Highland Presbyterian Church 7th Sunday of Easter – May 16, 2021 A Sermon by Doodle Harris

This past year in Sunday School, our 4th and 5th graders have been looking at specific and individual people in the Bible and looking at them for what skills and talents God gave them, and thinking about how likely or unlikely, they were to be Biblical heroes. Our adventures have taken us through the Old and New Testaments and into some places where we typically don’t go with 4th and 5th graders. For me, though, the best discussion we had all year was when we talked about the Old Testament prophet of Habakkuk. Habakkuk was a prophet whose writing are all contained in, well, the book of Habakkuk. All of Habakkuk is a lament or a lamentation.

Video viewing #1 (Solomon)

Oh – right! A lamentation. Well, our Horizons Bible Study Class has been studying Lamentations all year. Angie…?

Video viewing #2 (Angie)

Wow Angie! Thanks for that. She’s right about laments. And Habakkuk is one of the longest prayer of complaint and faith out there. Habakkuk is complaining about the evil and tragedy in the world. The Israelites – God’s people – are not listening to God. They are selfish, they are worshipping idols, they are doing things their way. Habakkuk knows that the Israelites aren’t obeying God and nothing is happening. They just keep living their own merry, happy, selfish life with NOTHING! Habakkuk is frustrated with God about this behavior. I asked our 4th and 5th graders what they do when they are frustrated or angry with God. Here is what one says:

Video viewing #3 (Leah)

Leah wants a simple and direct conversation with God. Smart because that’s exactly what Habakkuk does first. Habakkuk in chapter one lays out all of his complaints with God. This is why I’m mad at you God! The Israelites aren’t listening or obeying. God replies to Habakkuk saying, I’ve got a plan. It makes sense to me. It will come. Those who stand against me will not survive. The Babylonians are just to your North and they are about to attack. They will attack God’s people and through this attack God even curses those who are wealthy and do not follow God’s law, and those who are not righteous. God curses those who worship idols. God is basically saying, I will use the Babylonian army to get rid of the Israelites. Those who are not following my word, the Babylonians will destroy them! Habakkuk, however, is still not satisfied with this answer. Whoa, Whoa, Whoa God…. this doesn’t make sense. You want your own people destroyed? Because who wants their own people destroyed? So angry, unsatisfied Habakkuk tries a new approach:

Video viewing #4 (Gordon)

Habakkuk does exactly what Gordon suggests, he begins negotiation. Oh God, your ways are magnificent! Everyone knows of your handiwork in all the earth. I see how great you are! Please send the Babylonians away. The Israelites really aren’t so bad are they? To this God is silent. And I must say it is sometimes hard to deal with a silent God. Sometimes when we are raging against the world and angry at life, it is hard to feel like God is silent. We want security. We want assurance that God is on our side. We want to know that the promises of God are real. That when we are faithful to God, it matters. When we talk to God, God listens. So now what? We’ve tried to reason with God and then we try to negotiate with God, and now…

Video viewing #5 (Leo)

Man, these kids are amazing aren’t they. Because in their 9- and 10-year-old minds they are able to articulate exactly how Habakkuk responds to a God who isn’t doing or acting like Habakkuk thinks God should act. Although these comments were recorded this past week, these are the comments that they made in class. After being angry, Habakkuk does exactly what Leo suggests. He prays the prayer of a person who just wants to see God and know God is there. He says… Though the fig tree doesn’t blossom, Though there’s no fruit on the vines, Though there no food in the field, Though the flock is cut off, I will still rejoice in the Lord. You are still the God of my salvation. You are still my strength.

Why Habakkuk? Why is this your final word on the matter that you have faith in God? Where does your faith come from that when everything feels like it’s going wrong, that when there are no resources to share, that when you are trying to get God to notice the Israelites and the wrongs they are doing, God doesn’t seem to hear. Instead God sends an army – the Babylonians. God says I have a plan and that plan is the Babylonians…

Video viewing #6 (Will)

Are the Babylonians like the corona virus? When I asked Will what he meant by that, he said we were pretty happy in our world. We have most everything we want but maybe we weren’t paying enough attention to the things that God wanted us to pay attention to. Maybe that’s why we have the corona virus, because the corona virus has made us stop and think about who we are, and what we do, and where our attention should be…

Interruption #7 (Katy)

