(P)Review Bible Study: Habakkuk 2:1-4. Why I Can't Stand The News

    OK, that isn't how that line in the movie actually went, but this is a church blog and I try to keep it clean, at least in the headlines.  If you missed the classic 70's movie "Network" you probably missed one of the greatest rants in film history.  It is right up there with Nicholson's "You can't handle the truth!" and Pacino's  "You're out of order! You're out of order! The whole trial is out of order!" And if somehow you missed those two film rants I will provide you with a movie viewing syllabus later and some homework. 

In case you did not watch "Network" it is something of a dark parody (sadly probably not that far from the truth) of how network news panders to the lowest common denominator of shock and horror reporting.  The highly unstable, and somewhat broken newscaster, Howard Beale (played by Peter Finch who won and Oscar for it), has an emotional breakdown on air in which he shouts the line "I'm mad as hell, and I'm not gonna take this anymore!"  All of this as a result of him not being able to shirk his journalistic integrity for the sake of ratings any longer. To say that things go from bad to much, much worse in this movie is an understatement.  

    Frankly,  I'm with Howard.  I really can't stand to watch the news these days.  First of all, I don't want my children in the room for fear that any one of the stories might be unsuitable for young ears. I remember when adults had that reaction to Saturday Night Live, not the Five O'Clock News.  Second of all, I usually don't trust our national news to give me anything resembling impartial facts. Finally, I simply cannot stand the way they tease stories to keep you around for commercials:  "And now in tonight's news: roving bands of killer clowns may be loose in your neighborhood right this second...more on that later in tonight's news..." - to commercial. If you ask me the scary clowns are the ones running the networks these days. 

    Clowns aside, the real problem is what materials we regularly get fed in today's news: horror, shock, disaster, death, and worse yet, the violence to children that capture the constant headlines. I simply had to decide a few years ago to just not watch it anymore. It was just too depressing.  I am hardly alone in this, it isn't really even new.  The prophet Habakkuk had the same problem 

Habakkuk 1:1-4; 2:1-4  The oracle that the prophet Habakkuk saw. O LORD, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not listen? Or cry to you "Violence!" and you will not save? Why do you make me see wrong-doing and look at trouble? Destruction and violence are before me; strife and contention arise. So the law becomes slack and justice never prevails. The wicked surround the righteous-- therefore judgment comes forth perverted. I will stand at my watchpost, and station myself on the rampart; I will keep watch to see what he will say to me, and what he will answer concerning my complaint.

    OK, full disclosure I have no idea where Habakkuk lived or when...no one does.  He is something of a mystery.  But it was a lonnnnng time ago in a land far, far away and things did not end happily ever after.  One way or another he was tired of "violence"...tired of seeing the "wrong-doing" and having to look at "trouble".  He was sick of looking at slack justice and and the perversion of society.  He was mad as hell and he wasn't going to take it anymore.  Except he was. He says "I will station myself on the rampart; I will keep watch to see what he will say to me."  He doesn't want to look, but he has to.

    Someone has to be on the lookout to see what God is going to do in response to all of that strife and chaos.  There he is standing watch, not knowing what he is even looking for.  A man, wall, and a heap of trouble.  What in the world keeps him on that wall, watching and waiting?  The answer is that he is not sure what the Lord is going to do, but he has absolute certainty that God is going to do something.  No matter how bad the news at five o'clock gets he trusts that God is about to do something amazing.  When God moves Habakkuk wants to be ready to respond and move with God.  He is mad, he is disgusted, he is deeply saddened, but he is also hopeful.  He is hopeful that the God he trusts is a loving God.      
    Please understand that I believe that it is essential that people of faith be informed about the events of the day.  It is part of standing on the rampart and waiting. We cannot be led blindly by media, mass or social.  

    Please do not be led blindly by social media.  I get really exhausted having to fact check every single thing I read on Facebook and Twitter.  Fact check things folks or you wind up looking foolish.  And I, unable as I am to let childishly spewed misinformation stand untested feel the need to post a polite comment saying something like "Hey, I don't know if you knew this but that last post of yours was an internet hoax...from 2006...". Likewise, fact check the mass media markets.  They have axes to grind and agendas to extend.  
    Also don't give up paying attention.  The world needs level heads and attentive observers.  Yes, the news tend to be mostly bad, and yes it is aggrieving and dispiriting but that is why we must always be scanning the horizon for the moving of the Holy Spirit.  Our hope does not come from human hands or earthly governments but from the very hand and kingdom of God.  

    As my dear friend (who died decades before I was born, but whose words made him my friend) Dietrich says, we must be ready to allow ourselves to be on God's time.  Dietrich knew something about standing on the ramparts watching the bad news.  Dietrich was a German pastor during the beginning of World War 2.  He saw the perversion of the Nazis and watched the evil of Hitler...he stood his ground and waited on God to move.  One day God began opening doors for Dietrich and he became a spy for the British, a rogue professor running an underground seminary, and eventually an assassin who almost assassinated Hitler.  Even in prison, after being caught God gave Dietrich the chance to address the chaos of the world of that day through his writing.  He watched, he waited, he stood on that rampart, and when God "answered his complaint" he wrote that answer in letters so big the world has never forgotten them.
    How about you?  How is the five o'clock news in your life?  Are

the little newscasters in your head leaving you holding your breath wondering what will happen next and worrying that the bad news will persist?  Is your personal life playing out for great ratings in your head with story after story of strife and personal suffering?  Are you wishing you could just yell at the world that you are "mad as hell and not going to take it anymore!"?  Stand fast my friend, you are not alone.  The prophet in today's reading felt the same way, so do I from time to time.  All of God's people have felt like that.  
    If you think you are alone in losing hope under the flood of bad news take heart:  we all feel that from time to time. Stand strong on that rampart.  The chaos is not actually chaos.  It is simply an order too complex to understand, but God knows the order of it all and God has a plan.  But we must wait...even in our waiting, we are not still...we are actively ready to be called to participate in God's amazing plan.