Rev.Joseph Boyd
The blinds are shut. We awaken to sunlight, sometimes it’s still dark out. We awaken and don’t know what time it is. Is it time yet? Is it time to wake up? Our eyes open and we are in a place that seems familiar – the familiar smells, the feel of our pillow, blankets. We open our eyes and sense we are some place we believe is home and yet we cannot be certain. The feeling of doom or what may come sits in the pit of our stomachs as we close our eyes again and pretend to be asleep for just a little while longer.
Outside our window life is happening – children are on their way to school, cars are all headed toward the freeway, leaves are falling. At least this is what we imagine is happening. The difficulty comes in realizing that life is more than what we can imagine – there are certainly heartbreaks that will happen this day, events which will forever change lives, for some this day won’t change anything in their life…and they’ve been praying for change, hoping for change, ready for change. There is so much out of our control on this day. We can’t even manage our own lives.
We wake up, and we don’t know how our bodies will feel, what our mind will be thinking, whether today will feel productive or monotonous or momentous.
As a teenager and into my 20’s I would spend time upon waking just looking out the window. By looking at life happening, I felt like I was given a choice about my participation in it. I would watch other people living the day that was waiting for me…some of them getting soaked by the rain waiting for a bus, others talking on the phone, some walking slowly, gingerly. Others just standing on the corner. I wondered how i was going to face this day.
The prophet Habbakuk is sick of being in the watchtower. He witnesses threats, injustice at every turn, perversions of justice disguised as virtue and honor. He witnesses the powerful become more powerful. He sees greed and self-centeredness being rewarded. And he sees suffering, lots of suffering, with no intervention from either the world or heaven. He is disheartened by what he sees as he faces the day.
This security measure, this watchtower he’s in, feels like a joke. He says out loud:” There is too much confusion! I can’t get any relief!” It’s a prayer of despair so deep that the words can’t even help but escape from his mouth even as he is sure there is probably no one out there listening. No one who really cares. No one who can alter the course of this day.
Many among us feel their life is just a joke. They feel their country is just a joke. Politics are just a joke. Justice is just a joke. It’s a joke with consequences, consequences that are hard to face. A seine is a fishing net, and he sees all these lives caught up in this net that they had no part in building. They’re caught up in intricately built webs, structures and institutions that suffocate, that guarantee that they can’t breathe. They can’t breathe.
Habbakuk sees all this from his watchtower. He sees the whole picture – the net being thrown by the powerful, and fish getting caught in it day in and day out, haunting Habbakuk with the same cry: “I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe.”
It’s painful to witness other people in pain. It can become so painful, that we’d rather shut the blinds, and let commentators fill us in on the tragedies of the day. Sarah Ruhl, the playwright, calls this the age of commentary. There is so much happening at any given minute on any given day, that we have come to rely on commentary to give our days some sanity and meaning. Tell us what to think, how to feel, how to react, how to interpret what is going on. Without commentators perhaps, our civilization would implode under the weight of overwhelm, doubt, and complexity.
I attended a minister’s retreat this past week, and the facilitators asked the minsters present to divide themselves in the room based on their attitude toward ministry in the times we are living. A good number were honest and said they felt overwhelmed and ill-equipped to face the challenges of our time. They stood out the door. There were ministers who felt inspired by the opportunities that are being offered by this time. They stood by the window. Then there were a group that stood in the middle between these two poles.
I told the group frankly that I couldn’t imagine a more inspiring and creative time to be a religious leader in American history. I believe the challenge and opportunity for religion is more pertinent now than it ever has been before. It is more pertinent that when the Mayflower landed, more pertinent than the Great Awakening, more pertinent than after the world wars. Our country is presently facing a challenge to its self-image, and finally learning to let go of a narrative of innocence. It’s going through a crisis of identity, and questioning the limitations of both justice and wondering if there are limitations to forgiveness. We have relied on this narrative of innocence for far too long, and our religious institutions are culpable in supporting this, and now it is being exposed and crumbling. I don’t celebrate this crumbling out of meanness or self-righteousness…I celebrate the crumbling of this narrative of innocence because I believe that in seeing who we are and what we’ve done, we can finally, maybe for the first time face the light of truth. We can face the day, and this shall usher in our salvation, the desire embedded in all our laws and covenants – we shall be truly free.
We shall experience the depth and responsibility of this freedom in ways we never have before. We shall feel free rather than simply think about it, read about it.
