Habakkuk 1:1-13: 2:1-4
Psalm 37
1 Timothy 1:1-14
Luke 17:5-10

When I was a young man, the philosophy of existentialism was the main competition to Christian faith among secularists. The names of Jean Paul Sartre and Albert Camus were considered to offer the biggest challenge for Christians to address. Existentialism was even a theme in popular culture. When he first started out his career, Woody Allen’s movies were an outlet for existentialist themes. Existentialism seems to have fizzled out sometime in the early 1980’s, and in recent years it has been replaced by the New Atheism. Existentialists and the New Atheists have a lot in common, but also some considerable differences. Existentialists tended to be atheists, but they could also be agnostics. They tended to be neurotic. They wondered if life had meaning if there was no God. They tended to be nicer than the New Atheists. The New Atheists have no doubts. They don’t worry about whether life has meaning. They know that there is no God, and they’re angry at him for creating the world.

The single theme that unites the old existentialists and the New Atheists is the conviction that the evil and suffering that exists in the world makes it impossible to believe in a good and omnipotent God. At the end of Woody Allen’s movie Love and Death, his character says, “You know, if it turns out that there IS a God, I don’t think that He’s evil. I think that the worst you can say about Him is that, basically, He’s an underachiever.” The late Christopher Hitchens wrote a book entitled God is Not Great, but perhaps it really should have been titled God is not Good. Among other things, he writes in that book: “The Bible may, indeed does, contain a warrant for trafficking in humans, for ethnic cleansing, for slavery, for bride-price, and for indiscriminate massacre, but we are not bound by any of it because it was put together by crude, uncultured human mammals.”

Woody Allen certainly thought that he was being humorous in his quip about God being an underachiever, and I have no doubt that Christopher Hitchens thought his comments about the Bible and the kinds of people who wrote it was rather clever. If however, they thought that they were being original, that no one had ever expressed concerns about the goodness of God before, they were just a bit naïve, as we can find when we read the passage from this morning’s Old Testament lectionary passage from Habbukuk. Habbukuk looks at the world around him, and, in the light of what he sees expresses just as much concern about the goodness of God as does any twentieth century existentialist or twenty-first century New Atheist.

There is a common theme in Habbukuk and Psalm 37, which is why both are likely included in the readings this morning: Where is God when the unrighteous prosper, and the righteous are oppressed? The Psalm directly answers the question: “Fret not yourself because of evildoers; be not envious of wrongdoers! For they will soon fade like the grass, and wither like the green herb.” (v. 1) What we find in the Psalm is a typical example of a pattern we often find in prophetic literature. The righteous can be assured because God’s justice will eventually punish the unrighteous and the righteous will be rewarded. The Psalmist says: “Fret not yourself; it tends only to evil. For the evildoers shall be cut off, but those who wait for the Lord shall inherit the land.” (v. 9)

Habbukuk is different, however. In Habakkuk, we find the prophet questioning the traditional prophetic pattern. Habakkuk questions God in a way that is paralleled perhaps only by the Book of Job in the Old Testament. In chapter 1, Habakkuk complains to God about the prospering of the wicked: “O LORD, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not hear? Or cry to you ‘Violence!’ and you will not save? Why do you make me see inquity, and why do you idly look at wrong? . . . For the wicked surround the righteous, so justice goes forth perverted.” (v. 2) This is standard prophetic fare.

And the standard prophetic answer comes in the following verses. God is not going to allow the wicked to prosper forever. They will be destroyed. The LORD promises in verse 5: “Look among the nations and see; wonder and be astounded/ For I am doing a work in your days that you would not believe if told.” God then tells the prophet about how he will punish injustice: “For behold I am raising up the Chaldeans, that bitter and hasty nation, who march through the breadth of the earth, to seize dwellings not their own.” This is the traditional prophetic answer, and it sounds much like what we have read in Psalm 37.

But here things turn interesting. Habakkuk has received the standard prophetic answer, but he does not accept it. Habakkuk is actually bold enough to suggest that God does not know what he is doing! The Chaldeans were a notoriously merciless bunch of conquerors. If the leaders of Israel were unjust, the Chaldeans were wicked without qualification. Is not using the Chaldeans to punish the unrighteous in Israel only making a bad situation worse? If the problem is the rule of the unrighteous, the Chaldeans will only bring in a new bunch, even more unrighteous. Habakkuk challenges God: “Are you not from everlasting. O Lord my God, my holy One? We shall not die.” (v. 12) He appeals to God’s own righteousness. “You who are of purer eyes than to see evil, and cannot look at wrong, why do you idly look at traitors and are silent when the wicked swallows up the man more righteous than he?” (v. 13) Then in a passage that the lectionary leaves out, Habbukuk compares the Chaldeans to a fisherman who casually harvests the innocent in a net: “You make mankind like the fish of the sea . . . He brings all of them up with a hook; he drags them out with his net. . . . Is he then to keep on emptying his net and mercilessly killing nations forever?” (v. 14-17)

