October 31, 2004; St. Andrew’s Pictou: ALL SAINTS SUNDAY

 

Power in Adversity

 

Habakkuk 1:1-4; 2:1-4 Complaint; God’s Response

Psalm 119:137-144 Confidence in vulnerability

2 Thessalonians 1:1-4, 11-12 Difficulties unite

Luke 19:1-10 Jesus transforms

 

Startling as it may be to us, (as history is said to repeat itself) the ancient writer of Habakkuk is writing from the context of Jerusalem being threatened by the Babylonian Empire of 2600 years ago! (Saddam Hussein’s ancestors were threatening Israel!)

 

Imagine, Israel is under the exact same threat today, as it was 2600 years ago!

… from the exact same area of the world!

 

While some people may think that terrorism is a new war, we can see that terrorism is as old as the hills.

 

What is more helpful for us perhaps, is to see that living under a threat, being threatened and complaining to God, is the timeless and ongoing human dynamic in this text. We often individually and nationally at one time or another, live under one kind of threat or another.

 

In fact this text is a 2600 year old piece of evidence asking that same age old question:

Why is a just God “silent when the wicked swallows up the (one) more righteous than (the other).” (1:13)

 

To this perennial question the prophet receives an answer which is equally valid: God is still sovereign, and in his own way and at the proper time will deal with the wicked; “but the righteous shall live by faith.” (2:4) Those two parts of the equation must go together. (RSV intro to Habakkuk p.1136)

 

While we want to be comfortable and safe, and we think that our comfort and safety should be a result or a consequence we experience from our faith, the Bible says, “no,” that is not true. God is not telling us that we are immune from threats because we believe; it is our faith that is to sustain us when we are threatened.

 

Listen to the very first line of this text:

“O Lord how long shall I cry for your help, and you will not listen?”

 

How many human beings have cried out this question over the last 2600 years? Millions?

 

Just as determined as many of us might be, Habakkuk makes a vow that he will not leave his watchtower until he gets an answer!

 

He gets an answer all right; it just isn’t the one he wants.

 

The answer is “a vision,” and God tells him to write it out like street signs so that everybody can read and understand what it is he is saying. There is meaning in all of this trouble but it is not a quick fix.

“If it seems to tarry, wait for it;

it will surely come, it will not delay.

Look at the proud!

Their spirit is not right in them,

But the righteous live by their faith.”

 

It is our faith in God, that enables us to act with power in the face of adversity.

 

In fact it is in drawing on our faith when faced with adversity that the power comes forth.

 

The great speeches of Winston Churchill came in the midst of the Nazi threat. They weren’t fireside poems, but were written passionately from the fearful shadows of threatened annihilation.

 

I remember reading where a man went into Westminster Abbey during World War II. He sat on a chair in the nave looking up at that 900 year old vaulted ceiling. A man sitting a little ahead of him eventually got up and walked out. It was Winston Churchill. Do you think Churchill was not drawing on the power of this faith and from all the Saints of old who had given and believed and worshiped in that abbey? Remember that the first part of his name is “church!”

 

I have been in Westminster Abbey. I have seen what Churchill saw and I was moved by the power of the vision, the art and faith of the Abbey of the saints of old who constructed and have believed for centuries.

 

Last week Nancy Clarke spoke here in this church where she told us that it was written about her that “there is no know reason why she is alive.” She told us the reason that the experts don’t know. She told us it was because of her faith.

 

I attended a conference in Toronto a few years ago, and a social worker was telling us about working with aboriginal youth and addictions. She said, “We work with 100% recidivism!” (They all go back to drugs and alcohol.) I was devastated to hear those words. Imagine, they work with a 100% failure rate! I felt like a trap door had opened up and swallowed me into despair.

 

One of the men attending went to the microphone and asked if Adrian was there to answer a question. Adrian was a young native man who had earlier said that he woke up one day with their weight on his chest so that he couldn’t move. He now seemed to be OK and this man wanted to know more. Adrian who had spoken earlier was not there. Later he did come back and was asked to explain what happened.

