Wait for it

 

Habakkuk 1: 1-4, 2: 1-4
New Ark United Church of Christ, Newark, DE
October 5, 2025

A masked ICE agent sprayed David Black, pastor of First Presbyterian Church of Chicago, directly in the face during protests outside the ICE processing facility in Broadview, Illinois. Photo by Ashlee Rezin of the Chicago Sun-Times.

Do you ever take a moment to step back and think about what this life is really all about? It’s a really wild existence, isn’t it? Despite all the scientific knowledge we have, we still don’t really know what got this whole thing started, where we came from, if we’re alone in this vast universe, what our purpose is, or what happens to us after we die. Whether we believe in God or not, we all live by faith. We hardly know some days what might happen next and more often than not, we can’t predict the outcome of the choices and actions of others, let alone our own. So, we try to have faith, to have hope that in the end things will work out or that we will be able to face whatever comes.



But having faith and hope doesn’t mean we just sit back and take it, especially when justice is denied, and the prophet Habakkuk is right there with us. Prophets usually give God’s word to us about how we need to change our ways, but Habakkuk takes the argument to God, demanding that God respond with the justice God is known for: justice that feeds the hungry and gives peace to the oppressed.



Habakkuk is hot under the collar because he realizes that God is going to use the might of the Babylonian military as God’s judgment on God’s people. This is back in the day when human beings attributed to God the actions of other nations, when the truth is, God was powerless to stop the violence that was to come. Nevertheless, Habakkuk is angry that God will allow such a thing to happen. It doesn’t make sense, given that God is just and would never forsake God’s people. And yet that’s exactly what it looks like.



As military troops and immigration enforcement personnel march down our cities’ streets, Proud Boys with badges, tearing people from their apartments, zip-tying children, and pepper-spraying their way out of talking with protesters, as Palestinians witness their homes turned to rubble and hostages still wait to be released, as the conflict continues in Ukraine, as the world ignores what is happening in Sudan, the DR of Congo, and Haiti, Habakkuk’s complaints sound eerily familiar. We too join him in his complaints to God: “How long do we have to cry out before you listen? How many times do human beings have to be outraged before you will do something? Day after day we watch the news, we open social media, and all we see is violence. We were a nation of laws; now we look more like a rogue state; our justice system is a joke.” Maybe God is waiting for more of us to do something.



How long must we wait, must we agitate? We need to put ourselves in the shoes of abolitionists, suffragettes, and feminists, in the path of LGBTQ+ people, civil rights activists, and union organizers, none of whose achievements were inevitable. They too had no idea what was going to happen, if their efforts would succeed but they had hope anyway. They did not give up because they had each other.



When the early Jesus movement groups were living through Roman persecution, they would openly declare that Rome’s defeat of Jesus, God’s Anointed one, was actually Rome’s defeat. The violence, the cruelty of empire will be the end of empire. The resurrection was an anti-Roman claim of victory over state-sponsored violence. These early followers of the Anointed resisted empire by forming communities of caring and forgiveness, feeding one another, and forging a future based on relationships. This was the good news that saved them.



When Jesus sat at that Table with his friends the night before he would be executed, he knew his work was not finished and that it would carried on by his flawed and faithful disciples and those who followed. There was no formula that must be adhered to, no creeds or tests of faith, no orthodoxy or uniformity of belief required to sit at that Table. The Table is all about the patient, passionate, persistent love of God for every person and the whole of God’s creation. The Table is an invitation for us to join God in that patient, passionate, persistent love for every person and the whole of God’s creation.



It's not a marathon, it’s an evolution, one that we choose, one that we wait for and work for with confidence, even when evil mocks us. Russian writer Vasily Grossman, who was censored for his anti-Soviet views and gave eyewitness accounts of Nazi death camps, wrote, “Human history is not the battle of good struggling to overcome evil. It is a battle fought by a great evil struggling to crush a small kernel of human kindness. But if what is human in human beings has not been destroyed even now, then evil will never conquer.” The apostle Paul wrote, “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil by doing good.”



The righteous live by their faithfulness, that is, by their persistence in what is good, holy, and true. God’s love is unconditional, unlimited, and unmerited when we receive it that way, when we share it that way, when we show up for people the way they need us to. We conquer the darkness by keeping the light of hope burning, within us and amongst us. We don’t give up because we have each other. Beloveds, that is what the Church is called to do and be. Amen.

Benediction

Go forth into the world in peace.
Be of good courage.
Hold fast to that which is good
and render to no one evil for evil.
Strengthen the faint-hearted;
support the weary; help the suffering.
Honor all people.
Honor all creation.
Love and serve God,
rejoicing in the power of the Holy Spirit.
The grace of our Savior Jesus Christ be with us all. Amen.