I have decided that I shouldn’t be prejudiced against the Old Testament.
Actually…I am not really prejudiced against the Old Testament, I just don’t preach on it all that often.
You pastors/preachers out there…how often do you preach on the Old Testament?
Looking through the scripture I have preached on over the last 3+ years I have been here (yes…I actually keep track of all the texts I preach on) I figured that I preach on the Old Testament about 12.1% of the time. I preach on the Gospel text about 68% of the time. I have only preached on the Old Testament text three times this year so far. Maybe this week Habakkuk will make an appearance as the preaching text. Perhaps…
Anyway…I thought I would jot down some thoughts about the Habakkuk text assigned this week by the "almighty" lectionary. It’s a book we don’t open too often and I am willing to bet, a book that many people have not heard of or are not familiar with at all. So here it goes.
Habakkuk was a prophet in the nation of Judah around the year 607 b.c. The people were a wicked and perverse people. They had long forgotten the God who brought them out of Egypt; lead them to the Promised Land; gave them years of prosperity and blessed them with His presence. Now they were doing what pleased them and them alone. Habakkuk, seeing the depravity around him, calls out to God wondering how long God is going to let this perversion last – "How long, O Lord, must I call for help, but you do not listen? Or cry out to you, ‘Violence!’ but you do not save?" (1:2) Habakkuk has had it up to here (picture my hand at my forehead).
[Now this is where I need to interject something. The lectionary assigns 1:1-4 and 2:1-4 and that is it. But if that is all you read, you miss a lot. Habakkuk is a short book — 3 chapters — so read the whole thing. The ending is beautiful. I am not sure what I will do on Sunday, but context needs to be set up.]
Now back to our program…
In verses 5-11 of chapter 1, God responds to Habakkuk by telling him that He is well aware of the perversion and is preparing something big — the Babylonians are going to come in and kick some butt and haul the people off into exile. Well…this doesn’t sit well with Habakkuk because the Babylonians are even more perverse than the people of Judah. Why would God even turn His eyes in the direction of the Babylonians?
God once again responds (chapter 2). God understands the sins of the Babylonians and they will certainly not escape judgment, but the people of Judah are guilty of greater sins. God then goes into a diatribe of a series of "Woes" after a great verse (4) where God says, "See, he is puffed up; his desires are not upright – but the righteous will live by his faith…"
Habakkuk follows this up with one of scripture’s most beautiful psalms and the verse (19), "The Sovereign Lord is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of a deer. he enables me to go on the heights." Habakkuk’s faith shines through even though he does not fully understand what God is doing.
The Gospel text (Luke 17:5-10) speaks of faith to move a mullberry tree. Here we see an example of faith in the midst of trials. We struggle with understanding why God does the things God does (or does not do). We wrestle with what God’s will is. We pace across the floor of our faith and wonder how long we can last. But God calls us to be patient and in due time our reward will be here. We don’t understand God (that’s not our job)…all we need to do is trust God; trust that since God is indeed Almighty, that God has everything under control – Remembering: "The Sovereign Lord is my (our) strength; he makes my (our) feet like the feet of a deer. he enables me (us) to go on the heights."
Hmmm…I think I am liking this book more and more.
Peace be with you and Amen!
-edh-
The Heart of a Pastor 
As someone who is currenlty in an Old Testament class, I say hooray for you that you explored this text. I have found to my surprise that much of my memory of the OT is from childhood Sunday school. In fact there is a loving, gracious God who is incredibly patient. And a God who chooses the most unlikely and sometimes unlikable people to be the vehicle of the message.
to answer your question: not as often as I should, but I HAVE preached on Habakkuk. (Genesis 32 is coming up soon too…) I do recommend…
I don’t preach on a regular basis since I left my internship 😦
But on internship I found myself mostly preaching on the Gospel. It was a weird set up where the second of three services we only read the Gospel during the service (or the text I was preaching on).
I would hope that throughout my ministry I am able to incorporate all the lectionary texts in some way into my preaching but like you, I would probably find myself preaching mostly on the Gospel Lesson.
Do you think that’s what most people expect as well?
I think on some level people expect the Gospel text to be preached on , but when I preach on soemthing different, I don’t hear any negative comments. I think this expectation comes from most pastors preaching on the Gospel text more often.
In my preaching classes in seminary, we practiced preaching on the OT and NT alike. But I do remember one professor indirectly indicating that the Gospel text is the text to preach on.
What do people expect? I also think that varies from context to context.
Eric,
At my field at site and on internship I was much more likely to preach on the Old Testament than I am now. Now, I preach the Gospel lesson probably 95% of the time. When preaching occassionally, it was easier to do exegesis on all three lessons and then select one to preach on. Now, preaching weekly, it is just an easier pattern to get into to preach the Gospel Lesson every week.
As far as what people expect – I think most people expect us to preach on the Gospel lesson; but if we preach on the Gospel message using one of the other lessons, they are usually satisfied.
Like others, I tend to preach mainly on the gospel text but that is mostly because my preaching is usually done as a supply preacher.
On internship I would preach from the epistles, the O.T. lesson and even the psalm on occasion. The folks there thought it was good that I chose not to box myself in. But in the next breath they would ask me why I didn’t choose the gospel text for my sermon. Go figure.
Doing some praying this morning I decided that God is calling me to Habakkuk this week. Since the cry in Habakkuk is very relevent today I thought it would be fitting to tell this story and announce what God says in 1:5 “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.” God is here and involved in our world and lives. Not that God is going to send us into exile, but God has sent His Son to do something amazing in our lives. Be patient and have faith — Habakkuk style 🙂