Back to Sermon List

Habakkuk’s Lament and God’s Justice

Sermon by Peter Terpenning

Habakkuk 1:1-4, 2:1-4, Luke 17:5-6
October 7, 2007

           I have been watching The War, Ken Burn’s latest historical documentary. It is excellent and faces the hard questions of the reality of war. Among them is the same question that Habbakuk asked in 6th century BCE. How can a just God allow such suffering and injustice? Habbakuk was a prophet in the southern Kingdom of Judah and he condemned the injustice of the society in which the rich and powerful allowed the oppression and inequality of the poor. He called on the powerful and the King, Jehoiakim, to reform and follow God’s laws contained in the Hebrew faith and take care of poor and show mercy to all people. If this did not happen, Habbakuk called on God to come and bring justice. “How long, O Lord” Habbakuk lamented, “will we ask for justice and compassion?” He wrestled with God in the way that Jacob, Jeremiah and Job all questioned God. This is a relief to those of us who have also questioned God.
            Well, the society did not reform, and God sent the Chaldeans (Babylonians) to conquer Judah bring the end to the power of the wealthy and powerful. What is interesting about Habbakuk is that then he questioned God again, “How could God allow such injustice to exist?” When the Babylonians conquered Judah they came with great violence and destruction. Then Habbakuk took the wrestling with God to a new stage. He once again questioned God, “How could God allow the Babylonians to bring about justice to Judah in such a violent, unjust manner?” Habbakuk is still angry with God; still questioning. What is God about? Why does God allow such suffering and injustice?
            It is an old question; some say it is “The” question. “If God is good, why does God allow suffering?” “Why do bad things happen to good people?” “Can we belief in a just God in an unjust world?” The book of Job is entirely devoted to this one concern. Archibald MacLeish wrote an adaptation of Job called J.B. In it he states the problem: “If God is God, He is not good, (but) if God is good, he is not God”. We can’t have both things; either God is in control of the universe, in which case God can not be all good. Or if God is totally good, God must not be in control of everything.
            This leads me back to The War. The Germans and Japanese, for sure, were guilty of much injustice, and Ken Burns takes the position, which few would disagree with now, that WWII was a “necessary war”. Yet the same question haunts me that haunted Habbakuk. As I watched The War, I was struck with how the allies, in responding to the brutality and injustice of the German and Japanese war machines, became very brutal themselves. America troops in the Pacific took few prisoners, partly because the Japanese seldom surrendered, but also because of the brutality of Japanese to American prisoners. In both arenas of the war, bombing of civilians reached new heights as fire storms were ignited in Dresden, other German cities and Tokyo with Napalm. And, of course, the dropping of the Atomic bombs, perhaps necessary in the Japanese determination to fight to the death, but nevertheless taking violence of human on human to new levels. Like Habakkuk we call to God, “How long?” How long will people solve their national struggles with such unjust and violent means?
            The problem is why God allows such atrocities. In the aftermath of WWII many people rejected God. One Jewish friend of mine in Cleveland who lost much of her family to the Nazis said she rejected God. There could be no God if this kind of injustice exists in the world. On the other hand, if there is a God, then she said she hated and rejected that God who would allow such things. In the face of modern warfare the old arguments simply do not hold up. There are always people who try to say that evil in the world is part of God’s plan. A child is hit by a drunk driver and someone will say its God’s will. Something bad will happen and there will be someone who says that the victim must have done something wrong to deserve this suffering. Rabbi Harold Kushner, in his book, When Bad Things Happen to Good People, told of visiting a family whose 19 year old daughter, an only child, died suddenly of heart failure at college. They solemnly told the Rabbi that the year before they had not fasted at Yom Kippur, as if this were the cause and punishment. Another woman he visited in the hospital had just survived a car accident in which her car was totaled. She told the Rabbi that now she knew there was a God, for God had protected her. Kushner did not think it was the time to bring up the many righteous people who were not protected in car accidents and died.
            Kushner turned to the book of Job, in which Job is unjustly treated to all kinds of misfortune. His friends insist he must have done something to earn it, but Job just as firmly insists that he did nothing to earn this suffering. Job remains faithful to God and finally God speaks to him out of the storm, saying in essence, “I am God and you are not, and trust in me”. Kushner says it comes down to three statements 1)God is all powerful, 2) God is totally good and 3) Job is good. All three can not be true. Kushner and Job insist that the second two are true, God is good, and Job is good. Therefore, the first must not be true, that God is all powerful. Kushner concludes that God must not be in control of everything.
            First of all, God is not in complete control of people if we have free will. As long as people make choices, there will be some evil and some good. And second, God must not be in complete control of the universe. Hurricanes, for example, are in the natural order of the universe, and God must not intervene to protect us. Lighting, the trajectory of a bullet, the weight of a car in an accident, the course of a virus; God does not intervene to stop these.
            So we do not ask why bad things happen to good people, or why there is violence and injustice. Rather, we ask how we will respond. What do we intend to do about it? Can we forgive and move on? Can we be agents of love in a violent and unjust world?
            Bernie Siegel, the cancer doctor often starts his lectures by asking people a question, “Is life fair?” And he says to yell your answer! Life is not fair, and we must accept the randomness of things that happen. God is not in control of everything, and many things happen that are horrible and unjust. But God is with us in the suffering, and we can call on God for strength and patience and love. If we give up God as all powerful, we can trust then in a God who is totally good.
            In final analysis, like Job, we are called to trust this God, and put the future, and our loved ones, and our deaths, in God’s hands. With Habakkuk we are called to wait on God’s love, it will not tarry forever, it will surely come.