It is usually not voluntary to face the day, to face the consequences of our attitudes and actions. It is usually not voluntary to witness the nets of tradition and institution suffocate the masses. It is usually not voluntary to open up the blinds. They are usually thrown open by events that force us to confront the day. Events that are recorded on video and shared with the world. Events of brutality, events of hatred, events that mirror our shadow values – greed, vanity, cunning, and dishonesty. These events cause us to question what we’re looking at, questioning the reality we took for granted. Mundane things start to take on a new meaning, like standing for the national anthem. Before this simple act was done by rote, by tradition. Now professional athletes and people of all interests are wondering what it signifies to stand for the national anthem – Is now a time to be proud or a time to be ashamed? This is the burning question for many as we face the day.
These are extreme choices – pride or shame. They’re knee-jerk reactions to the overwhelm of facing the day. It is easier to choose to be proud, and rationalize or dismiss any event which contradicts a proud narrative. It is also easier to be ashamed, and sit in a place that replays all the horror that is witnessed. Both of these choices are blinders. They shut out the day…they prevent us from experiencing nuance, and seeing something fresh, something alive and vital.
I find it interesting in our reading that Habbakuk is committed to waiting for the vision without knowing what it is. Habbakuk is called a prophet. It is tempting to think that a prophet is someone who knows what will happen, or at least has a greater sense of what may happen. It’s tempting to think of a prophet as someone who is smarter than us, more aware, more virtuous. Habbakuk shows us that a prophetic witness only requires one thing – courage. It takes courage to open the blinds as the day dawns, and peer out of the watchtower, knowing there will be suffering and death…that it will follow a pattern similar to yesterday, and that no one seems to be able to stop it. It takes courage to wait for a vision without any definitive content.
There is only one thing known about this vision – that its character is unknown – it has not been seen before. It is new, fresh, and vital.
It is understandable that we’d want to know the content of this vision, that we’d want to know what we’re going to face as we open the blinds. Maybe we yearn to see the face of our mother, of our father. Maybe we yearn to see someplace we’ve never been before – a paradise, heaven on earth. Maybe we yearn for a world where people quit getting shot, where hurricane and flood victims all have equal access to care and resources, where democracy led to a more beloved community. These yearnings are understandable, and yet it is not the vision. The vision is unknown and yet to come. The vision requires us to live with uncertainty about its timing and application, and this takes courage.
We never know what we’re going to witness on a given day. Any given day is a time of endings and beginnings. It takes courage to live our lives, trusting we are living into the vision, living into fulfillment without experiencing fulfillment. We live our lives in the night of unknowing, vaguely realizing what our lives are, and what they are leading toward, what they are connected to.
It is not a question of meaning, but a question of perspective. Habbakuk does not ask what the vision means, for its meaning will come in its own time, usually after the fact. The promise that is offered is greater perspective, literally a vision, a way of seeing the tragedy of the day unfold.
The promise of a vision has a practical application in our lives. We can open ourselves up to the possibility of a vision, of greater, deeper perspective. We can let the possibility of a vision correct our usual way of facing the day. If we have a tendency to sit back and let the world go on without paying it much attention, the vision can remind us to tune in – to pay closer attention to the signs of the times, and notice the changes taking place on this day. If we have a tendency to get lost in a particular event, and get sucked in, get overwhelmed, the vision reminds us to always consider the whole – to step back, and widen our gaze. The promise of a vision does not mean we let something or someone take care of the day. It also doesn’t mean that it’s all up to us, that we should abandon our watchtower and get lost.
We need to be in our watchtower, keeping watch over each other. We don’t know when the vision will come, or what it will be, but it’s fresh, open possibility can inspire us to face the day. The landscape of our life is cracking open, and blowing in winds of turmoil and rapid change. It is a whirlwind, and it involves us, all of us. Now is the time to let the winds of change swoop us up in our watchtowers and force us to see that which we’ve never seen before, to witness lives unknown to us. It is time to have courage that there isn’t some vision out there idly waiting for us, but that it is actively pulling us toward a more complete picture of ourself and our culture. It is forcing our heads in certain directions and begging us to look with eyes of recognition at the life we’ve been asleep to. The vision wipes the sleep from our eyes, opens the blinds for us, and tells us in no uncertain terms – This the day we have been given. Keep watch. Let’s not waste it.