A Sermon by Pastor Tom Lacey . . .

Question and Answer

Habakkuk 1:1-4; 2:1-4, Preached at Congregational Church of Boca Raton, November 4, 2007

First Question: You are participating in a race. You overtake the second person. What position are you in? Answer: If you answered that you are first, then you are absolutely wrong! If you overtake the second person and you take his place, you are second! Second Question: If you overtake the last person, then you are the second to last person! Answer: If you answered that you are second to last, then you are wrong again. Tell me, how can you overtake the LAST Person? Third Question: There is a mute person who wants to buy a toothbrush. By imitating the action of brushing one's teeth he successfully expresses himself to the shopkeeper and the purchase is done. Now if there is a blind man who wishes to buy a pair of sunglasses, how should he express himself? He just has to open his mouth and ask, so simple. If corn oil is made from corn, and vegetable oil is made from vegetables, then what is baby oil made from? Did you ever notice that when you blow in a dog's face, he gets mad at you, but when you take him on a car ride, he sticks his head out the window? Why isn't there mouse-flavored cat food? Why don't you ever see the headline Psychic Wins Lottery? Why is abbreviated such a long word? Why is lemon juice made with artificial flavor and dishwashing liquid made with real lemons? Why is the person who invests your money called a broker?

Our text today is about having tough questions that don’t seem to have good answers. If you noticed, the above questions were almost all “why?” questions, very difficult to answer even when the question is concerned with merely human behavior and action. Now throw God into the “why?” question mix, and more than likely we will be left without an answer. The fact is that if you have a tough question, the answer is probably going to be rather difficult. Now I’m not talking difficult intellectually to understand necessarily, but hard to hear as in hard on the heart. One of the shortest answers to these big why questions is “because God wants it that way,” which reminds me of the story of the guy sitting under a large oak tree, looking up and seeing tiny acorns hanging off of the massive limbs. And then he looked and saw a pumpkin patch, with 20 lb. squat pumpkins coming off these thin little green vines, sitting on the ground. He said to himself, “If I were God I would do this differently. Why have these big heavy pumpkins come from these little green vines, and have these little tiny acorns at the end of these mighty oak branches? Yes, definitely, if I were God, I would do it better and switch them.” Just then an acorn came loose from its branch and fell upon the man’s head… And as he rubbed his head lightly and looked out onto the pumpkins, he was glad God was God and he wasn’t.  

What we want to see this morning is that life of the faithful is more a matter of loyalty than of answers.

One mother is dealing with a rare disease in two of her three boys, an 18 month old and a 4-year-old, whose skin will not stay attached to muscle, even skin on the inside, such as esophageal skin. When the boys vomit due to a regular flu, some of the esophageal skin comes up also. Terrible and very rare. They are seeking experimental cures, but her divine point of view to the question of why is that God sent her her two boys. They are her life’s mission. There really isn’t an answer for why this happened, genetics definitely gives us a how it happens; but the why isn’t really within our scope. We have to be able to respond with what is given to us. It is in the response that we show whose side we are on and what we are made of. Life gets tough, really tough, but those who trust in a good God get even tougher, in a good way I mean. As Habakkuk writes at the end of his book: “Though the fig tree does not blossom, and no fruit is on the vines; though the produce of the olive fails and the fields yield no food; though the flock is cut off from the fold and there is no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will exult in the God of my salvation. God, the Lord, is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of a deer, and makes me tread upon the heights.”

The movie Born on the Fourth of July is based on a true story about a boy who was born on the Fourth of July in the late 1940s. The main thrust of the story focuses upon his experiences as a Marine in Viet Nam and his difficulty he face upon returning to civilian life. He grows up in a loving middle class family in a small town on Long Island. The family is as American as apple pie. They love the Fourth of July parades. His mother has told him repeatedly he can do anything he sets his mind to. He is a winner. In high school he goes out for the wrestling team and undergoes the most rigorous preparation to make the team. Finally, comes the big match. The local gym is packed to the rafters. He is wrestling in a championship match. His mother, father, brother and sister are all yelling their lungs out. His coach and teammates are cheering for him. The noise is deafening. Everyone knows he will be the champion. And then, in one quick move, he is pinned. He loses the match. Everyone is stunned. No one can believe it. He has failed. He has let them down. You see the same look on the faces of his family, his coach, his teammates and the fans. Gradually, the camera zooms in on him lying on the floor. The agony of defeat is written on his face. He grimaces but does not move. The sound ceases on the screen. He is alone, defeated, crushed. It seems like this scene lasts for an hour. Have you ever felt like that in your own life? The Old Testament prophet Habakkuk did. He saw the signs of defeat and impending doom all around him. He could not understand what was happening. Where was God in all the confusion, chaos and violence? And so he prayed and complained and tried to get answers from God.

