Scripture: Habakkuk 1:1-4, 2:1-4

In my mind’s eye, I see Habakkuk running back and forth along the ramparts, yelling to anyone who will listen, full of fear and anxious energy about the portending destruction. The world as they know it looks to be about to end, and no one will pay him any attention! Habakkuk has that hair-on-fire energy to him. Certainly, we can say his hope is on fire.

If I apply my imagination even further, I see Habakkuk typing furiously on his ancient iPhone, telling the world through X, Facebook, and the like, that two riders approach in the night, the wildcat howls, the world is on fire! In my fantasy Habakkukian facebook post, he writes this:

There must be some kind of way outta here
Said the joker to the thief
There’s too much confusion
I can’t get no relief
Business men, they drink my wine
Plowman dig my earth
None were level on the mind
Nobody up at his word
No reason to get excited
The thief he kindly spoke
There are many here among us
Who feel that life is but a joke
But, uh, but you and I, we’ve been through that
And this is not our fate
So let us stop talkin’ falsely now
The hour’s getting late
All along the watchtower
Princes kept the view
While all the women came and went
Barefoot servants, too
Outside in the cold distance
A wildcat did growl
Two riders were approaching
And the wind began to howl

Habakkuk was a poet, like Bob Dylan who penned those words. I first heard them through Dave Matthews Band, one of my favorites, and at the time, they resonated deeply. I thought to myself that I could see so clearly the death and destruction that beckoned, those two riders approaching. I could hear the wildcat growl and the wind begin to howl. But people kept talking falsely, they failed to heed the warnings, they were too busy living their busy lives, not wanting to be perturbed by the goings-on.

This was about fifteen years ago, when I saw death and destruction portending. Now, at times, it’s easy to think things are worse.

Sometimes, our hope is on fire.

Habakkuk would empathize with us. Here he is, running up and down the ramparts of the city wall, trying to get the attention of someone, anyone, who will listen and understand the dangers that they face. They are about to be invaded by a foreign army! They face their own death and destruction. Those riders in the night? They’re real, representing the advancing army about to crush them.

But the businessmen drink Habakkuk’s wine. The servants shuffle about their business. The princes busy themselves with coming and going, satisfied to simply bask in their power. All are too busy, too drunk, or too powerful to pay attention.

Habakkuk’s hope was on fire.

So much so, that it’s easy to hear him say, with resignation, Dylan’s words: life is but a joke.

What do we do when life does seem like it’s but a joke. What do we do when our hope is on fire?

It’s easy to read the news and have our hope set on fire. We look at wars in Ukraine and Gaza and wonder where there’s hope as those conflicts seem only to get worse. If we look closer, we see conflicts in the Congo, in Sudan, in Myanmar, that get less attention, but where there is still human suffering on terrible scales.

We look to our nation and see news that can fill us with fear or despair. I think of two clients of mine, one forced into early retirement from a job with the federal government, the other laid-off from a vital federal agency. For the former, she struggled to see how she would make ends meet once retired, as she would not get the full benefits she was due for two years. For the other, she faced not just the sudden loss of a job, and all the uncertainty that creates, but the loss of a dream. All she ever wanted was to work for this federal agency. She’d gotten her dream job and now, suddenly, and quite against her will, it was over.

When they first came to me for financial counseling, their hope was on fire.

As a family, we found our hope on fire in the last eighteen months. From getting sick, to being hospitalized, to losing my job; from the sting of betrayal and the loss of stability to the suffering of heart, mind, and soul, it seemed that our hope as a family was on fire.

And Dana and I wondered, what do we do when our hope is on fire?

What do we do? These examples speak to terribly destabilizing moments. Our time nationally and internationally can feel that way. Then, for some of us, family, vocational, or other personal crises have destabilized our lives, creating chaos and setting our hope on fire. In the midst of personal tragedies, crises, and terrors, we find ourselves despairing, while the world seems to just go on around us.We cry out violence, like Habakkuk, only to be met with no reply. We want to scream to the world about what has happened, but to no avail.

But, above all, destabilizing moments leave us wanting to do something! We might take to social media, telling everyone and anyone who will listen about what we see, about what we know, about how things are. We write words like Habakkuk’s, like Dylan’s, only to watch the number of our friends and followers go down, as people who think differently tune us out.

We might do any of a number of things trying to fix our situation, trying to address it in some way, trying to feel a sense of control. And, if you’re like me, you want to act for justice!

But, also if you’re like me, you’ve lived long enough and done enough to know how difficult it is to accomplish change. How all the doing feels just like Habakkuk: so much running up and down the ramparts of the city wall, trying to get people’s attention, trying to build a movement, only to be frustrated by how little people pay attention, by how little they seem to care.

