16 November 2010
Psalm 97, 99; Hab 3.1-18; James 3.1-12; Luke 17.1-10

Habakkuk’s prayer is akin to many of the Psalms. He sees the Lord coming to save His people and their enemies destroyed and the imagery shows the entire earth participating in the victory. The Lord marshals the forces of heaven and earth in heralding His coming. The prophet is seeing through eyes of faith, waiting quietly and patiently for the salvation of the Lord, the faithful One. Often our obsessions betray our lack of faith. The prophet is not ignorant of what is happening in the world, he has chosen to remain on the watch for the salvation of God that has been promised. Our duty is to pray for the coming of the kingdom, to work here as Jesus did to proclaim it in our day with our lives, and to wait expectantly for the coming of the Lord as promised.

The context for the disciples’ request to increase their faith is in the context of forgiveness. Jesus has told them that if their brother sins they are to rebuke the brother and if he repents forgive, even if that means you have to do so seven times a day. Why does forgiving someone require faith? Faith requires us to set aside our own “rights” and the idea that someone has gotten away with something if we choose not to exact vengeance in one form or another. Cain lacked faith and when his brother’s sacrifice was found acceptable to God and his was not, he chose to kill his brother. His kinsman, Lamech, upped the ante later in Genesis 4, “I have killed a man for wounding me, a young man for striking me. If Cain’s revenge is sevenfold, then Lamech’s is seventy-sevenfold." Do we believe in eternity and abundance or do we believe in the here and now and scarcity?

Is there any question that for most of us the biggest problem we have is the tongue? As a pastor I hear people say the most amazing things about other Christians and I am guilty of the same so I don’t have clean lips. I have seen more than once the power of the tongue to start a fire and ruin other people and we never seem to truly learn our lesson. As wise person once said, “Great people talk about ideas. Average people talk about things. Small people talk about other people." Do we talk about others in order to increase our own self-worth and importance? If so, we fail every time.

O you who love the LORD, hate evil!
He preserves the lives of his saints;
he delivers them from the hand of the wicked.
Light is sown for the righteous,
and joy for the upright in heart.
Rejoice in the LORD, O you righteous,
and give thanks to his holy name!