The World in Solemn Stillness Lay: Habakkuk

“What is wrong with the preacher? Last week we get a Thanksgiving sermon about some queen in Esther that no one has ever heard of! And now we are in Advent and we are talking about who? Habakkuk? Is that even in the Bible? Where does he get this stuff? Does he just close his eyes and flip through the Bible and preach on the first thing that he points to? Hasn’t he heard of Matthew Mark Luke and John? What does he have against Paul?”

No need to raise hands on that one, but if you had that thought when you pulled up the bulletin email last night, you make a fair point. I mean, who preaches on Habakkuk for Advent? Today’s text might have felt a bit out there when you first saw it, and maybe even a lot out there when you actually heard it read, but hopefully by the end of the sermon, you will agree that Habakkuk makes perfect sense for the Church on the first Sunday in Advent! Here are Three Truths about what Habakkuk can teach us about Advent today:

Truth #1: We don’t do Advent well. Part of the problem is that we don’t really know what Advent is. The first thing to understand is that Advent is not Christmas. For hundreds of years, the Church has celebrated a thing called Advent that is very intentionally NOT THE SAME as Christmas. In the Christian tradition, Advent has always been a different thing. It is about preparation, and waiting, and quiet stillness…four weeks that lead up to the grandeur of the Christmas season. Christmas—in the Christian tradition—is a season of the Church that starts on December 25 and lasts 12 days (hence the song) and ends with Epiphany.

Then there is this other thing, that we tend to celebrate in America. It is more of an anxiety-driven, consumerism-driven, generic holiday “listravaganza!” It begins in August, as soon as the school supplies are gone from the shelves at Walmart. Soon, we start seeing commercials for all the stuff that we should buy. Then, we start hearing the music in coffeeshops, basically covers of the same 30 holiday songs over and over again. Before long, the lists start to grow…who to buy for, where all of our decorations go, what groceries we need to buy, where to shop, what parties to go to, what movies we have to watch this season. Then, instead of 12 days of celebration, it is over at 2:17 on Christmas afternoon, when we are done with the gifts and the lunch, and we start packing everything away in the boxes for next year.

The short version is that this cultural version of Christmas is all about us doing stuff. But Advent is about waiting and watching for God to do something. Habakkuk reminds us in the first chapter. Historically, the parts of the Bible that we read during Advent are not from the Christmas story. Today, [liturgist] John [Williams] read from Mark where Jesus is talking about the end of days and how everything feels like it is falling apart. Oftentimes, we read texts from John the Baptist, who was decidedly NOT rockin’ around the Christmas tree. And we read a lot from the prophets, like Habakkuk. The message here is that our work, and our lists, and our actions, are not getting it done. The world is in a bit of a mess. Habakkuk tells us that the world is full of violence and destruction and wickedness, and could we say that the more things change, the more things stay the same? Advent teaches us that we have to open our eyes to the gravity of the moment…if we had it all figured out on our own, we wouldn’t need God. But we do.

Truth #2: We don’t do silence well. The Two-Way [Sermon Discussion Group] last week talked about the phenomenon of needing some level of noise in every moment of our lives. We turn on the TV when we get up in the morning. We turn on the radio when we get into the car. We hear music piped into every shop and store that we enter. We put earbuds in our ears when we go to the gym or go on a run. And then, we buy expensive white noise machines—or pink noise, or brown noise, or blue noise, or grey noise—to run all night long because we are terrified that we might have a moment of silence in our existence. What are we afraid we might hear? I think that part of the reason that we want to jam the angel’s trumpets and the heavenly host into the first few seconds of the Christmas season is that we need the noise. And part of the reason why we feel exhausted by the whole thing by, like, I don’t know, November 30 is that we haven’t really learned how to quietly and intentionally anticipate something that isn’t here yet. The artificial and constant din that we pay good money to surround us is accomplishing something that we want it to accomplish. But is it accomplishing the thing that we need?

Author Sarah Houser connects this to the message of Habakkuk. In the second chapter of the book, Habakkuk talks a lot about idols that get in our way of true worship. In his day, that meant graven images and silver statues. In our day, she says, we tend to worship the “god of the glowing rectangle.” When we feel unsettled or anxious, we run to the glowing rectangle—to our phones or our devices—to sooth our souls. We simply don’t know how to wait silently because many of us have never done it. Existing in the liminal space of Advent is so hard for us, because we have been taught the ways of this cultural holiday, and the idols of our time.

