Sermons at St. John’s Presbyterian Church

The Eyes of Our Heart Enlightened

Transcribed from the sermon preached August 1, 2010

The Reverend Max Lynn, Pastor

Scripture Readings: Habakkuk 2:1-14, 18-20, Ephesians 1:1-23

Is the housing crisis God’s will? Predatory lending practices made a lot of people rich. Bad loans were given, sometimes intentionally, and most of us thought the market was so solid it didn’t matter. For years people assumed that if something went wrong in our lives and we couldn’t pay our house bill, we could sell and pay it off. But as loans failed and the market dropped, nobody wanted to buy or lend, and so more and more people lost their home. 900,000 homes were foreclosed upon last year, and another million are expected this year. Thirsty for oil and profit, and worried about endless trouble and war in the middle East, overconfident in the technological fix, government rubber stamped deep water drilling permits and now in the Gulf Coast human and animal life is suffering again. In a telling comment, BP CEO Tony Hayward apologized for the oil spill. “I am sorry. We’re sorry for the massive disruption it’s caused their lives. There is no one who wants this over more than I do. I’d like my life back. “ Many of us, for many reasons, are tempted in big and small ways to lose faith in a loving God and join the fight for our own well being and pleasure at the expense of others. Even as others suffer worse than we do, we want our lives back. What is the vision of a Church in such a world? Do we have eyes to see glimpses of truth God has for us?

Habakkuk is a short book of just three chapters. It questions previous prophetic pronouncements which claim God is punishing the people of Israel through the war of other nations since those nations and their leaders are more violent, sinful and unjust than the Israelites. The Oxford Bible Commentary notes that “Reference to the Chaldeans (the ruling class that established the neo-Babylonian empire in the late 7^th Century) in 1:6 suggests that the book is a reaction to the approach of Nebuchadnezzar’s army as it made its way through Syria and Phoenicia, and there is no reference to the fall of Judah… so the text may be dated in approximately 600 BC. Because of the language he uses and reference to God in the temple, scholars think that Habakkuk was probably a temple priest. He is not a peasant prophet like Amos, but he has an honest relationship with God and receives a vision from which to speak and live.

The first chapter is the prophet’s complaint about the suggestion that God uses an invading army to establish justice on earth,

1: 8 Yea, their horsemen come from afar;
they fly like an eagle swift to devour.
[9] They all come for violence;
terror of them goes before them.
They gather captives like sand.

[11] Then they sweep by like the wind and go on,
guilty men, whose own might is their god!

O LORD, thou hast ordained them as a judgment;
and thou, O Rock, hast established them for chastisement.
[13] Thou who art of purer eyes than to behold evil
and canst not look on wrong,
why dost thou look on faithless men,
and art silent when the wicked swallows up
the man more righteous than he?

Even if the people of Israel are sinful, Habakkuk is asking, why would a righteous and loving God use even worse people to punish them? The world is full of people whose own might, whose own wealth, fame and power is their god. Drug dealers in Juarez or Oakland, reality show stars, big and small bosses alike, violent and abusive husbands, any corporation whose self interest diverges from what is right, government leaders and their powerful countries. Maybe the people these folks abuse and exploit are not perfect, but why would God use those who couldn’t care less about Her to punish them? And then it is the clearly unfaithful who seem to have the most monstrous parties to flaunt for all the world to see.

We begin chapter two with the prophet waiting for an answer to his question. And God starts his answer by saying that we should be patient for an answer: “the vision awaits its time… If it seems slow, wait for it.”

And then “Behold, the one whose soul is not upright shall fail.” The one whose soul is puffed up, proud or presumptuous will be deflated, but the righteous shall live by faith or faithfulness. In other words, as we wait for a vision of God’s saving action, even though we have not yet received it, and don’t understand fully, with patience, life is possible in the meantime. “In Hebrew, to be alive means more than merely to exist or survive; it connotes vitality and health.” (Oxford BC. P.602) In other words, we don’t have to allow the bad stuff happening around us in the world determine how we view life or how we live.

Determined to have faith in a good God who is sovereign and has a plan, we remain faithful. While there is no explanation for the success of the violent and unjust, we are told that their success will be short lived.

God’s answer seems to join with Habakkuk in an explanation and complaint of what the unfaithful look like. It takes the form found in a funeral dirge, which shows a reversal of fortune, but in reverse. The people will taunt and scoff. Five ways the ruler has brought suffering on people will come back to haunt him.

First, he has enriched himself by impoverishing others; soon his own debts will be called in. A remnant of all the peoples he has done in will join together and come and get him. Second, he has sought his own security at the expense of others, using wealth through evil gain to build his house high up like a nest. The result will be that he is cut off from people, and though he has put himself on high and can’t hear their voices, the stone will cry out from the wall and the beam from the woodwork will respond. What will they say, this stone and beam, “woe to him who builds a town with blood, and founds a city on iniquity! Behold! This is not from the Lord. Remember Jesus uses this line when the elite in Jerusalem ask Jesus to silence his disciples; “if these were silent, the very rocks themselves would cry out.” You can take land and push away people who lived there before, silence critiques, move high on a hill and build a wall around your settlement, but your isolation and injustice will come back to haunt you.

