With the news today that President Obama has agreed to extend the Bush tax cuts for the top 3% of Americans, I find myself in a surprising grief. I have had opportunity that many Americans haven't, and yet at the same time I find myself among the other 97% who are seeing their voice shrink in efficacy in the face of big business.
Every tax cut for the wealthy has a direct effect on the average American. Over the past 30 years the top 1% of Americans have seen their wealth triple while the idea of a single income family has all but disappeared. Most of us work more and earn less. The promise of increased economic prosperity for everyone is a myth.
And flying directly in the face of any semblance of morality, the republicans in Congress vowed to hold up all legislation, specifically the unemployment benefits of nearly 7 million long-term unemployed Americans and their families, unless the temporary tax cuts for the wealthiest 3% of Americans were extended. I was shocked when I heard what they were demanding, and I was even more shocked to hear that the President agreed to their demands.
In the face of this economic injustice, I turned to reading Habakkuk for some comfort.
Here is what He had to say to God:
2 How long, LORD, must I call for help,
but you do not listen?
Or cry out to you, “Violence!”
but you do not save?
3 Why do you make me look at injustice?
Why do you tolerate wrongdoing?
Destruction and violence are before me;
there is strife, and conflict abounds.
4 Therefore the law is paralyzed,
and justice never prevails.
The wicked hem in the righteous,
so that justice is perverted.
I relate to what he cries out. The law is paralyzed. The wicked hem in the righteous and justice is perverted. I have the same question: how long, LORD, must I call for help?
And the LORD answered Habakkuk. Injustice would not last forever.
5 “Look at the nations and watch—
and be utterly amazed.
For I am going to do something in your days
that you would not believe,
even if you were told.
6 I am raising up the Babylonians,
that ruthless and impetuous people,
who sweep across the whole earth
to seize dwellings not their own.
7 They are a feared and dreaded people;
they are a law to themselves
and promote their own honor.
8 Their horses are swifter than leopards,
fiercer than wolves at dusk.
Their cavalry gallops headlong;
their horsemen come from afar.
They fly like an eagle swooping to devour;
9 they all come intent on violence.
Their hordes advance like a desert wind
and gather prisoners like sand.
10 They mock kings
and scoff at rulers.
They laugh at all fortified cities;
by building earthen ramps they capture them.
11 Then they sweep past like the wind and go on—
guilty people, whose own strength is their god.”
The LORD was going to use evil to punish evil: guilty people, whose own strength was their god. It is hard to say whether this was good news, or bad. Is repaying evil with evil really God's way? At least that is what Habakkuk wanted to know.
What would using evil to punish evil look like today? Perhaps the rich will eventually devour each other the way they are devouring the middle class. And, that way, the people, whose god is the strength of the free market economy will eat themselves alive by their own ideology.
Interestingly, those who decided where the chapters in the Bible should go chose to cut off Habakkuk's second speech before the last line. And so, chapter two begins:
1 I will stand at my watch
and station myself on the ramparts;
I will look to see what he will say to me,
and what answer I am to give to this complaint.
Even with this less-than-desirable-future (to put it nicely) in mind, Habakkuk has faith in the LORD, and he waits for His response.
2 Then the LORD replied:
“Write down the revelation
and make it plain on tablets
so that a herald may run with it.
3 For the revelation awaits an appointed time;
it speaks of the end
and will not prove false.
Though it linger, wait for it;
it will certainly come
and will not delay.
4 “See, the enemy is puffed up;
his desires are not upright—
but the righteous person will live by his faithfulness—
5 indeed, wine betrays him;
he is arrogant and never at rest.
Because he is as greedy as the grave
and like death is never satisfied,
he gathers to himself all the nations
and takes captive all the peoples.
6 “Will not all of them taunt him with ridicule and scorn, saying,
“‘Woe to him who piles up stolen goods
and makes himself wealthy by extortion!
How long must this go on?’
7 Will not your creditors suddenly arise?
Will they not wake up and make you tremble?
Then you will become their prey.
8 Because you have plundered many nations,
the peoples who are left will plunder you.
For you have shed human blood;
you have destroyed lands and cities and everyone in them.
9 “Woe to him who builds his house by unjust gain,
setting his nest on high
to escape the clutches of ruin!
10 You have plotted the ruin of many peoples,
shaming your own house and forfeiting your life.
11 The stones of the wall will cry out,
and the beams of the woodwork will echo it.
12 “Woe to him who builds a city with bloodshed
and establishes a town by injustice!
13 Has not the LORD Almighty determined
that the people’s labor is only fuel for the fire,
that the nations exhaust themselves for nothing?
14 For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD
as the waters cover the sea.
The similarities, even in description, with our current situation is chilling.
Though My Justice lingers, wait for it. All that they do, they do for nothing. Because, one day the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD as the waters cover the sea.
When justice finally does arrive, we will know it is the LORD's. Though it lingers, I will wait for it.
And Habakkuk ends with this stunning call:
20 The LORD is in his holy temple;
let all the earth be silent before him.
AMEN.
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