When we read this kind of language in the Bible it suggests that the complaints of modern secularists are rather “small potatoes” by comparison. Habakkuk goes a lot further than Woody Allen’s observation in Love and Death that God is an underachiever. He actually has the gall to take God to task and to say “This just won’t do!” And then goes even further. Habakkuk goes on a sit down strike. The prophet says to God: “I’m going to wait here until you give me an acceptable answer!” In chapter 2:1, we read: “I will take my stand at my watchpost and station myself on the tower, and look out to see what he will say to me, and what I will answer concerning my complaint.”

The point here is not that Habakkuk questions God’s justice. From the beginning to end, the prophet assumes that God is just. This is what makes Habakkuk more interesting than Woody Allen or Christopher Hitchens. Anybody can look at the world and realize it’s a mess. Anybody can look at the mess and then conclude that no one must be in charge. Habakkuk knows that God is in charge, and he knows that God is righteous. So if there is a mess, he knows that ultimately there has to be an explanation that makes some kind of sense, since he knows that God is in charge, and God is righteous.

And the really interesting thing is that God responds to Habakkuks’ challenge. “And the LORD answered me; Write the vision make it plain on tablets, so he may run who reads it. For still the vision awaits its appointed time; it hastens to the end – it will not lie. If it seems slow wait for it; it will surely come; it will not delay.” (Habakkuk 2:2-3) The next line is obscure “Behold the soul is puffed up; it is not upright within him,” – Is this referring to the Chaldeans? – but the conclusion contains one of the those greatest hits of Scripture quotations: “the righteous shall live by his faith.” (vs. 4) (more…)

Ecclesiasticus 10:7-18
Psalm 112
Hebrews 13:1-8
Luke 14:1,7-14

A generation ago the Christian essayist Dorothy Sayers wrote a kind of imaginary catechism in which she summarized what she thought people of her time actually believed about Christian faith. It included the question “What does the Church call sin?” And the answer was: “Sex . . . getting drunk; saying ‘damn’; murder’ and cruelty to dumb animals; not going to church; most kinds of amusement. ‘Original sin’ means that anything we enjoy doing is wrong.”¹ In another essay, she mentions a young man who once said to her, “I did not know there were seven deadly sins; please tell me the names of the other six.”²

I would like to ask the question this morning, “What is the greatest sin?” I think that fifty years after Dorothy Sayers, a lot of people still think that the church believes that sex is the greatest sin. Perhaps the only sin. At least the conservative or orthodox church is thought to believe that. On the other hand, a good argument could be made that the progressive church believes that “lack of inclusiveness” or “intolerance” is the greatest sin.

It might be interesting to ask people to set aside their assumptions about what they think Christians believe is the greatest sin, and answer the question in their own way. What do you think is the greatest sin? Murder? Hatred? Betraying a friend? Certainly these are things that people do that cause real harm, and everyone would agree that they are morally wrong. The Lutheran theologian Robert Jenson suggests that all societies endorse the content of the second table of the Ten Commandments – the commandments that prohibit lying, stealing, murder, and so on, because any society that does not prohibit these things will not last long as a society.³

What might surprise people is that historically the Christian church has not specified any of these as the single greatest sin. (more…)

Jeremiah 23:23-29
Hebrews 12:1-7, 11-14
Luke 12:49-56

I am going to talk about sin this morning. I am not talking about sin because this is my favorite sermon topic. I am talking about sin because this is the common subject of the lectionary readings. Sin is a difficult topic to preach on for at least two reasons. First, in today’s popular culture, Christians are accused of being obsessed with sin, or, more specifically with other people’s sins. Second, Christians are accused of being judgmental of other people’s sins, and no one likes to be judged.

I do think that there is some truth to these accusations. There are preachers who love to talk about sin, but one gets the impression that too often they mean the sins of the people in their pews that they find most irritating. There are few things that turn people off from the church like a preacher who scolds parishioners from the pulpit, reminding them of just how far they are from living up the pastor’s expectations.