Third, the unjust and unfaithful elite try to make friends and impress others by throwing huge orgies and getting drunk. This is the party thrown with the wealth gained through injustice and violence. He is showing off his glory but actually, others will look upon him with contempt. And God has another cup for him; it is coming around the table and it will soon be his time to drink, the cup of God’s wrath.

Fourth, and here take a look at verse 17: “The violence done to Lebanon will overwhelm you; the destruction of the beasts will terrify you, for the blood of men and violence to the earth, to cities and all who dwell therein.” Now this is a little odd because it both refers to what the elite do and what will overwhelm them… Their own actions will cause them pain. Reference to Lebanon refers to the frequent invasion for cedar trees. The wonton taking of animal life, the killing of livestock, burning of crops and destruction of cities becomes a reality we create and nobody escapes. Deforestation, violence to the earth and animals will come back to haunt us.

And fifth, the unjust elite create gods that sanction and justify their actions. To a wooden thing, they say, “Awake”, to a dumb stone, “Arise.” It looks pretty fancy overlaid with gold and silver, but there is no breath in it. Now idolatry comes in many forms. Earlier we heard that our own power can become our god. Christians, Jews and Muslims certainly are not excused from using our image of God to justify our sinful actions and excluding and demonizing others. This has got to be a worse sin that leaving God alone and going your own way. Thou shalt not use the Lord’s name in vanity.

So we live in a world where it rains on the just and the unjust, but where the poor seem to suffer the most from droughts and floods. If we wish to have faith in a just, loving and sovereign God, what are we to do? Let’s just flip the negatives of the lesson into positives. Step one: enrich ourselves by enriching others. Pick a job that serves and helps people, pay a just wage, charge a fair price, and listen to the needs of those with whom we negotiate and relate.

Second, let us seek our own security by seeking to make our community, nation, world and environment safe. We may be wealthy enough to buy bottled water if public water is bad, but we should seek to make public water clean and affordable. We may be able to afford health insurance and private school for our children, but what are we doing to promote access to health care and good schools for our community? We are for education, planning, research and preservation of resources that will benefit people long after we are gone, for we are just stewards of this world for a short time.

Third, let us shun ostentation; celebrate for joy not for attention. Let us seek the joy of all and not worry about how cool we look with whomever. We naturally like to be around people with whom we have mutual interest and admire, but let us allow God to show and create mutual interest where we thought there was none. Let us risk being inclusive and diverse. When it comes to sex, let us be kind, honorable and responsible, and beware of using others as objects to be used, bought and sold. If it is a part of your job to wine and dine your clients, then make sure it is a part of your discipleship time to wine and dine people you will not profit from and who may not add to your status. And truly enjoy yourself with these people. In this culture where time is money, the same goes for our time. We can’t help and be friends with everyone. We are limited. But some of our time should be wasted, not for profit or personal benefit. It is important to this church to rent out space so that we can afford to keep up the building and keep the Church alive. But if we want to remain a church alive with the Spirit there are times when what we feel promotes God’s will is more important than what we get paid to let it happen here. We want our individual members to share of their resources freely, and we as a whole also want to share and give feely.

Fourth, God’s Church and disciples will seek peace and sustainable living. We are for public transportation, car pools, biodegradable, renewable, recyclable, natural, and simple. We are against collateral damage of humans, dolphins, pelicans, snowy plovers, shrimp, olive trees, air, land or sea.

And fifth, let us permit ourselves to allow God to be God in our minds. As Paul says, may the eyes of our hearts be enlightened to see and affirm ourselves yes, but also beyond ourselves to the whole presence of God within all creation and beyond, to the very foundation of the world.

In other words, there is a truth that exists beyond the truth that we can see, beyond what we want to acknowledge, beyond our bible or our images of God. We humans have the tendency to narrow our vision so that with the information we are capable of taking in, things make sense and we have a purpose. It is fine and inevitable that we have our own point of view and seek to justify, to give meaning to our behavior. But by the grace of God, shown to us through Christ, we can admit that our view is not the only view, and that we will often be ignorant, disregard, deny, or outright lie about our hold of the truth, and shape ourselves a god to back us up. In the assurance of forgiveness, this admission enables us the freedom to see, to have the eyes of our heart enlightened, to see that we are a part of a much bigger picture, even if we do not understand it all, and that despite evidence of evil and hardship, and the temptation violence, isolation and greed, we have been destined to live a life of faithfulness, and give glory to the God of Love, and have been given the immeasurable greatness of his power, not only in this age but in the age to come.