Wait for It
Habakkuk 1:1-4; 2:1-4
Three years ago, in the spring of 2022, Sandy and I traveled to Spain to walk the Camino de Santiago, a 500-mile spiritual pilgrimage winding east to west across much of the country. Yes, we did so willingly, walking an average of 14 miles a day every day for 35 days.
People have been walking the Camino since the early Middle Ages, when the bones of James the Apostle were allegedly found in the city of Santiago de Compostela, in northwestern Spain (count me skeptical). The route that we took, called the French Way, begins on the other side of the Pyrenees Mountains in France and passes through several distinct regions of Spain, from the hills of Basque country, to the streets of Pamplona haunted by Hemingway, to the vineyards of La Rioja where wine costs less than water, to the limitless plains of the Meseta, to the lush greenery and surprisingly Celtic culture of Galicia.
Walking the Camino was a bucket-list item for Sandy. You can talk to her during coffee hour if you want to ask her why. I had my own reasons. The first was practical; I wanted to accompany and support Sandy. A second reason was for the sense of adventure; I enjoy traveling, had never been to Spain, and had never done anything like walk across an entire country. The third reason was spiritual; I wanted to discern a sense of calling. By the spring of 2022, it had been a full year since I had finished my second round of graduate school, two years since we had left South Korea, and three years since I had served a church. I was ready for God to turn the page to the next chapter of my life, whatever it might be.
Early on in the Camino, on just our third day, we spent the night in a tiny village outside Pamplona. There we met an older man from the Netherlands who had walked the Camino multiple times. He shared with us a bit of Camino wisdom that has stayed with me. “You do not get from the Camino what you want,” he said, “the Camino gives you what you need.”
I began the Camino wanting a sense of vocational direction. A year out of divinity school, I was beginning to feel listless and adrift. I wanted to experience on the Camino a similar kind of calling that I had received to go to Korea. The call to Korea was so clear, so direct as to be undeniable. It felt as though I had entered a mighty river and was being carried by the current to a destination that had been prepared for me. I longed to experience that again, to receive that kind of undeniable, irresistible call from the Holy Spirit.
Contrary to my hopes and expectations, that is not at all what I experienced on the Camino. What the Camino gave me was a lesson in patience...the patience to walk at a slower pace, in tandem with Sandy, and not surge ahead in an anxious rush to secure two beds in the next hostel before it filled up. The patience to slow down and walk according to the rhythm of the Camino, rather than marching to the strict time of my internal clock always telling me to push forward, to go further and faster.
The wisdom of that Dutch man proved true. I never received from the Camino the clarity that I wanted. I left the Camino as uncertain about my future as I had been when I started. I had wanted to hear God speak, but according to my schedule and in a manner of my choosing. However, what I needed was a lesson in patience.
During my sabbatical I read the book “Patience With God,” by Tomáš Halik. Halik is a Catholic priest from the Czech Republic who taught at an underground seminary during communist rule. He argues that the main difference between Christians and atheists is not faith but patience. Atheists lack the willingness to wait for God to speak. They demand answers immediately, on their time. By contrast, the Christian is one who cultivates patience with God. The Christian waits for God to speak in the manner and timing of God’s choosing. To have patience with God, to wait for God to speak, Halik suggests…that is faith.
The Christian waits for God to speak in the manner and timing of God’s choosing.
That is the faith that we see from the prophet Habakkuk, a faith that is expressed in the prophet’s willingness to wait for the Lord to respond to his complaint. “I will stand at my watch post 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.” The prophet will watch and wait for God to speak.
Okay, so Habakkuk. No, that was not me clearing my throat. You heard correctly. Habakkuk. That is an actual book of the Bible. I did not make it up. Habakkuk is one of the twelve so-called minor prophets, situated in the Bible between his fellow prophets Nahum and Zephaniah. We know little about the prophet’s life because he doesn’t tell us much, referring to himself simply as “Habakkuk the prophet.” Joe the plumber. Habakkuk the prophet.
Habakkuk was on the scene prophesying in Judah in the late 7th Century BC, sometime around 612 BC, which would make him a contemporary of Jeremiah. This was a tumultuous time for Judah, the southern half of the once united kingdom of Israel. The northern half of the kingdom had been destroyed a hundred years earlier by the armies of Assyria. Judah was all that was left. But now Judah was being threatened by the newest imperial power on the block, the Babylonians, who had just recently conquered the Assyrians. Judah had merely exchanged one oppressor for another.