 

Adrian went to the microphone; the convener said, “Keep it short!”

 

Adrian did keep it short: with four words. He said, “I will show you.”

 

He lifted up the back of his shirt and there on his back from the bottom of his neck to his waste was a magnificent tattooed cross! Below it was written “John 3:16.”

 

God told Habakkuk to put it on signs like street signs so that people could read and understand it, and Adrian had done exactly that, Arian had “embodied” his healing experience.

 

Adrian’s adversity was addiction and the power of his faith was what helped him to get on the road to freedom and to get his life back.

 

Was the meeting then turned over to Adrian so that we could find out how faith conquers addiction? No. We only got to hear his words, “I’ll show you,” see his back, the cross and the scripture reference, and then he took his seat, and the “100% recidivists” continued their useless, unhelpful babble.

 

God does not work with a 100% failure rate!

God works with a 100% success rate, but as he told Habakkuk, “If it seems to tarry, wait for it; it will surely come, it will not delay.” Each person with their individual faith journey has to work out their own 100% solution…

 

…which brings us to Zacchaeus, a person who, like many of us was “a work in progress;” one who was working out his own 100% solution.

 

The text tells us that he was a “chief” tax collector and he was rich; the area supervisor, a senior bureaucrat in the sponsorship scandals of the day. He had done well in one way, but probably had no friends, had paid bodyguards and was despised by many of the people.

 

But he was drawn to Jesus. As a wealthy man of influence, he had to know who and what this man Jesus was that seemed to have a different kind of influence. Jesus both haunted and intrigued him.

 

But he had a hard time getting to see Jesus. The crowd was in the way and he was short.

 

We also have hard times getting close to Jesus because of the crowds in our lives: stress, other people’s expectations, clergy, church courts, betrayals and all the other things that hinder our opportunity to see Jesus.

 

Many of you have probably often heard of this story, where short Zacchaeus climbs the sycamore tree so that he can get a glimpse of Jesus, but I want you to think for a minute about an important man, that just didn’t stand on his toes, or climb a step, but he climbed up into a tree so that he could see Jesus.

 

Don’t you think that is inappropriate? Important people of high stature don’t climb tress to get a better look! The point is for us to see, how absolutely determined Zacchaeus was to see who Jesus was and that he was willing to accept embarrassment of doing whatever it took, just to see him and find out what he needed to know.

 

The text tells us that the people thought that Zacchaeus was a sinner, but that is not what Jesus called him:

“Zacchaeus, hurry up and come down; for I must stay at your house today.”

 

Not a word of condemnation or shame from our friend Jesus; even called him by name!

 

The text says that Zacchaeus just “stood there.” What do you say to Jesus when you meet him face to face?

 

“Look, half of my possessions Lord, I will give to the poor; and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will pay back four times as much.”

 

Jesus then affirmed his conversion: “Today salvation has come to this house, because he too is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost.”

 

You will hear people say that Jesus is our judge, but consider that there is no evidence that he did judge this man.

 

He didn’t ask Zacchaeus if he was saved.

He didn’t tell him that he was going to set him straight.

He didn’t even tell Zacchaeus that he was a sinner!

 

If Jesus judged Zacchaeus, it was with love!

 

“Zacchaeus, hurry up and come down; for I must stay at your house today.” This statement is not a message of condemnation; it is a message of love.

 

What was true for Zacchaeus is also true for you and I, and for Adrian, for all of the addicts in the world; for all of us, Jesus wants to come and stay at our house today.

 

Habakkuk faced the adversity of the Babylonians.

Adrian faced the adversity of addiction.

Zacchaeus faced the adversity of loneliness and estrangement.

Whatever adversity we face the power of faith is what accesses us to God’s infinite love for Jesus who desires to come to our house today.

 

If we choose to have faith, even in adversity, we can access the power of the love of God.

 

The choice is ours to make.

 

AMEN                    Rev. Alan Stewart