"Carrots, Peanut Butter and Guilt"

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

October 31, 2010 + Reformation Sunday

Pilgrim Congregational United Church of Christ

400 Glenwood Drive

Chattanooga, Tennessee 37404

Thank you for asking! Barbara and I did enjoy our time away visiting our children and grandchildren in upstate New York and Connecticut. We especially enjoyed the opportunity to be with our son and daughter-in-law and their six-month-old baby, Charlotte. Please ask Barbara to show you pictures of her!

When we look into the faces of our children and grand-children, indeed, of any child, we are looking into the future. Like you, we want a happy and peaceful life for all of them. We do not want them to grow up in fear as do so many children today all over the world. If that is not to happen it will take a special effort and commitment on the part of all of us, especially the parents of children. Of course, no parents ever get child-raising perfectly, but that shouldn’t be a cause for anxiety. Some years ago a wise English child psychologist suggested that no one should try to be a perfect parent, only a “good-enough” parent. In that spirit, Barbara attempted to calm our anxious daughter-in-law trying to do everything possible to raise her first born child in a perfect way. Barbara assured her she was doing a fine job, and she really is. But we parents do have our worries, don’t we?

In a marvelous Peanuts cartoon, Linus on the first day of school comes with his lunch sack. He opens the sack and there’s a note from his mother.

“Dear Son, I hope you enjoyed and appreciated the lunch I made for you today. Did you have a nice morning? Did you volunteer in class as I suggested? Teachers are always impressed by students who volunteer. It’s a sure way to get better grades. Remember, better grades now will mean a better college later on. And did you eat your carrots? Proper nutrition is essential to good study. Are you sitting in the sun? I hope so, for a little sun is good for us so long as we don’t overdo it. Perhaps ten minutes a day at this time of the year is about right.”

Then along comes Charlie Brown who says, “Linus, what are you having for lunch?” Linus says, “Carrots, peanut butter and guilt!”

As parents we face an incredibly important choice as to the attitude, the mood, the vision of life we will communicate to our children. And despite what you may have heard, children really do take with incredible seriousness what we share with them. So what are we teaching our children? Are we teaching them to live by guilt or by grace? By fear or by faith? By hope or by hate?

Today we celebrate Reformation Sunday and Martin Luther’s great re-discovery that “the righteous shall live by their faith,” a verse he plucked from an obscure little prophetic book in the Old Testament, Habakkuk. Now I freely confess to you that, to the best of my memory, in the fifty years of my ministry I have never preached from this book before. I probably would not have done so today if the Common Lectionary hadn’t called for this passage to be read, but it is so relevant. We could pull a page out of the Times Free Press and we would have Habakkuk. He lived in a time of high anxiety similar to our own. His nation, Judah, was collapsing morally with its accompanying political and economic disruption. Urban violence was rampant. The poor were getting poorer and the rich were getting richer. The nation’s leaders seemed unable to cope with the crisis. On the horizon the emerging Babylonian empire was threatening invasion and the Babylonians were a brutal and fanatic people who make today’s terrorists look tame by comparison. How could anyone with an ounce of sense believe in a God of ultimate goodness in a time like that?

With fear in his heart, Habakkuk climbed up to one of the watchtowers on the city walls surrounding Jerusalem. There he railed at God and shouted. . .

“O Lord, how long shall I cry for help,

      and you will not listen?

Or cry to you “Violence!”

     and you will not save?

Why do you make me see

          wrong-doing

     and look at trouble?

Destruction and violence are

          before me;

     strife and contention arise.

So the law becomes slack

     and justice never prevails.

The wicked surround the

          righteous –

     therefore judgment comes

          forth perverted.”

Haven’t you felt that way? I know I have. It’s very easy in times like ours to empathize with the Angel Gabriel in Marc Connelly’s play “Green Pastures.” Gabriel is sent down by God to investigate the flood sweeping Noah’s world. He comes back and tells God, “There ain’t nothing down there anymore. Everything nailed down is coming loose.” And our world seems much the same. No wonder a columnist Paul Krugman in yesterday’s Times Free Press could end his dire predictions of what will happen after next Tuesday’s election if the polls are correct: “Here’s my advice: be afraid. Be very afraid.”

But fear has always been with us. I don’t know of any period in human history when we didn’t have something to be afraid of. Of course, to make matters worse, we have also told ourselves sometimes that we needed to be afraid of God. It is fascinating to me that almost every major religious figure in Christian history has begun by fearing God. Augustine did. Luther did. Wesley did.

While we were on our vacation, Barbara and I visited Stockbridge, Massachusetts where our Puritan forebear, Jonathan Edwards, once held forth from his pulpit warning his parishioners that they were “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” People were said to have fainted in terror when they heard Edwards preach. What a legacy to be remembered for! Of course, Edwards’ spiritual descendants are alive and well in twenty-first century America. They still peddle the same religious nonsense: that God is our enemy and that we should be very, very afraid of hellfire and damnation.

You can believe that if you wish, but I choose to believe in a God of grace and love and forgiveness who would not let any of his children be lost eternally to his love. God is greater in grace than any fear-mongering preachers can make her. Luther was absolutely right to proclaim with Habakkuk that the righteous shall live by faith, not by fear. So Habakkuk could proclaim when he went up on the city walls:

“I will stand at my watchpost,

    and station myself on the

            rampart;

  I will keep watch to see what he

           will say to me,

    and what he will answer

           concerning my complaint.

  Then the Lord answered me and

            said:

  Write the vision;

      make it plain on tablets,

      so that a runner may read it.

  For there is still a vision for the

            appointed time;

  it speaks of the end, and does

            not lie.

  If it seems to tarry, wait for it;

      it will surely come, it will not

            delay.

  Look at the proud!

  Their spirit is not right in

            them,

  but the righteous live by their

            faith.”

That is the message we need to hear and proclaim today. That is the message we should be sharing with our children and grandchildren. We should live by faith, not by fear. We should live by grace, not by guilt. We should live by hope and not hate.

How ironic that it takes two comedians to remind us of this! Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart yesterday held a mock rally, a “Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear.” We need that kind of humor to remind ourselves that the haters, the bigots, and the fear-mongers will not have the last word. O, yes, they may win an election or two, but the final chapter in history will not be written by them. “The righteous shall live by their faith,” the faith that Americans are a good and decent people and that all the world’s people want to live in justice and harmony with one another.

Years ago, a now (mostly) forgotten poet named Edwin Markham wrote a powerful poem called “Outwitted.”

“He drew a circle that shut me out-

  Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout.

  But Love and I had the wit to win:

  We drew a circle that took him in!”

Dear friends, there are so many forces in our world today that would divide us from one another. Whether liberal or conservative we must never surrender to that divisive spirit. We must not do that for our own sakes, for our children’s sake, and for God’s sake who loves us all no matter who we are or what we believe. God’s circle takes us all in, thank God. And those who believe it will live by that faith. Amen.