I am going to offer an unpopular take: what if the Grinch was right? Here is a dude who complained about the constant noise of the city, never allowing one to think or concentrate. He blasted the commercialism of everyone shopping and buying. He hated the songs that they sang over and over and over again. And so, he responded by moving to the top of a mountain with his dog for some peace and quiet. What if he got it right? OK, so widespread breaking and entering and stealing from children probably wasn’t the best response, but was he completely wrong that something had to be done to get their attention? What if the Grinch were the actual hero of the story?

Now, for a third statement, that puts these first two together: Doing silence well helps us to do Advent well. Here is the good news from the story of Habakkuk. There is plenty of bad news in the first chapter, for sure, but look at the highlights from chapters 2 and 3:

Ch 2: ¹ 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.
² Then the Lord answered me and said:
Write the vision;
    make it plain on tablets,
    so that a runner may read it.
³ 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.

Ch 2: ²⁰ But the Lord is in his holy temple;
    let all the earth keep silence before him!

Ch 3: ¹⁷ Though the fig tree does not blossom
    and no fruit is on the vines;
though the produce of the olive fails
    and the fields yield no food;
though the flock is cut off from the fold
    and there is no herd in the stalls,
¹⁸ yet I will rejoice in the Lord;
    I will exult in the God of my salvation.
¹⁹ God, the Lord, is my strength;
    he makes my feet like the feet of a deer
    and makes me tread upon the heights.

That is Advent. Learning and waiting on God to show us the way, instead of letting our anxiety drive us to lists and more lists, bringing us more anxiety, as the spiral continues. But what would it look like if we stopped? Once again, author Sarah Hauser tells us: “Many times, we can be quick to seek solutions from friends, experts, and search engines. And they can be helpful and necessary resources. But before we run to someone else, have we first run to God? Before we attempt whatever solution we’ve devised for our problems, what would it look like to calm and quiet ourselves before the Lord? Silent waiting can look like spending extended time meditating on God’s Word, listening for the guidance of the Holy Spirit.”

So, I want to spend the rest of this morning, talking about what that might look like. Authors Richard Foster and Kathryn Yanni have written a guidebook to spiritual disciplines, that feels like a helpful way to start the season. Like Habakkuk and his silence in the watchpost, they teach us what it means to meditate in solemn stillness. I am going to offer a few of their suggestions that might be helpful this season for us:

• First, they suggest choosing a time for what they call “holy leisure.” Even when we talk about prayer, it can sometimes sound like another to-do list, or even marching orders for the prayer warrior. It can feel exhausting. Instead, they suggest that we pause to ask how might we replace frantic activity with holy leisure? Can your daily routines contain this watchtower experience? What would you have to stop doing in your day, in order to make this holy leisure a priority?

• Two, use the practice of “centering down.” Sometimes called “palms up, palms down.” In a moment of holy leisure, practice letting go of the anxieties and idols of your heart, and receiving from God the grace that you need.

• Finally, practice spiritual observation, to watch and wait this Advent. Pick a text from Scripture to be your meditative guide. Don’t try and exegete the thing like it is a Bible study. But use an image or text from the Bible as a way to receive grace. Maybe you “lift your eyes to the hills” or “lay beside quiet waters,” as the Psalmist says. Or maybe you allow yourself to enter a story of Jesus healing someone, to receive the healing that you need in your life.

 Or perhaps, you breathe deeply and allow yourself to walk slowly up the steps to the watchpost. As you take each step, you feel the weight of the day, the weight of your life pulling you down. And yet, you find the strength for each step. One at a time. Until you reach your watch post and wait. Perhaps you sit all night, and receive no wisdom or word. And yet, though there is no fruit on the vine, you rejoice. But perhaps in that darkness, you squint your eyes enough to see that there is a dawning coming. That the despair you feel is not the end. That the fear that grips you is not the whole story. That far in the distance, a light rises. That a vision comes, and with it comes hope.