This sermon was preached at Glenwood and Canoe Ridge Lutheran Churches, Decorah, Iowa on October 6, 2019. It’s based on Habakkuk 1:1-4; 2:1-4 and 2 Timothy 1:1-14. If you’d prefer to listen to it, find it at https://soundcloud.com/stacey-nalean-carlson/.
Habakkuk 1:1-4; 2:1-4
1The oracle that the prophet Habakkuk saw.
2O Lord, how long shall I cry for help,
and you will not listen?
Or cry to you “Violence!”
and you will not save?
3Why do you make me see wrongdoing
and look at trouble?
Destruction and violence are before me;
strife and contention arise.
4So the law becomes slack
and justice never prevails.
The wicked surround the righteous—
therefore judgment comes forth perverted.
2:1I will stand at my watchpost,
and station myself on the rampart;
I will keep watch to see what he will say to me,
and what he will answer concerning my complaint.
2Then the Lord answered me and said:
Write the vision;
make it plain on tablets,
so that a runner may read it.
3For there is still a vision for the appointed time;
it speaks of the end, and does not lie.
If it seems to tarry, wait for it;
it will surely come, it will not delay.
4Look at the proud!
Their spirit is not right in them,
but the righteous live by their faith.
2 Timothy 1:1-14
1Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, for the sake of the promise of life that is in Christ Jesus,
2To Timothy, my beloved child:
Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.
3I am grateful to God—whom I worship with a clear conscience, as my ancestors did—when I remember you constantly in my prayers night and day. 4Recalling your tears, I long to see you so that I may be filled with joy. 5I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that lived first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice and now, I am sure, lives in you. 6For this reason I remind you to rekindle the gift of God that is within you through the laying on of my hands; 7for God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline.
8Do not be ashamed, then, of the testimony about our Lord or of me his prisoner, but join with me in suffering for the gospel, relying on the power of God, 9who saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works but according to his own purpose and grace. This grace was given to us in Christ Jesus before the ages began, 10but it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. 11For this gospel I was appointed a herald and an apostle and a teacher, 12and for this reason I suffer as I do. But I am not ashamed, for I know the one in whom I have put my trust, and I am sure that he is able to guard until that day what I have entrusted to him. 13Hold to the standard of sound teaching that you have heard from me, in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. 14Guard the good treasure entrusted to you, with the help of the Holy Spirit living in us.
There is still a vision. If it seems to tarry, wait for it.
This is God’s response to the prophet Habakkuk’s angry questioning.
O Lord, how long shall I cry for help and you will not listen? Or cry to you “Violence!” and you will not save? Why do you make me see wrongdoing and look at trouble?
There is still a vision, God replies. If it seems to tarry, wait for it.
Habakkuk looked at the world around him and did not hesitate to bring his frustration to God. Why, God? Why so much strife and contention? Why no justice? How long, God, will you refuse to save your people?
There is still a vision, God replies. If it seems to tarry, wait for it.
A while back I had one of those moments—I’m sure you’ve had them too—where I thought that if I heard one more piece of bad news my head would just explode. Everywhere I looked, there was relentless sorrow and senseless suffering. I texted my brother and I said, what is wrong with our world? And he said, the world does seem to be crumbling.
This is a conversation I’ve had with so many of you. You wonder if you should even watch the news anymore. Destruction and violence are all around. Can we dare to challenge God with our lament? Can we speak honestly in our prayers? Can we ask the hard questions without fearing we’re somehow being faithless?
Habakkuk invites us to question God even as we expect God to answer. I will stand at my watchpost and station myself on the rampart, Habakkuk vows. I will keep watch to see what he will say to me, and what he will answer concerning my complaint.
Even in the midst of his anger and frustration, Habakkuk expects God will answer. And God does.
There is still a vision, God replies. If it seems to tarry, wait for it.
Doug and I are just back from a week in the Smoky Mountains. Mid-week, I set out on a trail by myself. For a while, I was behind a group of elementary school students, but when the trail split I was alone on a very dense stretch of trail. I couldn’t see very far in front of me at any given time. And because people on a trail with us the day before had encountered a bear and her three cubs, I was anxious.
When I reached a footbridge over some cascading water, I was eager to believe that I had reached my destination. It didn’t look quite right—not the vision I had in mind based on my reading about the trail—but I wanted to believe it was the journey’s end because I was too scared to continue on my own. Going on, the trail looked even more isolated than before—more appealing to bears, I thought to myself—and though deep down I knew that I hadn’t actually reached Fern Branch Falls, I was content turning back.
I went back to the fork in the trail, explored the area where the children were visiting, and after thinking about it a bit more decided that I really needed to go back and follow the trail beyond where fear had stopped me. As I went, arguing with myself the whole way, I ran into Donna and Randy—complete strangers who quickly became companions on the journey.
Donna and Randy, I found out, live in Jackson, Ohio. They both worked for a company that made kitchen cabinets. And when the company closed several years before they had intended to retire, they both lost their jobs. In those first, fearful weeks after losing their jobs, they decided to visit the Smoky Mountains. It had been a place of great joy for them as they raised their children and took family vacations there…and now it would be a place of grounding and hopefulness as they worked to make sense of their changing world.
Several years now after those first days of grief and loss, Donna and Randy have found part-time employment and are enjoying even more time to explore and appreciate both the mountains and the people that they meet at their campground and on the trails.
As we walked together over that footbridge and onto the portion of the trail I had deemed too frightening, the trail no longer looked scary at all. I wasn’t alone anymore. And that made all the difference. When we reached Fern Branch Falls, it took all three of us to discern that this was actually our destination. Lack of rainfall over these last few months has turned the falls into a trickle. It looked nothing like what we expected. But it was there. And we had arrived there together.
Paul’s letter to Timothy reminds us that faith is not found in isolation. I am reminded of your sincere faith, Paul writes, a faith that lived first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice and now, I am sure, lives in you. Faith is formed in community.
Setting out on the Porters Creek Trail I had a vision for what I would experience—solitude, peace, and ultimately a stunning view of Fern Branch Falls. What I experienced instead was first isolation and fear, but then ultimately a stunning vision of the power of community.
There is still a vision, God replies. If it seems to tarry, wait for it.
Together, in community, we question God when the hurts and worries that surround us are too much. We question God when it seems as though what we were promised on this winding trail through life isn’t happening; when it feels as though God is silent, indifferent, uncaring; when grace looks to us like a barely visible trickle instead of a gushing, overflowing falls.
Together, we receive God’s reply to our sorrow and frustration. Together, we remind one another of the vision for which we wait: God dwelling among God’s people, God wiping every tear from our eyes, death no more, mourning and crying and pain no more.1 A world redeemed. Strife and contention silenced. Violence and destruction ended once and for all. Our risen Lord offering this world water that becomes in us a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.2
This is the vision for which we wait together. And all along the way, glimpses of that vision come to strengthen and encourage us.
So I invite you to consider this week: where have you seen, already, glimpses of that day when God will wipe every tear from our eyes? Where have you seen, already, glimpses of grace overflowing?
And when those glimpses are dried up, is faith still possible?
Listen to Habakkuk’s final words: 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.
Yet I will rejoice. Yet we will rejoice. It may look as though the world is crumbling. But together, we trust that this world is secure in the hands of the God whose vision holds it together.
There is still a vision. If it seems to tarry, wait for it. Amen.
1 Revelation 21:3-4
2 John 4:14