In a scene from Shadowlands, a film based on the life of C.S. Lewis, Lewis has returned to Oxford from London, where he has just been married to Joy Gresham, an American woman, in a private Episcopal ceremony performed at her hospital bedside. She is dying from cancer, and, through the struggle with her illness, she and Lewis have discovered the depth of their love for each other. As Lewis arrives at the college where he teaches, he is met by Harry Harrington, an Episcopal priest, who asks what news there is. Lewis hesitates, then deciding to speak of the marriage and not the cancer, he says, "Ah, good news, I think, Harry. Yes, good news." Harrington, not aware of the marriage and thinking that Lewis is referring to Joy's medical situation, replies, "I know how hard you've been praying .... Now, God is answering your prayer." "That's not why I pray, Harry," Lewis responds. "I pray because I can't help myself. I pray because I'm helpless. I pray because the need flows out of me all the time, waking and sleeping. It doesn't change God; it changes me." We, like Habakkuk, want to resolve problems with our prayers to God. It’s natural. It’s important that we do this. When things get really tough, this might be all we have. So pray. Turn your body, soul, and will over to God. Let your life be changed from the inside out, from the power of love and the need for God, and your prayers will have been answered, no matter what else happens.

Habakkuk wrestled with the two major dilemmas in his own time, the impending doom of Judah before the Babylonian or Chaldean army and the obvious and overwhelming inequities in Judah’s society. Habakkuk probably made his complaint to God sometime in the reign of Jehoiakim (609-598 B.C.). As he observed the people of Judah he saw indifference to God’s covenant promises, and even more disturbing his people were caught up in endless disputes, legal battles and blatant oppression of the weak and helpless. He was perturbed by the violence that surrounded him on every side. Singing a song that reflected his despair about the injustices of life, the author of Habakkuk writes words that are timeless. The lyrics to his song capture the feelings you and I are likely to have when we look at our society and see that things are messed up. “Why do you make me see wrongdoing and look at trouble? Destruction and violence are before me … justice never prevails … judgment comes forth perverted.” We want things better and we want them better now. But you know, making things right takes time, courage, hard work, and God’s will. The Pennsylvania Dutch have a quaint saying: “The more I hurry, the behinder I get.” We might not express our impatience in the same way, but we know what the saying means. We are in a hurry, and we often find to our consternation that God is not in a hurry. But Habakkuk was loyal to God, no matter what and resolved to be watchful and to wait and see what God would answer. The Lord answers him and reassures him that he is still at work, willing justice to prevail in his time and blessing the faithful, the righteous who live by their faith. Let us be those faithful who live not by deceit and lies, but can look up at the bright sun and with a clear conscience live before God and others. Be one of the good ones. Stay loyal to the Lord and his word of life that is the anchor of your heart and the wind in your spirit. Your reward is with you and your gain is glory whose bloom never fails.

In one of Charles Schultz’s cartoons Snoopy is dancing merrily along the way with apparently not a care in the world. Lucy confronts him with the rather dismal words: “You wouldn’t be so happy if you knew what was going to happen!” Snoopy ignores her warning and continues to dance merrily on his way and comments to himself: “Maybe it’s already happened!” Snoopy’s attitude captures the spirit of all of us who seek to live by faith. We do not have a detailed blueprint for the future, but we are not worried about what is going to happen. The all-important event has already happened in God’s decisive saving acts in history, in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Now, it has been 2,600 years since Habakkuk promised the end would not tarry. Jesus made that promise too some 2,000 years ago. Were they wrong? Why are we still plagued with all of society’s ills? Why is there still so much injustice, unhappiness, and lack of love among us? Jesus, Habakkuk, and others all say that the End is on its way. It is so close that you can catch glimpses of it! Writing in one of his most famous works, The Small Catechism, Martin Luther claimed that the Kingdom of God, the End, is not hard to find. You catch a glimpse of it every time you believe, do good works, or see somebody else do a good deed. So see the good deeds those around you do, celebrate them; join them; praise God for them; take hope! More are on the way. God may not come when you want him, but the Lord’s always on time.

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