a “kingdom of priests and a holy nation,” and as descendants of Abraham, all the peoples of the earth were to be blessed through them. (Exodus 19:6; Genesis 12:3) In Isaiah God says, “I will also make you a light to the Gentiles, that you may bring my salvation to the ends of the earth.” (Isaiah 49:6) But Israel and Judah hardly acted like they worshipped and followed a just and compassionate God. So why is God allowing this?
God tells the prophet that he will punish his people by letting the Babylonians conquer them. But Habakkuk doesn't understand this. The Babylonians are even worse than the people of Judah. How is that just? God tells Habakkuk that the Babylonians in turn will receive what they are due. Their own evil deeds will bring about their downfall.
Much of the 2nd chapter of Habakkuk is devoted to describing the king of Babylon and his fatal flaws. “...he is arrogant and never at rest...he is as greedy as the grave and like death is never satisfied...” (Habakkuk 2:5) He is pictured as ridiculed and scorned by the nations who will taunt him by saying, “Woe to him who piles up stolen goods and makes himself wealthy by extortion! How much longer must this go on? Will not your debtors suddenly arise? Will they not wake up and make you tremble? Then you will become their victim. Because you have plundered many nations, the peoples who are left will plunder you. For you have shed man's blood; you have destroyed lands and cities and everyone in them. Woe to him who builds his realm by unjust gain to set his nest on high to escape the clutches of ruin.” (Habakkuk 2:6-9) If you don't treat others as you would like to be treated, people will treat you exactly as you have treated them. (Luke 6:31)
And, sure enough, the Babylonian empire was eventually conquered by the Persians and the Jews were allowed to return home. During the 70 years of their exile, they transitioned from a religion centered around the temple, which the Babylonians destroyed in 586 BC, to a religion centered around studying and obeying God's word. The writings that became the Hebrew Bible were collected and compiled during this time. This ensured the survival of Judaism after the Romans destroyed the second temple in 70 AD. Jews everywhere could continue to worship and follow the Torah wherever they went. And, of course, this meant that Christianity could spread likewise. Paul and other apostles would go to a synagogue in whichever city they came to and show from the scriptures that Jesus was the Messiah. And as the writings by Paul and others were copied and shared by churches, the New Testament came into being.
Empires continued to rise and fall. The western Roman empire fell in 476 AD. Its successor, the Byzantine empire, fell in 1453. The British empire was dismantled in the 20th century. The Soviet Union existed for 69 years. And we see that, just as with Babylon, their sins and arrogance usually bring about their downfall.
Emperors and dictators rarely fare better. Of the 84 Roman emperors over its 490 years, 20 were assassinated, and 8 were assassinated by their own bodyguards, the Praetorian Guard. Another 6 were possibly assassinated. 8 were executed and 6 committed suicide. Including the 8 who died in battle, it turns out that 68%, or more than 2/3s of them, died violently. Only 25 died of natural causes or illnesses. Most reigned for less than 8 years.
Mussolini reigned 21 years and was executed by his people and his body hung upside down at a gas station. Fearing the same treatment, Hitler shot himself as the Russians took Berlin and closed in on his bunker. His Thousand Year Reich lasted only 12 years. Nicolae Ceausescu ruled Romania with an iron fist for 24 years and was executed in a revolution in 1989. As Jesus said, those who take up the sword will die by the sword. (Matthew 26:52)
Those who build criminal empires, unleashing violence in the streets, perish in much the same way. Jesse James was shot by a member of his gang. During Prohibition, Dutch Schultz, “Legs” Diamond, Hymie Weiss, “Mad Dog” Coll and many others were killed by other gangsters, while John Dillinger, “Pretty Boy” Floyd, “Baby Face” Nelson, “Ma” Barker and Bonnie and Clyde all died in shootouts with the law. Al Capone did survive being stabbed in prison but after being released due to his decline from syphilis of the brain he died of a heart attack and stroke at the age of 48. More recently drug lord Pablo Escobar was killed by the Colombian National Police one day after his 44th birthday. When someone decides it's OK to kill others, people think it's OK to kill him.
