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Lectionary 27 7 Oct. 2007 Preached at ULC Text: Habakkuk 2:4
So HABAKKUK is not one of the big books of the Bible. It’s in the category of the minor prophets and in fact it is so minor that some people don’t even know there is a Habakkuk, and fewer still realize that one verse from this minor prophet with the barely pronounceable name was a pivot point that changed world history for the last 500 years. So today I’m going to start with Habakkuk and the simple, history-changing words at the end of our reading, “The righteous will live by faith.”
The righteous will live by faith. Doesn’t sound all that grand and earth-shaking, does it? Maybe this is one of those old speaker’s tricks where you build up the topic so much that no one will dare walk away. Breaking news about your children’s health that you can’t afford to miss, tonight at ten! And the story is about brushing your teeth twice a day or something. I’ll tell you what, I’ll just give you the story of this verse and its impact on the world, and when I’m done, you can tell me if I was right.
The year was 1504, and a young law student was traveling through the wilderness when a storm broke so forcefully that he fell on his face in fear. Thunder and lightning struck all around him, and he cried out to his childhood patron saint and said, “St. Anne! If you save me from this storm, I will become a monk.”
Well, it’s not the first time that a man in a fit of passion said something impulsive to a woman. But the storm stopped, and this student was true to his word to St. Anne, so he withdrew from law school to join an Augustinian monastery. He was such a powerful student that he was awarded a Doctor of Theology degree within a few years. But the more he studied, the more troubled his heart became. The question that troubled him was this, “How can a human being get right with God?”
Only a monk would ever worry about that question…right? I’m not sure. I’ve asked myself that question. I think some of you have asked it, too. Not just, “How do I know that God is real”, but “How do I get right with him if he is? How do I know that I’m going to go to heaven when I die? How do I know that God is going to help me and guide me here and now?”
Some of you have asked these questions, haven’t you? This monk asked the question all the time, and the more he chewed it over in his mind, the more it plagued him. I can tell you from my experience in Iraq, the guys who have the most time to think are often the ones who have the most problems with their thoughts. So this monk did everything he could think of to get right with God. He fasted for days at a time. He went to confession so many times a day that his priest finally told him, “Look, either go out and commit a sin worth confessing, or stop coming here so often!”
But he found no peace, because he could never know if he was right with God. Haven’t you ever agonized over whether you were doing the right thing? Haven’t you ever just wanted to KNOW whether to take this job or that one, whether to go out with this person or that one, how to make that tough decision? Haven’t you ever been in a situation where you wanted to KNOW what’s the right thing to do? This monk was asking the biggest question of all – am I doing the right thing in relation to God?
Finally, in 1509, the monk made a pilgrimage to Rome, looking for answers and looking for peace. He set out on foot and crossed the Alps. On his descent, he almost died of a high fever before finding a monastery at the foot of the mountains where he was nursed back to health. While he was there, one of the local monks listened to his spiritual struggle and advised him to read the book of Habakkuk. I don’t know the name of the mountain monk, but God bless him, because the traveling monk took his advice and it gave light to his struggle.
You see, Habakkuk had some spiritual struggles of his own, just like the monk, just like people today. If God is good, why does he allow suffering? Why doesn’t he do something? Why did he allow this to happen?
Habakkuk asks, O Lord, how long shall I cry for help and you will not listen? Or cry to you “Violence!” and you will not save?
It’s no surprise that the mountain monk turned the traveling, struggling monk toward the book of Habakkuk. And this one verse in Habakkuk captured the young monk’s attention: The righteous shall live by faith.
It was when he finally arrived in Rome that the meaning of these verses hit him. He went to the church of St. John Lateran, where it was taught that the stairs inside were the same stairs which Jesus Christ climbed to stand before Pontius Pilate. Truly pious Christians were expected to climb the stairs on their knees and beat themselves with whips as they stopped to kiss each step. The monk was doing just that, trying to make himself right, trying through his pain to make an impression that would satisfy God, when the words hit him again. The righteous will live by faith. The righteous will live by faith.
He put down his whip, walked back down the stairs and all the way back to the university from which he had come. At last he understood. His own actions could not, could never be enough to make him perfect, and perfection was the only way to be right with God. So, the only way to achieve righteousness was to trust that God himself would achieve perfection for him, through the perfect sacrifice of Jesus. To be right with God was not about what the monk did, but about the monk’s faith in what God did.
Now, he didn’t just come to this revelation and then go out to play Frisbee. Habakkuk taught him that the righteous will LIVE by faith, and so he went and lived taught and changed the world by his message of absolute faith in the God who had finally saved him.
The monk, of course, is Martin Luther, and if you doubt the impact he had, you should know that the Reformation he started is still seen by historians as one of the most significant global events of the last 1000 years. Sure he’s important to our church. We are Lutherans. But the impact on the whole world, without hyperbole, of the religious and political changes since that time can not be overstated. Not bad for one man and one verse from a book of the Bible you’ve never heard.
Now you know the rest of the story, right? Not quite yet. You’ve heard how this verse changed world history. How will it change your history? What is the present reality of this verse in your life?
Here’s the present reality for me. I’ve been there like Habakkuk. I’ve seen evil in this world, I’ve suffered in my own life, and my faith in God has sometimes worn thin. I’ve questioned the goodness and the promises of God. You say you love us, God, and you allow thousands of children to starve every day. I’ve been there like the disciples, crying out, “Lord, increase my faith.” When I lived in the violence and suffering of war, do you think anyone prayed harder for the crime and violence in Iraq to stop than me? It didn’t. When my duty to God and my country took me away from my family for 19 long months, I wanted my faith to be strong every single day, but it wasn’t. Some days my faith was as small as a mustard seed.
God’s reply, the reply of Jesus Christ and Habakkuk and Saint Paul and Martin Luther and all of heaven, is to say, “Steve, even that is enough. You may only have faith the size of a mustard seed. It is enough. It is enough.”
My real challenge isn’t to pile up more faith. That’s the consumer mentality in me. If only I had just a little bit more, I’d be fine. More money, more time, more faith.
No, the challenge is to live by the faith I have. The righteous don’t need a mountain of faith. A tiny bit of faith can move a mountain. The righteous need to live by their faith. I need to live and act and make decisions each day out of my trust in God, even if that trust seems as small as a mustard seed.
How about you? Do you want to get right with The Man? Do you want to know that you’re going to go to heaven? The only way to do it is to live by faith, to have faith that God will save you and to live every day by that faith. Even if your faith is this big (pinch fingers), it is enough. I know, it feels so small, so weak. It is enough. Go out and make your choices today as if you have faith in God, and you will be among the righteous. Amen.
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