Habakkuk 1:1-2:4

   At the beginning of The Sorcerer’s Stone, Harry Potter doesn’t know he’s a wizard or why he has a lightening scar on his forehead. The first question he ever asked his Aunt Petunia Dursley was how he got the scar. The truth is that he got it when he was a baby and the most evil wizard of all time tried to kill him. His aunt, who hated everything to do with magic, said he got it in a car crash. “And don’t ask questions,” she added. The narrator tells us: “Don’t ask questions – that was the first rule for a quiet life with the Dursleys.”

   If you want a quiet life, don’t ask questions. Church youth worker Mike Yaconelli must not have wanted a quiet life, because he wrote this letter: 

“Dear God: 

   Frankly, I’m bugged.  

   I know you gave us the Bible – you really did a nice job – and it’s helpful. But you have to admit you did leave a lot out. I don’t mean to offend you, but there are so many questions about you, and I can’t find many clues to the answers. … What am I supposed to do? I’ve got all these questions, and I have to ask them because the answers do make a difference in my relationship with you. … Can a Christian have unanswered questions? Even a lot of unanswered questions? When I ask these questions in church … I get these funny looks. And some of the looks aren’t so funny. The people look at me like there’s something wrong with me. Well … is there? … I’ve got to ask you one more question. Is thinking a sin? I honestly don’t want my faith to be weak, but how do I have a strong faith? … I guess what I’m looking for is a faith tough enough to handle doubt. Is that possible?

Anxiously,

Mike Yaconelli”^[1]     

   Yaconelli wrote his letter in 1976 but his concerns are surprisingly fresh. His experience is that people in the church can be like Aunt Petunia. If you want a quiet life, don’t ask questions. But is God like Aunt Petunia? Does God prefer we keep our questions to ourselves?

   We don’t know anything about the prophet Habakkuk except his name, and that he has plenty of questions for God. He probably wrote around the time of the Babylonian domination of Judah, but whatever the historical backdrop, things are going very badly for the prophet and his people. The wicked and the violent appear to triumph, while the innocent are persecuted. He begins with a lament in which he questions God’s justice. Many of us can relate to Habakkuk’s questions: “Where ARE you, God? Are you just going to let this happen?”

   Habakkuk says exactly what’s on his mind. Mike Yaconelli was worried that his questions would be seen as signs of lack of faith, but in Habakkuk we see how challenging God, questioning God, is perhaps the deepest expression of faith there is. You can’t get in someone’s face if you don’t believe there’s a face there.            

   Here’s the thing: We can only ask why God does not run the world better if we’re already convinced that God being who God is should make a difference in how the world works. Abraham Heschel writes that the refusal to accept whatever terror or injustice is going on around us as “God’s will” is an authentic form of prayer. This is an important aspect of the Jewish tradition that we Christians have undervalued. Is it because we’re afraid? Because we want that quiet life? The problem is that running away from our hard questions is the opposite of having a relationship.

   “Three to Tango” (1999) is an unremarkable movie with one remarkable scene. A married businessman asks the character played by Matthew Perry (from “Friends”) to keep tabs on his mistress, played by Neve Campbell, and the Matthew Perry character falls in love with her. At one point, Perry asks Campbell to give him one good reason she stays with the married businessman. She answers that in a year and a half, they haven’t had one fight. And Perry explodes, “He doesn’t care about you enough to fight with you!”

   Fighting equals caring? I’m not talking about the kind of fight in which someone gets bullied or hurt. I’m talking about the kind of fight in which people take each other seriously. By that I mean they stay in relationship; they don’t disengage, pretend the other person doesn’t matter or doesn’t exist. Questions may be the highest form of praise because the questions are willing to take life with God seriously. 

   Texas minister Gerald Mann writes that he can tell that Americans are still a religiously hungry people because they flock to him with their questions. Questions like:

• Where does evil come from?
• Why does God let bad things happen to good people?
• Why don’t my prayers “work”?
• Why should I bother with Scripture?
• Why do some church people behave so poorly?
• Will God love me if I’m an alcoholic or an addict, if I’ve had an abortion or an affair, if I’m black or poor or gay, if I can’t make my marriage work, if I’m out of work, if I’m in prison?
• How can I ever forgive that person who hurt me so very much?
• How do I know what’s the right thing to do?
• Is there any point in trying to do good when the world seems to be going to hell in a handbasket?
• How can I overcome the shame, or the despair, or the temptation, or the rage that I feel?^[2]

   Often people are afraid to bring these questions to church, for all the reasons Mike Yaconelli lists. Maybe they think they’re supposed to have the answers. Maybe they think that questioning God, or questioning the church, means they aren’t good Christians, or worse, aren’t good people. Maybe we in the church need to pay attention to the ways we respond to people with questions, and make it clear that they and their questions are welcome. 

   Habakkuk gets an answer from God, but not one that satisfies him. He continues to question and complain. With World Series starting this weekend, it’s the perfect time to quote Leo Durocher: “Baseball is like church. Many attend. Few understand.” Habakkuk reminds us that bringing our questions to God or to God’s community of faith might not get us the answer we want or the clarity we’d hope. What our questions get us is a relationship with God. 

   This weekend is not only the Game 1 of the World Series; it’s Reformation Day. On October 31, 1517, the story goes that Martin Luther posted his 95 theses on the door of the church in Wittenberg, Germany, questioning the practices of the Church. Luther didn’t intend to start a new church, only to address the corruption he saw, but he was excommunicated for heresy and the Protestant Reformation began. Luther also didn’t intend to question God, directly, but his questions for God’s church opened a spirit of inquiry, of questioning, that became characteristic of the Protestant movement; Protestant comes from the word “protest,” after all. Questions rock the boat. And the Reformation tradition encourages every individual to pursue the questions of faith in the community of the faithful. Mike Yaconelli concludes, “Doubt is the cutting edge of faith. Questions are the food upon which our faith depends to gain strength and life. … God certainly isn’t afraid of our questions. We shouldn’t be either.”  

   The community of the faithful doesn’t mean the community of the people who have all the answers. Maybe it just means the community of people who understand that the life of faith isn’t a quiet life. Jesus never, ever said to anyone, “That’s a stupid question.” Jesus knew that sometimes we need proof and sometimes we don’t, but either way, we never run out of questions. I, for one, am grateful.

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^[1]  Mike Yaconelli, Tough Faith: The Search for Honest, Durable Christianity (Elgin, IL: David C. Cook Publishing Co., 1976).

^[2]  Gerald Mann, When One Day at a Time is Too Long (New York: McCracken Press, 1994).