Peace be with you.
Oftentimes, in the wake of mass shootings or some other tragedy, some people will make fun of the phrase “thoughts and prayers”. I understand that these tragedies often evoke an outrage at the inaction and misdirection of our politicians. I have sympathy for people who, during and immediately after a tense situation, express frustration that more wasn’t done to protect the innocent. However, one thing that concerns me is that the phrase “thoughts and prayers” has become, for some, synonymous with saying “oh well, there’s nothing that could have been done to stop this.” It’s engendered a real hatred for the phrase with one person recently telling me that people just need to be more creative than saying “thoughts and prayers” and another person saying that God hasn’t done anything so maybe it’s time we people do something.
In my mind, the second of those two people, who implied that prayers have been ineffectual, has the most concerning attitude. Yet, if we look to the first reading, it’s nothing new. The first reading comes from the three chapters-long Old Testament book named haBAkuk or Habakuk as most people say. Habakuk is the name of the prophet to whom God is speaking in the book. One challenge we face with our reading is that, in summarizing it, they’ve left out the heart of what is being said. You see, what we have is the first question Habakuk asked followed by part of the answer God gave to a follow-up second question. Now don’t get me wrong. I understand that the reason it is redacted in this manner is because it seems to take God until Chapter two to actually answer the question Habakuk was asking. Still, I think it’s important for us to understand how anyone could go from this answer, essentially that God will do it in his own time, to the third and final chapter, which is a song of praise, without sounding like it’s the plot to a bad sitcom. We ask God why it’s taking so long to stop bad things from happening, God responds to hold your horses and that he’ll get around to it when he does, and then the song “Where o Where are you tonight starts playing in the background.” And yes, for those who were wondering, that was a reference to Hee Haw.
So, what’s happening? Things are getting bad in Israel. The people aren’t following God’s laws and aren’t taking the time to develop a relationship with God. They can see an empire coming from the South and the East that both look like they are going to overwhelm them and Habakuk turns to speak on behalf of the people to ask God “Why do you let me see ruin; why must I look at misery? Destruction and violence are before me; there is strife, and clamorous discord.”
God’s immediate response is actually that it’s going to get worse. He says that those armies that are coming from the East will overpower you all and take some captive. It’s an incredibly dispiriting response when you think about it. But it’s one that I’ve experienced. You’re having a busy day and you just need a break and someone calls and complains that you haven’t done something for them and you think to yourself “well, it’s not like I’ve been sitting around doing nothing.” Or you or a loved one is diagnosed with cancer or some other illness and, right when you think it can’t get any worse, you find out that your son was in a terrible car accident or had a heart attack. You know what I mean, right. I’m talking about those times when you think it can’t get any worse and then you find out you’re still on the second floor of badness and you’re headed down to at least the sub basement if not the sub sub basement.
Habakuk’s response, his second question, asks God how he can allow people to believe that he’s sitting back and doing nothing. Habakuk can understand punishing the guilty but he’s worried that the good will also get punished if he doesn’t stop them from being exiled. We’re kind of reminded of the passage from a few weeks ago when Abraham negotiated with God about how many people it would take for God not to destroy Sodom and Gemmorah. I’m also reminded of being in grade school when the teacher would be correcting the students for doing something that I hadn’t done but, instead of feeling justified in not talking when I wasn’t supposed to, I feel like I’m getting punished for other people’s bad behavior.
