How Long? [Proper 22C]
The
Rev. Jeremiah Williamson
Habakkuk
1:1-4, 2:1-4
How
Long?
I
still remember the day so vividly. Friday, December 14, 2012. It
was my day off and so I was home with my family – now three since
Oscar was born the previous September. We sat in the family room, a
bright, cool winter sun flooding into our space, and we turned on the
TV. On the screen was a terrible nightmare that had escaped into the
real world. Even now, almost four years later, it's still too
horrible to think about. And yet parents lived it. Their little
children frozen in time by a mad man with guns.
I
remember staring at the television screen, sick to my stomach, sick
to the soul, the death toll growing: tiny lives that never fully
blossomed, hopes and dreams never fully realized. Denial is the
first stage of grief, but it wasn't that, it just seemed unreal, too
terrible to be real. Never before, nor since, have I cried so much
for people I did not know. I remember those tears, there were so
many tears, but also not enough, never enough to cover all of those
tiny lives. After the chaos cleared, the final death count came in:
Twenty little children killed in a flurry of terrible bullets.
Parents' hearts ripped out. Lives shattered. Scars that will never,
ever heal.
That
tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut was so horrendous, I thought,
“Something will have to change. We can't go on like this.” But
then this week, another school shooting, children made targets in
South Carolina. And I am Habakkuk weeping over the devastation of
Judah, lamenting as the Creator's creation unravels. Then and now I
pray to God, “How Long?” And still our story is written in
blood. The prophet's words are the news crawl of our age:
“Destruction and violence are before us; strife and contention
arise.”
Newtown.
Charleston. Orlando. 9/11. Our story written in blood. You never
forget where you were the moment you heard; you never forget the
violent images, burned into you brain, into your soul, into your
heart; you never forget the stories of the aftermath: pain and
tragedy, of families torn apart and lives cut short. And the prayer,
a haunted question: “How long, O Lord?”
Iraq.
Afghanistan. ISIS. Our story written in blood. You never forget
the first strike, flashes of light and clouds of dust; you never
forget the images of bombs and torture, of rubble and human lives as
collateral damage; you never forget the stories of the men and women
who never came home, and innocent children caught up in a grown-up
war. And the prayer, the same prayer, “How long, O Lord?”
In
our city streets. In our facebook feeds. Creeping ever closer to
our front doors. Lives ended with a pop, in an instant. Our story
written in blood. Every lifeless body, every survivor left behind,
every lethal injection (death piled on death), every violent viral
video in the cycle leaves a scar. Violent images have become the
icons of our age, reminders of our human depravity. We measure our
days in terrorist attacks and bloody wars and mass shootings. We are
all victims of the violence; it chips away at our humanity, at our
ability to love, at our willingness to live out the Gospel in this
world. We are Cain, destroying the Image of God. We are Cain,
breaking the heart of God.
And
then weeping into the silent night sky, fists clenched, eyes burning:
“How long, O Lord?”
And
it is from the Cross that our Crucified God hears the question.
Humanity sentences God to the death penalty, and yet, God does not
walk away, does not leave us. Despite the violence, despite the
threat, God did not keep a distance. God was broken by the same
violence that continues to break communities and families. God was
scarred by the same violence that still leaves marks on our hearts
and souls. Our God, a victim of our violence, hears our frustrated
prayer: How Long, O Lord?
And
replies: “How long, O children of the earth, how long?” Our
prayer in the mouth of our Saving Victim. Our prayer returned to
sender. Our prayer, God's question, all along. We are Human,
looking for someone to blame.
But
on our best days, we pull ourselves away from the steady stream of
bad news and we dare to dream of something better. We dream of the
wolf lying down with the lamb. We dream of swords beaten into
plowshares. We dream of a world in which nations will practice war
no more. We dream of a heaven absent of pain and sorrow. We dream
of a heaven in which God wipes the tears from every eye. On our best
days, we might even dare to rage against the dying, to start making
those dreams come true – in this world, sowing seeds of love and
hope in these killing fields.
This
is my dream for the world in which my boys are growing up. And just
because it is a dream does not mean it is unrealistic – just that
is hasn't happened yet. Just because our history is written in blood
does not mean our future will be defined by violence. Past results
do not guarantee future performance.
God
bore the unbearable weight of our human violence on the cross. God
became every victim. God lived every life that ended too soon. Our
bloodthirsty ground drank the blood of God. We destroyed God just
like we destroy the Image of God over and over again. We wrote God
into our history of violence.
But
God re-wrote the ending. Our God exposed our guilt, confronted our
violence, to show us that there is more to the story, more to the
story than violence and death. Into our utter hopelessness God
planted a seed of hope, a promise of life. Violence and death will
not have the last word. Love is stronger.
When
it seemed there was no hope, no answer, no escape, God laid
everything on the line, a perfect sacrifice for the whole world, to
show us a better way, to give us a future – through death and into
life, from the violence of our Good Friday world to the hope of
Easter morning. And in this Easter world, the Easter world in which
we live, death is not the only answer; in fact, death is not the
answer at all. In God's Easter world, death is overcome by life, the
grave is where we shout our Alleluias, and the weeping of the dark
night, the despair, the hopelessness that weighs us down, gives way
to the joy of the morning. This Easter miracle is God's answer to
our haunted question; It's God's answer to our fatal disease; It's
God's answer to our most desperate prayers. We wrote a heartbreaking
history of violence with a Good Friday ending – and no one, not
even God, was spared. But that is not the end of our story. Because
God wrote a better ending.
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