At the same time, there is a certain amount of hypocrisy in all of this. The same culture that criticizes Christians for being obsessed with sin is absolutely unforgiving of behaviors that they don’t call sin. They just call these behaviors by different names. Hatred, intolerance, and bigotry, are the three main sins condemned in our culture today. And all you have to do to be guilty of one of these three offenses is to disagree with the current spirit of the age. Again, although no one likes to be judged by others, there is plenty of judgment to go around. The news media loves to tell the stories of the latest celebrity who has, once again, had to check into a rehabilitation program because of a drug or alcohol addiction. You cannot buy groceries without noticing the tabloid newspapers and magazines with the latest shocking headline about which Hollywood actor was caught having an affair, or, an even worse sin, which Hollywood actress has gained too much weight to wear a bikini at the beach. And, of course, there is the world of politics, which has become something of a contact sport in our society. One of the ironies of today is that we live in a culture where no one believes in sin, but everyone blames other people for things we do not call sin, and where no one believes in forgiveness for any of these things. If you’re ever guilty of the kinds of things that one group or the other disapproves of in our culture, God help you, because only God can. (more…)

Genesis 15: 1-6
Psalm 33
Hebrews 11: 1-16
Luke 12: 32-40

The common theme in the lectionary readings today is that of hope. This is a topic that one usually associates with Advent, but it never hurts to be reminded from time to time of things we need to hear. Think of the sermon this morning as a little bit of Advent in the summer.

The Old Testament passage focuses on Abraham, and his hope for a son. In this morning’s passage, God appears to Abraham, and promises him, “Fear not, Abram. I am your shield. Your reward shall be very great.” (Gen. 15:1) Abraham is now an old man, and his response is perhaps understandable. Basically, he asks God, how can my reward be great? I will not be around much longer, and I do not have any children to give any reward to when I die. God’s response is one of the key passages in the Bible. “Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them. . . So shall your offspring be.” (v. 5) This seems to be a highly unlikely promise to make to an old man beyond the prime of life, but we know something Abraham did not. We know how the story turned out. We know that Abraham’s descendants would become the nation of Israel, and Jews who read this passage in their Scriptures would have realized that their very existence was the fulfillment of God’s promise to Abraham. If we include Christians, who also understand ourselves to be descendants of Abraham by faith, the promise to Abraham was fulfilled beyond his wildest dreams. According to the experts [Wikipedia], there are somewhere between 13 and 15 million Jews in the world today. There are something like 2.2 billion people who could be considered Christian in at least some sense living in the world today. So that’s a lot of descendants for Abraham.

Verse 6 reads: “And [Abraham] believed the Lord, and [the Lord] counted it to him as righteousness.” This is a key verse for later Christian theology. In both Paul and the book of James, the passage is crucial for the discussion of justification, how it is that we are considered righteous by God. That, however, is not the focus in today’s reading. The author of Hebrews talks about faith in a slightly different way. “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” (Heb. 11:1) Referring to Abraham, the writer of Hebrews says “By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance.” (v. 8) And, of Abraham’s wife Sarah, the writer says, “By faith Sarah herself received power to conceive, even when she was past the age, since she considered him faithful who had promised. Therefore from one man, and him as good as dead, were born descendants as many as the stars of heaven and as many as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore.” (v. 12)

So Hebrews focuses on “faith” not as touching on the question of righteousness, but on faith as trusting in God’s providence, that God will provide despite evidence to the contrary. Abraham obeys God “by faith,” and leaves his home and family to go to a new land, a land which will become the home of his descendants, the nation of Israel. Although Abraham and Sarah are too old to have children, they trust God who gives them Isaac as their son.

This sense of faith as “hope”for that which is not seen, is a necessity of human life – which leads to my first point: Hope is basic. (more…)

Exodus 3:1-15
Psalm 103
I Corinthians 10:1-13
Luke 13:1-9

When I was a doctoral student at the University of Notre Dame, there was a less than charitable joke among the graduate students about one of the the priests at the local church many of us attended – that he had only two sermons, a love sermon and a sin sermon, that he was for the first and against the second, and he would preach one or the other every Sunday. If I were that priest this morning, the readings would leave me with a dilemma. I could preach my love sermon, in which case I would preach on the Old Testament readings. Or I could preach my sin sermon, in which case I would preach on the New Testament readings. But I couldn’t preach on both.

However, if I am going to be responsible to my task as preacher, I think I need to be honest with the readings the lectionary gives me. That means I have to preach on both. And I have to ask how what the Bible says about love is connected to what the Bible says about God’s judgment of sin – because that’s what the passages are about. My starting point will be Psalm 103, where we find a clue in the Hebrew word hesed,which is usually translated in English as “loving kindness” or “steadfast love” and appears several times in the Psalm. The Psalm begins: “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name!” It continues in verse 4, “who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy.” In verse 8, “The LORD is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.” In verse 11, “As high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him.” In verse 17, “The steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear him.” This word translated “steadfast love” is not the sentimental love of pop ballads: “What the world needs now is love, sweet love, It’s the only thing that there’s just too little of.” Or the Beatles’ “All you need is love.” It is certainly not what our culture currently means by “tolerance” or “inclusiveness.” (more…)