“O Lord, how long shall I cry for help and you will not listen?”
(Habakkuk 1:2a)

“…Then the Lord answered me and said:
Write the vision;
make it plain on tablets,
so that a runner may read it…”
(Habakkuk 2:2)

September brings with it an awareness of and invitation to embrace the familiar rhythms that shape our cultural and congregational lives. It’s a time of renewal and starting again. Schools have launched their academic calendar. Book bags have been blessed. Children have excitedly (and perhaps apprehensively) returned to gather with classmates, friends and new learnings. Sports teams have formally started their playing season – the Eagles made Philadelphia happy last week. Social media reminds us that throughout our presbytery there have been and will continue to be “homecoming celebrations” – as a way of marking a new year of understanding our faith, growing our communities, strengthening our witness.

And yet in the background, there is a noise that won’t fall silent. It is the ever-present sound of injustice; of children being shot while being in a sanctuary; of an immigration process that is causing confusion, anger and deep pain in the lives of our neighbors. It is the abrasive sound of violence and rhetoric, a language of hate and judgment – tempting us to polarize one another in a way that removes accountability or responsibility for what is happening within and around us. The images of the Twin Towers collapsing reminding us that these sounds are not new.

I confess – I am overwhelmed as I see the faces of children being stripped of their innocence. I am overwhelmed by the once dependable procedures and protections of the law now seeming capricious and random. And in this reality of my being overwhelmed – the words of the prophet echo in the depth of my soul – O Lord, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not listen? Perhaps you too are experiencing sounds that dominate and cheat us from claiming our identity as a people of hope – even in the midst of dark despair.

How is it that you and I might offer an image or a sound different from the one that comes through our social media? How might we connect with a people coming through our doors, struggling to find hope? What might we leaders do to connect the hope of the Gospel for a time such as this? Habakkuk offers us a timeless word of wisdom. In chapter 2:2 we read – “Write the vision; make it plain on tablets, so that a runner may read it.”

Could it be that simple? Perhaps in the midst of all our strategic planning, developing goals and objectives, we need to take a step back and literally “write the vision and make it plain…”. Consider the image of a runner – representing the lives of the people we serve in a culture framed by speed and to-do lists. How do we as a church help others see and experience God’s presence and hope? Perhaps what we need to offer is not found in a fancy curriculum or even a creative idea (although these are not to be ignored). Perhaps what we need is to write boldly with our lives.

So what is it that we might write for others to see while they are racing and running from responsibility to responsibility? I turn to the words of Jesus in Luke 4 as he claims his ministry before the world – “…the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. The Lord has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free those who are oppressed,…”

Perhaps our vision should simply embody these values: How are we demonstrating good news to the poor? How are we proclaiming release to the captives? How are we proclaiming recovery of sight to the blind? How are we setting free those experiencing oppression. This is the vision – each of us doing a small part that counters the cultural sounds with love, compassion and justice. To be clear, we will likely not be able to do everything – but as “The Romero Prayer” reminds us “We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that. This enables us to do something, and to do it very well.”

So as we begin a new program year, my prayer for us is that we might focus on doing “that something” well, trusting that together we are reflecting the love and hope of the Gospel in a way that can be seen by a people racing through this life. Let’s focus on “making it plain.”