Not Ours, but God’s Vision
In our first reading for Sunday (Habakkuk 1:2-3, 2:2-4), the prophet laments: “How long, O Lord? I cry for help but you do not listen! I cry out to you, ‘Violence!’ but you do not intervene. 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.”
Can we not resonate with the prophet? Do we not see now the things he spoke about centuries ago? But the prophet not only laments, but he also receives an answer: “Then the Lord answered me and said: write down the vision clearly upon the tablets, so that one can read it readily. For the vision still has its time, presses on to fulfillment, and will not disappoint; if it delays, wait for it, it will surely come, it will not be late.”
What is this vision? Is it humanity’s vision? I can’t see that. We don’t seem to be able to agree on a vision, even though we say we want the same things. Maybe we need to look at God’s vision for us. If we want something we can see “readily,” we can look at the Cross. Or we can listen to Jesus:
“For God so loved the world (italics mine) that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.” (John 3:16).
Or there is this: “A thief comes only to steal and destroy; I came so that they might have life and have it more abundantly.” (John 10:10). God’s vision for us is abundant life and eternal life. But we seem ready to decide that there are those who are evil or contemptible, and therefore outside of God’s love and care simply because they are not like us (Please insert your designated group here).
How can we participate in God’s vision? In our Gospel reading (Luke 17:5-10), Jesus’ disciples ask Him, “Increase our faith.” And Jesus replies, “If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you would say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.” If we believe in God’s vision for us, are we willing to have hate and fear and prejudice, out of which comes discrimination and injustice, uprooted from us? Are we willing to have greed and despair and apathy, out of which violence often comes, uprooted from us? And are we willing to help uproot these things from the world? Or would we rather be stuck in the ground with them?
Believe me, uprooting is hard work. I don’t profess to know much about forestry or the life of trees, but it seems to me that it is one thing to cut down a tree, but quite another to pull out the stump. That is why we need faith in God’s grace, so that we can continue to work for God’s vision for us. We need God’s grace so that, in the words of our second reading (2 Timothy 1:6-8, 13-14), we do not fall into “a spirit of cowardice but rather of power and love and self-control.” We need the faith of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr,: “How long? Not long, because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”
May hate be uprooted from our hearts, and, in following Jesus, may we be oriented towards justice.
I welcome any comments or questions. Thanks for your time.
In Christ,
Phil, CP