What do we do when our hope is on fire?

Two summers ago, a woman walked into Mulberry for worship. After we had finished, I walked up to her to introduce myself. Turns out, she was visiting Macon, just passing through, and had decided to stop by for worship. She was in the candidacy process with a nearby UMC conference and going to seminary, but expecting to drop out because she didn’t have the funds. A bell went off in my head about a scholarship through Mulberry. I told her, she cried, we rejoiced together, and she stayed in seminary.

Fast forward to just a few months ago. This same seminary student is the federal employee being forced into early retirement. You remember that she came to me, now as a financial advisor, short of funds to make ends meet for two years, looking for a solution. Having finished seminary and the candidacy process, her home annual conference just recently offered her a church, paying just a little more than the amount she needed to make ends meet, and starting just in time for her retirement.

God moved powerfully in her life. In her story, I see God. I found hope.

Through Emory alumni connections, I got to know that other federal employee, laid off from her dream job. She came to me to talk about money, how to best be prepared for whatever the future held, how to best manage what assets she had. But as we talked, we ended up talking more about my recent experience of joblessness, how I had handled it, what lessons I had learned, what advice I had, and above all, how I had rested in my faith, a faith she shares, to get me through. By the time we had finished our meetings, she had a financial plan but, more importantly, we had both felt God move through our conversations.

God moved powerfully in her life. In her story, I saw God. I found hope.

I see God all the time in my new job. But I’m still left wondering sometimes, “God, what are you doing?” I am convinced that I am right where God wants me, where God has called me. But I am things I never thought I would be: a licensed stock broker, for example.

I thought I’d retire from serving churches and ministries within the United Methodist Church. I had a big vision, less for my career, but more for what I wanted to accomplish through the churches I served. At Eastman, we did some great things together, things I’m still proud of. At Mulberry, I had big plans, grand plans. Some of those came to fruition, but many others were in their infancy and never had the chance to grow to maturity.

As it became clear last fall that God had provided, and called, me to work for Edward Jones as a financial advisor, I found myself saying, “okay, God. I’ll go. But what are you doing?”

I still don’t know the answer to that question.

But, my hope is no longer on fire.

Instead, I hear God saying to me what God said to Habakkuk. In response to Habakkuk’s frantic crying out, God says, “there’s still a vision for the appointed time.”

There’s still a vision for the appointed time.

I have no doubt that I am a part of a larger vision. My new work, my new role, is part of a larger vision of what God is doing in the world. But I can’t see it. I don’t understand it. But I know it to be true, because there’s still a vision for my appointed time.

It’s funny how the Holy Spirit inspires our vision. Over and over again in the summer and fall last year, I kept running into that song, Hopeless Wanderer, by Mumford and Sons. In the chorus, they say:

“So when your hope’s on fire but you know your desire, don’t put a glass over the flame, don’t let your heart grow cold. I will call you by name, I will share your road.”

I heard God speaking those words to me. Don’t put a glass over the flame. Let it refine and burn down old hopes and dreams that are no longer valid. Keep that desire for loving on the people around you, for sharing the good news of God’s unconditional love, my personal mission, keep that from growing cold in your heart. I, God, am still calling you by name. I am sharing your road.

There is still a vision for your appointed time.

For us as a world, for us as a country, for us gathered here at Centenary, there is still a vision for the appointed time. We might look out from the ramparts of our lives and see the riders approaching, see the danger and destruction, feel our hope on fire, but God says to us, there is still a vision for the appointed time. I am still sharing roads. I am still calling names. I am still at work. Look around you and see it.

I see God in those two clients I mentioned. I see God in other clients I have not mentioned. I see God in the way my children are thriving, despite the experience of betrayal and being uprooted against their wills. I see God in the way Dana’s students thrive under her teaching, as she teaches not only math, but how to be good humans.

I see God in the way friendships have deepened over the course of the last eighteen months. I see God in seemingly even smaller things: like leading me to check out a book on mercy and then bring it with me to Green Bough, where God had a lesson to teach me about mercy.

I see God in the man who confessed his racist upbringing and views before our county commission, to then speak boldly about the need for racial reconciliation, a lesson learned through his own openness to God’s vision. I see God in the volunteers I work with, who keep giving, keep serving, keeping hoping, when the local and national situation give them so much reason to stop working, stop serving, stop hoping. I see God in the kindness and generosity of everyday encounters, the unexpected joys of connection, the deep work of love that’s unfolding all around me.

I see God all around me. But I had to learn to have eyes to see it. I had to learn a prophetic imagination, to see the world simultaneously as it is and as God sees it. There is still a vision for the appointed time.

