It's a while now since my decision to preach on Habakkuk. As I have studied this book, read some commentary and pondered what God might be saying through it to me, to my congregation, I have also been struck by the relentless level of bad news on the television. Am I just more attuned to it, or has this been a summer of almost unrivalled awfulness? Every day, it feels, there's another murder report, another fire, another natural disaster, another soldier killed - and the cry of Habakkuk 'how long' seems ever more pertinent.
Today was a rare event - one of those times when I felt it right to abandon my written sermon and just talk. I retained the main threads - a faithful God and the need for faithfulness in the face of struggle - as we explored the idea of authenticity in church.
Some people got it, some people didn't - the only comment I got was that I spoke too quickly!
Next week we move on to theodicy - the defence of a good God in a world marred by evil. It had not clicked until now that the weekend will be overtaken by Diana stuff, so it will be the more important to move beyond the mawkish to some real engagement with tough questions. I will be attempting to get people to think a bit, and to move beyond simplistic views I have heard expressed that "these are the end times so such things must happen" and/or "well it must be down to their sin." (Think of Luke's gospel and the tower that fell on people if you need to challenge such views)
Before the service, one of my folk told me she felt that God was speaking to her about the need to open the door between church and world, I have felt that we need to allow the realities of real life to enter our worship (something that Habakkuk expresses). Many non-Christains I know use the questions of evil and suffering as their argument for the non-existence of God; I feel that we need to see that an engaged and provisional theodicy is actually part of mission - authenticity and trust in God despite all, not in a naive way, but one that is implied by Habakkuk's words that 'the people of God will experience life in all its fullness because of their faithfulness' (my paraphrase of some stuff I've read).
It is a mystery how sometimes things seem to fall into place, As one of my Regional Ministers sometimes says, with a twinkle in his eye, 'if you were religious you might think God had something to do with it'!