But Habakkuk did not see people reaping the consequences for the violence and injustice of his day. He was left with God's assurance that he did have a plan. Habakkuk and the Jews who stayed faithful would just have to trust God. As God says in our reading, “the righteous will live by their faith.”
If there is no God and no afterlife, then there is no justice in this world. We can despair or we can trust in God and in his justice and his mercy. But that doesn't mean that we simply sit back and let injustice reign. Another way that verse 4 could be translated is “the righteous will live by their faithfulness.” We are the body of Christ, carrying out his ongoing mission. Jesus made us citizens and ambassadors of the kingdom of God and we are expected to show how his kingdom works. We are expected to, as God tells Isaiah, “Learn to do what is right! Promote justice! Take up the cause of the orphan! Defend the rights of the widow!” (Isaiah 1:17) Jesus told us that what we do or do not do to the poor, the hungry, the thirsty, the sick, the imprisoned and the alien, we do or do not do to him. (Matthew 25:31-46) We are to love both our neighbors and our enemies. (Mark 12:31; Luke 6:27) No earthly kingdom acts like that.
And the early Christians got the message and put it into practice. In Acts we read that “They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of the bread and to prayer...All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need.” (Acts 2:42, 44-45) Consequently “There were no needy persons among them...” (Acts 4:34) This early form of communal sharing did not last, but later when plagues hit cities and the rich and powerful fled to the countryside, Christians became known for staying and caring for the sick even when it cost them their lives. When Christianity was legalized, churches built hospitals, housed the elderly and orphans, took care of abandoned infants, created schools, and helped the poor with food and money. These are things that we see as normal, and governments and civic organizations have taken over many of these functions. But this was a real departure from the Greco-Roman world that existed before Christianity. Not all human beings were valued. Slaves and barbarians did not enjoy the same right to life and protection as citizens of the empire. Sickly and deformed children could be drowned and unwanted children could be left on the side of the road for anyone to take, be they enslavers or hungry scavengers. But Christians saw everyone as a person who was created in God's image and for whom Christ died. Eventually these ideals spread. Today most non-Christians would subscribe to the idea that all human beings have inherent worth.
Today there are those who denigrate Christians who they accuse of being social justice warriors. But Christians were always at the forefront of human rights. Bartolome de las Casas came to the New World in 1513 as a chaplain during the conquest of Cuba. Within 2 years he returned to Spain to convince the king to end the cruel system being installed in the Americas. He became the first bishop of Chiapas in Hispaniola and was officially appointed “Protector of the Indians.” He denounced the atrocities of the conquistadores and actively fought slavery for 50 years. Christians started the abolitionist movement in the UK and the US and participated in the Underground Railroad, secretly bringing slaves to freedom. Christian beliefs about the equality of all human beings inspired the women's suffrage movement and civil rights movement, as well as reform movements to abolish child labor and alleviate poverty.
God is a social justice warrior. In Hebrew the word for righteousness also means justice. Some people have lost or ignored the connection between loving God and loving all the human beings he created. The prophets, like Habakkuk, remind us. Jesus reminds us. When asked for the greatest commandment, he gave two. And he expanded the second one, about loving your neighbor, to include people unlike you and even your enemy. He told us to look for him in those whom society either despises, devalues or forgets about. He said the mark of the person who follows him is loving others as he loves us. (John 13:35)
When we see people being harmed, we often question God's justice. But we should ask ourselves why do we let people harm others, either through direct violence or by using power, money, and deception to exploit those they find useful and erase those they don't? Why do we put bullies, conmen and people who exhibit no empathy, fear or regret into positions of power? When we look at the world, we, like Habakkuk, sometimes scream out “Why, God, why?” But the real question is “Why, humans, why?”
