Yesterday at the Deacon Elder retreat, we read the great ends of the Church. One of those ends is the preservation of the truth. Sometimes the truth is all you can preserve. Sometimes because of your place in your nation or the world, because of your place in history you do not have the power to preserve much else. Habakkuk is in just such a spot. At the end of the Seventh Century BCE, the Northern Kingdom of Judah had been destroyed by the Chaldeans (Babylonians). The people of the Southern area of Palestine, Israel, wondered what God had in store for them.

What I hear Habakkuk asking God is why he who has tried to be faithful and righteous must live amidst such hardship, violence and injustice. The rulers of Israel have neglected justice and indulged in selfish hedonism, and their day of reckoning was yet to come. God would send the Chaldeans upon them too. The poetic horror of the author's description of the advancing warriors betrays innocence already lost. In verse 7, "More menacing than wolves at dusk; their horses charge. Their horsemen come from far away; they fly like an eagle swift to devour. They all come for violence, with faces pressing forward; they gather captives like sand... They sweep by like the wind; they transgress and become guilty; their own might is their god!"

It may be our armies are the tools of God to bring down the corrupt Saddam, but that doesn't necessarily mean we are faithful to God's side anymore than the Chaldeans were. And the analogy can go the other way. God could permit non-Christian armies to humble us, or our leaders.

Too often the innocent get caught up in the consequences of the actions of the powerful and unjust, but the unjust, and those who make their own might their god, will eventually be defeated. "Will not your own creditors suddenly rise up.., because you have plundered many nations, all that survive of the peoples shall plunder you." Though the wealthy rulers build their houses in high and protected places, they will be brought down. The houses of the rulers are built with bloodshed and injustice. Leaving poor workers vulnerable and exposed to rape and pillage, "The very stones cry out from the wall, and the plaster will respond from the woodwork.." Jesus uses those words on the way into Jerusalem. Not only are foreign nations coming to plunder Israel, but the laborers within Israel are likely to rise up against their leaders when the opportunity arises.

It seems likely that Habakkuk will suffer the same fate as those who he is condemning. A change of heart will not change the consequences. It is too late for repentance to stop the punishment. War is coming whether anyone likes it or not. "Wealth is treacherous," God says, "the arrogant do not endure…Look at the proud! Their spirit is not right in them, but the righteous live by their faith." Habakkuk is making it plain. This disaster is not God’s fault, but the fault of those whose wealth and power have made them blind to who is God.

Whoever said the patriotic cannot be critical of their nation in a time of war? Although I have never felt stronger about who I want to be President, or about the importance of getting out to vote, I suspect that regardless of who wins the election, the war has just begun. And the forces leading to the war are deeper than any one man or woman can wipe away. But if we are like Habakkuk, regardless of whether the difference will be noticeable in our lifetime, we will choose to speak the truth, we will choose to live righteous lives. The difference our faithful living makes is noticeable to us. It is noticeable to God. "Look at the proud! Their spirit is not in them, but the righteous live by their faith." And that is enough.

Let me give you a little update on the cost of the war in Iraq. As of Friday night about ten o clock, costofwar.net reported that the cost of the war in Iraq to the United States was $141, 220, 732, 537.

What if we were to commit that money to some other cause? We could use the same amount of money to completely fund the global anti-hunger efforts for five years. If we would commit that money to housing, we could have built 1,271,562 additional housing units. What about education? We could have funded the hiring of 2,447, 377 additional schoolteachers for one year.

The war has cost $501 per US citizen or $2,007 per household. On 9/11/01, 30,000 Children under the age of five died of largely preventable causes, namely starvation and disease. If we put that money into health care, every child in the world could be immunized for the next 47 years.

On 9/11 approximately three thousand people died. This was a nation-altering tragedy that deserved a strong, well thought out response. It is right and proper for our leaders to try to prevent the loss of American lives and to try to decrease the number of our enemies and their capability or desire to harm us. Yet, whose ideology is hurting American citizens and increasing enemies the most? Is it radical Islam or radical jingoistic and imperialistic minded Americans?

Since our decision to go to war in Iraq, 1,000 American citizens have died, and 8000 wounded, and billions of dollars have been diverted from building up our own country. And our response to having killed nearly 3,000 civilians horribly and tragically is to kill horribly and tragically well over ten thousand more civilians. Iraqbodycount.net reports estimate of between 13,296 and 15,377 Iraqi civilians have been killed. Somehow I don’t think killing ten thousand civilians has succeeded in decreasing the number of living people who are bitter and hate us enough to want to fight.

People of scripture will know from the prophets that if we want peace, then work for justice. One hundred two Nobel Prize winners signed a statement at the 100^th anniversary of the Nobel Prize in Oslo, Germany. I quote it from World Watch Magazine, May/ June 2002:

"The most profound danger to world peace in the coming years will stem not from the irrational acts of states or individuals but from the legitimate demands of the world’s dispossessed. Of these poor and disenfranchised, the majority lives a marginal existence in equatorial climates. Global warming, not of their making but originating with the wealthy few, will affect their fragile ecologies the most. Their situation will be desperate and manifestly unjust.

"It cannot be expected, therefore, that in all cases they will be content to await the beneficence of the rich. If then we permit the devastating power of modern weaponry to spread through this combustible human landscape, we invite a conflagration that can engulf both rich and poor. The only hope for the future lies in cooperative international action, legitimized by democracy.

"It is time to turn our backs on the unilateral search for security, in which we seek shelter behind walls. Instead, we must persist in the quest for united action to counter both global warming and a weaponized world.

"These twin goals will constitute vital components of stability as we move toward the wider degree of social justice that alone gives hope of peace."

Iraq is only a battle in the big war we face against population growth, gluttonous consumption, and environmental degradation. Our own might has become our god. Enough of the Christianity that affirms a lifestyle of excessive, selfish consumption, as long as we do it with our heterosexual partner, and put a Jesus sticker on our luxury war vehicle. What we are talking about is a need to expand our understanding of stewardship, our understanding of salvation, our understanding of God. This is God’s world and everything we have we take from the resources God has given us all. Like Zachaeus the tax collector we draw on resources that are not our own, and we draw them away from people God loves just as much as us.

Amazingly, God still calls us down from our perch, and asks to stay in our house. Jesus reaches out to Zachaeus despite his sins and despite his isolation within the community. Then out of gratitude, having received the blessing and forgiveness of the Spirit of God, Zachaeus responds with repentance and restitution to those he has done wrong. He uses his great resources to do right.

Clearly, the Bible is concerned with the social and political implications of our relationship with God. Just as the adulterer cannot continue with his lies and deceit if he invites Jesus into his house, so how we acquire and use our resources will change as we allow God into our lives. How will your relationship with Jesus change how you earn and spend and share your money? How will Jesus change how you act and vote as a citizen of the United States and the World community?