Habakkuk may not be our most well known prophet – you’ll find him with those we call the “minor prophets” in the Bible. Not because they weren’t important but because their books were short. And indeed, it’s one of those books you can read in one sitting: three chapters. You can read it for breakfast. And yet, if it’s not well known, it touched all of us right away when we read this passage together at Bible study this week. It went straight to the heart because of his prayer (Habakkuk is a book that is only a dialogue between the prophet and God), because of the words of his complaint to God – it has a specific name in the Bible: His lament. The Babylonians are overtaking the city of Jerusalem, they burned the Temple and exiled much of the population. Violence and destruction are everywhere and Habakkuk says:
“O Lord, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not listen? Or cry to you “Violence!” and you will not save?”
Even though those words were written (and prayed) 2500 years ago, we all felt we could relate to Habakkuk, we too see violence and destruction, hatred and if it wasn’t heart breaking enough as it is, it gets worse when God does not seem to answer our plea for justice and peace. Now God replies in our text – and we have his reply included – but maybe it does not seem to be the kind of answer we want to hear. God promises that justice is coming but, he says “Wait for it”. God adds: “It will surely come, it will not delay [in the meantime] The righteous live by faith”
And we know we have to do that, don’t we? We live by faith and we wait and hope for God’s justice. I think most of us have come to terms with the fact that God is not going to fix the world right away, that we live in this “in between time” where God gives his people a chance to change and repent, before bringing God’s justice. The struggle is that we still have to endure these times, and many of us shared on Wednesday our feelings of fear, anxiety and powerlessness. But that’s when we are called to live by faith, isn’t it?
Well, it seems at least that the disciples are a bit in the same kind of situation today, when they ask Jesus to increase their faith. We have only a short passage this morning, but it is part of a longer teaching about facing evil: in ourselves, by resisting it, in others, by rebuking, correcting and forgiving. And that’s where their request comes from “Increase our faith!” because how are they going to be able to carry and apply this teaching without faith? The hope is that if God is not going to fix the world right away, maybe God can fix us and give us enough faith to resist, rebuke, correct, forgive. And that’s when it gets interesting. It gets interesting because Jesus actually seems to deny the disciples’ request. I mean what better prayer could we pray than to ask the Lord to increase our faith? And yet, this is what Jesus replies: “If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree ‘be uprooted and planted into the sea’ and it would obey you”. I think it’s important to listen to these words very honestly, because it’s almost like Jesus is making fun of them: You ask me to increase your faith, as if you had faith already? But don’t you realize you haven’t even begun to have faith?
The more I thought about those words this week, and tried to take them very seriously, the more offensive I found them: They don’t even have faith like a mustard seed, which the smallest of all seeds. At a time the world barely knew about atoms, it was maybe the smallest thing you could think of.
So what is it all about?
Well, you know I think it was part of the conversation we had on Wednesday. This sense that the world is dangerous and scary and we understand God is not going to fix it now and we still have to live in it and endure it and change it, but then, in order to do so, if God won’t fix the world, maybe God can fix us? Maybe God can help us bear our fear, our anxiety, our pain, and that’s what I started to hear as well in the disciples’ words to “Increase their faith”. This is what I heard behind their request: “Fix us”.
And I don’t know about you, but it kind of resonates with a lot of my prayers, this disciples’ request. I understand the world is a tough place but maybe God can fix me, and help me understand it all, carry it all, forgive it all? That’s often what we mean by having faith, isn’t it? In a similar passage, in Matthew (21:21), Jesus talks about “planting mountains in the sea” rather than “mulberry trees” and we made a thing of it, right? We talk about “the faith that moves mountains”, as if it were the best thing! We all want the faith of those who never complain, never doubt, never stubble. But the thing is: I don’t think this is what Jesus wants for us because Paul, who was such a great theologian and who certainly didn’t misunderstand Jesus’s words, does not seem to think that much about it. He says in this well know passage we so often read for weddings: “If I have all faith, so as to move the mountains, but do not have love, I have nothing” (1 Co 13:2) Paul certainly knew this saying of Jesus and so you see, it’s interesting he didn’t make much of this kind of faith, charismatic faith, the one that makes you speak in tongues for example. It isn’t so important because love prevails over it.
And this is to me the corrective that Jesus’s parable add to this saying. He’s basically making a note that the disciples don’t have the faith that move mountains or uproots mulberry tree (interestingly the mulberry tree was known for its deep, tangled roots) but maybe it’s not what matters most. What is it that matters? It’s all the things they already know how to do, like the servants in the parable. What matters is to plow, tend the sheep, prepare supper, put on their apron and serve. Jesus is not interested in the life of charismatic faith, he is interested in the life of humble service. And they already know how to serve their masters, how could they fail to serve God in the same manner? For us also, we know how to plow the field, whatever our field is, we know to put on our apron and serve. We won’t move mountains, but this we can do: The humble work of love. This week we celebrate two great saints: Teresa of Lisieux and Francis of Assisi. Both of them are known for having done the simplest tasks in their lives. Francis became a beggar for God because he didn’t feel worthy to be a priest. Teresa spent her short life in a convent. She is one of the most famous saints today in catholicity and yet when she died her sisters say about her necrology: What are we going to write? She did nothing. And yet, this all it all starts, you live a life of humble service, one day after the other, and you end up moving mountains, as Teresa and Francis did and still do.
Adam Hamilton, whom we also got to know at Bible study, because he writes so many books on Christianity, says that he starts his day kneeling in his bedroom asking God to be able to do God’s will just for this day. And I think this is so smart. It’s so hard to know God’s will for our lives, our families, our nation or the world, but it’s so easy on a day to day basis to know just exactly what God expects of us. Faith for Jesus is about faithfulness, much more than it is about miracles or even productivity or invincibility.
And so back to our prayer life, maybe, I started realize that when we ask to have more faith, maybe as the disciples, we just ask to be shielded from feeling the pain. To be made so strong that we can live in this world without having to endure the world. But this is not Jesus’s way. Jesus is the first who will consider himself a the useless slave of the parable, doing God’s will, grabbing a towel and serving the disciples (John 13). That’s how we do it, that’s how we defeat evil, and move mountains, and uproot mulberry trees. Our suffering, as well as our service and our love, is holy, and that’s actually the essence of what we call the lament in the Bible: How the faithful endures the world as it is, doing God’s will and hoping for God’s justice. This reminded me of a much more contemporary prayer:
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.
(and it goes on)
Living one day at a time, enjoying one moment at a time.
Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace.
Taking, as he did, the sinful world as it is, not as I would have it.
Trusting that he will make all things right if I surrender to His will;
that I may be reasonably happy in this life, and supremely happy with Him forever.
—Reinhold Niebuhr, 1892-1971