As an aside, it really is remarkable the number of times that control of Israel and Judah changed hands from one imperial power to the next: Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Greece, and by Jesus’ time, Rome. The theologian Karl Barth was once asked what proof he could offer for the existence of God. His answer: the Jews. What other than God’s grace could account for their continued existence as a people after having been conquered so many times over thousands of years?
Anyway, in addition to the growing threat beyond Judah’s borders, there are problems within the nation as well. “Destruction and violence are before me,” the prophet writes. “Strife and contention arise. So the law becomes slack, and justice never prevails. The wicked surround the righteous; therefore judgment comes forth perverted.”
The fabric of society is fraying. Fear and loathing fill the air. Neighbor turns against neighbor. The truth is under assault. Corruption abounds. The courts are compromised. The law is wielded as a weapon. The threat of violence is used to stifle opposition. The constraints designed to keep power in check have become slack. Injustice reigns.
Where is God in the midst of all this evil? Why doesn’t God do something to right all these wrongs? Does God not see? Does God not care? Or in the words of the prophet, “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?” Why indeed.
The prophet’s complaint is one to which I imagine we can all relate. Whether it’s what we’re watching and reading in the news or what we’re experiencing in our personal life, at some point you just feel overwhelmed by it all, throw up your hands, and cry out, “God, where are you?”
There are churches where you can’t say that. There are churches where you have to pretend all the time that everything is okay. The unspoken assumption is that God doesn’t want to hear your complaint. God wants your praise and your prayers and your offering, not your bellyaching. God doesn’t have a suggestion box. Listen, everything happens for a reason. Don’t worry. Be happy.
As I hope you’re aware, you’re not in one of those churches. Not because we’re inherently different or better but because we take Scripture at its word. And Scripture says, and Habakkuk is just one example, that God can handle our complaints. That’s what the book of Habakkuk is essentially—a complaint to God that God is not doing what God is supposed to do. God is not supposed to tolerate injustice. God is not supposed to let the wicked surround the righteous. God is not supposed to turn away from, or look on passively at, violence and destruction.
Let me direct your attention to verse 1 of chapter 2. After voicing his complaint, after calling into question the will and wisdom of God, Habakkuk does something interesting. He stands at his watch post and he waits. “I will stand at my watch post 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.”
Habakkuk doesn’t believe that he is shouting into the void. He stands and waits because he trusts that God hears his complaint and will respond. He stands and waits because he doesn’t want to miss what God will say. Standing and waiting may seem like doing nothing, but truly this is such a profound act of faith, one of the strongest in all of Scripture. It’s right up there with Thomas—the same Thomas who refused to believe that Jesus had been raised from the dead—proclaiming before the risen Jesus, “My Lord and my God.”
If we accept Tomáš Halik’s claim that patience with God is faith, then even amid his questioning of God’s will and wisdom, Habakkuk is a man of deep faith. He does not turn away and say, “Forget it! I’m done. I’m tired of waiting.” He takes up his position and waits for God to answer him.
We don’t do well with waiting. We want what we want and we want it now. Make it snappy! Why is the fast food taking so long? Why is this slowpoke in front of me driving only 75 mph? Buy now with just one click! In our 24/7 always-on, instant-gratification society, “wait” is a four-letter word.
As with so many things, when it comes to waiting, our faith in Jesus Christ places us at odds with the wider culture. As people of faith, we understand something about waiting on the Lord that nonbelievers have no awareness or understanding of. Our waiting is not passive. We don’t sit on our hands and do nothing but watch while the world burns.
No, we don’t sit on our hands, we clasp our hands in prayer. “To clasp the hands in prayer is the beginning of an uprising against the disorder of the world.” I wish I had come up with that, but that’s not me. Once again, that’s Karl Barth, the theologian I mentioned earlier.
To the outsider, prayer appears to be a passive endeavor, but nothing could be further from the truth. Prayer lifts up. Prayer laments. Prayer listens. And by listening in prayer for God’s response, by positioning ourselves on the ramparts and watching and waiting, we proclaim a patience that is rooted in faith, a patience that in some sense is faith. And if patience with God is faith, then the righteous shall live by their faithfulness.