But despair blinds us to that vision. Despair clings closely, and so we must maintain a defiant posture against it, choosing hope, hope born of seeing how God is working around us, for hope is an act of defiance.

Defiance against the lies, told by the world, that things only get worse.
Defiance against the despair that so closely clings, stating that there is no hope, only this cruel world.
Defiance against giving into the overwhelming threats that stare us down, telling us we’re defeated and can never rise again.
Defiance against acts of betrayal by those closest to us, telling us that no one can be trusted.
Defiance against the fear that blinds and dismays.
Defiance against the lies evil tells us about God, trying to fool us into believing that God is not, in fact, sharing our roads, calling our names.
Defiance against the lie that there is no vision for our time.

No, to maintain our divine imaginations, to act for hope, is to be defiant against despair. And to maintain that hope, even when it’s on fire, is to see God in the little, everyday things; how God is walking with us, how God is sharing our road, how God is moving to fulfill God’s vision for our appointed time.

Don’t put a glass over the flame of the Holy Spirit. She is our eyes and ears to see and hear what God is doing, how God is fulfilling the vision for our appointed time. One day, the lion will lie down with the lamb. One day, nations will beat their spears into pruning hooks and their swords into plowshares. One day, our personal crises will be over. One day, we will know the power of God’s redemption in our personal crises, for we will see how God has provided, restored, set us once again on solid ground. One day, peace will again reign in our hearts. One day, peace will reign in our world. God is active, moving, around us, walking our roads, calling our names, to create that reality. God has a vision for our individual and familial lives. God has a grand vision for this, our appointed time. God’s not done with us yet!

And when we act for hope, when we choose defiance against despair, we play our role in God’s vision for peace for our time.

Sometimes, God calls us to have grand plans, as I once did. Sometimes, God calls us to do things, grand things, to act for justice, to lift up the oppressed, to speak out against hatred. And sometimes, God calls us to simply be dad, to hold the hand of a brand-new widow, to greet the long-lost friend, to show kindness to the grump behind the register, to open our eyes to the little graces of each day and our chance to act in love and for hope; evidence that, for and from God, there is still a vision for this, our appointed time.

In our seemingly small acts of love, we play our role in this cosmic scheme for peace, defying the reasons the world provides to give into despair, maintaining our hope.

Hope is an act of defiance, born of the conviction that there is still a vision for our time.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow knew this well. A poet, like Habakkuk, he looked out upon the world one Christmas Day and saw reasons for only despair. His divine imagination had dimmed. He saw no vision for the appointed time. As he wrote, one of his sons lay in a Civil War field hospital, gravely wounded. Another was off fighting, somewhere; Longfellow had not heard from him for a while. Both sons had defied their father’s orders to go fight. They’d broken his heart.

And his heart broke for his nation, now at war, with brother killing brother. He looked around like Habakkuk, like me, like we are prone to do, and thought, “how could it get any worse?” Longfellow’s hope was on fire.

He opens his poem saying this:

I heard the bells on Christmas Day
their old familiar carols play
And wild and sweet, the words repeat
Of peace on earth, goodwill to men.

And thought as how, the day had come
the belfries of all Christendom
Had rolled along, the unbroken song,
Of peace on earth, goodwill to men.

Till ringing, singing, on its way,
The world revolved from night to day
A voice, a chime, a chance sublime,
Of peace on earth, goodwill to men.

Then, from each black accursed mouth
The cannon thundered in the South
And with the sound, their carols drowned
Of peace on earth, goodwill to men.

It was as if an earthquake rent
The hearthstones of a continent
and made forlorn the households born
Of peace on earth, goodwill to men.

And in despair, I bowed my head
There is no peace on earth, I said
For hate is strong and mocks the song
Of peace on earth, goodwill to men.

We can hear his despair. We can feel his pain. We can relate.

But God’s not done with him yet. There’s still a vision for the appointed time. Hear the next and final verse:

Then peeled the bells more loud and deep
God is not dead, nor doth he sleep
The wrong shall fail, the right prevail
With peace on earth, goodwill to men.

Whenever your hope is on fire, hear the bells peel more loud and deep for you: God is not dead, nor doth he sleep. God still calls names, God still shares roads.

Where do you see God acting around you? Where do you find glimpses into God’s cosmic scheme, showing you that there is still a vision for this, our appointed time? Where does despair cling closely? Look still closer. Ask God for the grace to see as God does. Undoubtedly, you will see God, in surprising, seemingly small, and yet miraculous places. Then, you’ll have a hope that defies despair. Then, you’ll see that indeed

There is still a vision for this, our appointed time.

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; Amen.