PROPER 22, YEAR C

October 2, 2022

(Christ Church, Woodbury N. J.)

 

Habakkuk 1:1-6,12-13, 2:1-4

Psalm 37:3-10

II Timothy 1:1-14

Luke 17:5-10

 

When we read the Sunday Scripture lessons, a useful question to ask is: What underlying problem, question, or complaint is this reading is setting out to solve, answer, or address? Answering this question sometimes requires us to read back, between the lines.

 

And sometimes it doesn’t. In our Old Testament reading today the Prophet Habakkuk has a definite complaint to make. The wonderful thing about the Hebrew prophets is that they usually have no reticence whatsoever about complaining to God. 

 

So, Habakkuk makes his dissatisfaction clear: “O Lord, how long shall I cry for help, and thou wilt not hear? … The wicked surround the righteous, so justice goes forth perverted … Why dost thou look on faithless men, and art silent when the wicked swallows up the man more righteous than he?”

 

It's a familiar complaint. If God is a God of justice, why does he permit such flagrant injustice on earth? Psalm 37 similarly speaks of fretting over those who prosper and succeed in evil schemes—and warns that the anger and rage brought on by such fretting leads only to evil.

 

In the reading from Paul’s Second Letter to Timothy, the implied question is why God allows his chosen servants to suffer. Paul exhorts Timothy not to be ashamed of him as a prisoner but to share in suffering for the Gospel—for Paul suffers as he does precisely as a preacher, apostle, and teacher of the same Gospel. But the question lingers: Why does God permit those who’re doing his work to suffer so?

 

In today’s Gospel, the story of the master who doesn’t thank his servants when they come in from the fields but instead has them prepare his dinner seems to address an implied complaint about why the work of discipleship seems never-ending and often thankless. The disciples are impatient for the messianic banquet of God’s kingdom when they can finally sit and eat—but there’s all this interminable work to be done first.

 

In each case, the Lord answers: The Day is coming when everything will be put right. But that Day is not yet. In the meantime, we’re called to persevere in faith.

 

So, the Lord promises Habakkuk that his just judgment is indeed coming. “Look among the nations and see; wonder and be astounded … For lo, I am rousing the Chaldeans, that bitter and hasty nation …” Here, “the Chaldeans” refers to the Babylonian Empire, which in due course will conquer the kingdom of Judah as God’s punishment for the people’s sins.

 

Habakkuk gladly accepts the promise: “O Lord, thou hast ordained them as a judgment; and thou, O Rock, hast established them for chastisement.” But—the Lord tells him—not just yet: “For still the vision awaits its time; it hastens to the end—it will not lie. If it seem slow, wait for it; it will surely come, it will not delay.” In the meantime, the prophet takes his stand upon the watchtower to await the fulfillment of God’s promises.

 

The Psalmist similarly reassures those tempted to fret over the wicked who prosper: “Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him … For evildoers shall be cut off, but those who wait upon the Lord shall possess the land.”

 

Again, Paul reassures Timothy that despite present sufferings God is able to guard what has been entrusted to them both until the Day of Christ’s return. In the meantime, Timothy is to follow the pattern of sound words which he has learned from Paul “in the faith and love which are in Christ Jesus.”

 

The key to such perseverance, moreover, is faith. Thus, the Lord tells Habakkuk: “he whose soul is not upright in him shall fail, but the righteous shall live by his faith.” Notice the double-meaning here: having lived by faith in the present, the righteous shall in the end gain their lives.

 

Such persevering in faith is not a human achievement but a divine gift. Hence, Paul reminds Timothy to rekindle the gift that is within him through the laying-on of Paul’s hands, and he exhorts him to guard the truth entrusted by the Holy Spirit who dwells within them. In other words, we’re not in this alone. God is with us.

 

In today’s Gospel, when the disciples ask Jesus to increase their faith, he commends them for asking for the right thing. With faith even as small as a grain of mustard seed they could tell a sycamine tree to be uprooted and planted in the sea and it would obey them. The point of this vivid image is that by faith we can do even what seems utterly impossible to us.

 

So, in their different ways, each of today’s readings presupposes a human complaint to God about some present state of affairs that seems disordered and wrong. God answers with the promise that the day is coming when he will put all things right. But that day is not yet. In the meantime, he calls us to persevere in the faith that only he can give, and which will enable us to accomplish miraculous things in his name.

 

Christ Church is the second parish to which I’ve been assigned as Interim Priest in this transitional period between rectors. And in both parishes the complaint that I’ve heard most often by far is this: Why must it take so long to call a new rector? Why can’t we have the new one arrive within a month or two of the previous one’s departure?

 

The temptation under these circumstances is to try to take control of the situation ourselves and move the discernment and search processes along as quickly as we can according to our own timetable. And that’s perfectly understandable.

 

But God has already chosen the next rector of Christ Church, Woodbury. At present, however, God alone knows who that person is. We don’t. As currently configured in this diocese, the discernment process is designed to open up the greatest room for us to recognize God’s choice as he reveals it to us. And so far, my observation has been that the process generally works well in doing what it’s designed to do.

 

What we need to understand is that this process will proceed according to God’s timetable and not necessarily ours. There may well be setbacks and disappointments along the way. For example, some parishes extend a call only to have the person turn them down, so they have to go back and start receiving names all over again. But that’s usually a blessing in disguise, leading to the realization that this candidate wasn’t the one God had in mind after all, and there’s more work to be done.

 

Whatever happens, we do well to remind ourselves of God’s promises as set forth in today’s readings. Our calling is to persevere in faith, confident that God is bringing us to where we need to be: in his own way, in his own time. In the words of the Prophet Habakkuk: “Still the vision awaits its time … If it seem slow, wait for it; it will surely come, it will not delay.”