Yeah – so that’s a good point. Why would God let the Babylonians defeat the Israelites in battle if the Israelites are God’s people? Why would God let the corona virus take over this world and take over this earth if God loves this world so much? Why would God let us know such pain and such suffering if God could do something about it? I’m not sure how to answer Katy’s question. It is remarkably insightful for a young person. I don’t like a God who uses the Babylonian army to teach God’s people lessons. I don’t like a God who uses the corona virus to stop this world from functioning but, like Habakkuk, I don’t fully understand God and I don’t know God’s plan. The best understanding I have of God’s plan is that maybe it’s like Muhammed Ali’s plan. October 30th of 1974 was the “Rumble in the Jungle” – the fight between boxing’s heavy weight champions Muhammed Ali and . Ali was the underdog in that fight. In fact, the odds were 4-1 against him. But this is the fight that we know Ali won. Ali won while making the boxing move known as the rope-a-dope famous. Ali, using the rope-a-dope technique, holds their arms up to protect their face. They draw out big heavy punches from the opponent with the boxer using the rope-a-dope, giving out very little punches themselves. When you punch someone with their arms up, they take the impact in the arms and then allows it to hit their face, and then they lean backwards so the force of the one heavy punch is dispersed along the arm, the helmet on the head, and through the feet as the opponent steps back. Basically, it becomes the same as someone punching a punching bag. The bag remains still, present, and the person doing the punches wears themselves out! It was then, that Foreman was so worn out, that Ali was able to land some of the simplest boxing without many fakes or feigns to win the boxing match of the 20th century against George Foreman. But what we don’t talk about is how Ali only used the technique of the rope-a-dope against Forman in rounds 2-8. Ali didn’t use the rope-a-dope in the first round. Ali’s first strategy was something called a “right-hand-lead.” Ali thought he was sure to win the fight with the right-hand-lead because he knew he was quicker than Foreman. The right-hand-lead works this way. When Foreman would punch with his right hand, Ali would retaliate with his right-hand punch without waiting for Foreman to set back up for his next punch. The idea is that Foreman would essentially be leaning into the punch still. Ali tried this for a whole round with no success. His right-hand-lead was ultimately a failure against Foreman. So, to recap, Ali won the greatest fight of all time using Plan B – not Ali’s original plan. Ali’s original plan failed, but instead of saying forget this, I give up, Ali kept fighting and eventually defeated Foreman. I wonder! I just wonder if maybe the Babylonian army or the corona virus wasn’t God’s plan A. I suspect God had a “plan A” to win over God’s people and inspire them to obedience, to love, to help, and to compassion. But maybe plan A wasn’t as successful as God wanted it to be. And I want to be careful to say here that we don’t believe God caused or created the corona virus, but maybe the way that we have grown and recovered from the corona virus has been our own plan B. Because, thanks to the corona virus, I know the neighbors on my street. After hanging outside with them several nights in a row, I know their names and the names of their children. I know about the single black mother on the corner who is raising 3 kids on her own. I know the grandparents across the street who are raising their grandson. I know the couple two houses down who have two children and barely see each other because she works 1st shift at UPS and he works 3rd. I know about my neighbor on the other side who has been through so many break-ups, and I know about the Chinese family who lives on my street who has three children and had to wait over a year to take their newborn son (who was born in March of 2020) to visit his grandparents in North Carolina so that his parents and grandparents could be vaccinated. Because, thanks to the corona virus, I’ve had to have more real and serious conversations with my friends. I know about their hopes and dreams. Because of the corona virus, I’ve watched my children learn to read. It hasn’t been in a classroom somewhere but in my own house. They barely knew their letters 14 months ago, and it’s been amazing to watch. As I’ve talked with you all, you’ve had similar experiences. You’ve learned new things. You’ve been creative in ways you hadn’t even imagined before. You’ve fallen in love with your homes again since you’ve been working from home. You’ve fallen in love with your spouses again because you’ve had less distractions. You’ve connected in ways that have been unexpected, and surprising, and meaningful. And so, maybe none of us wanted the corona virus and none of us dares articulate that it was part of God’s plan, but it is clear to me that God has used the corona virus to refocus us and redirect us towards things that are more completely a part of God’s plan. Because of the virus, we have turned more fully towards the love that God gave this earth and the love that God gives us in each other. My prayer is that we are all like Habakkuk. That we lament before God. That we get into the practice of a prayer life that states our honest and true feelings toward God. But I also hope that we can recognize the corona virus as a death of some of the things that distract us from faithfulness to God, and the resurrection of some new habits, some new ways of being together, some new ways of love, some ways of declaring our faith in God in the middle of something awful, some ways that move us closer towards God in a life that ever better reflects the love and sacrifice of Jesus in this world. Amen.