Our Watch -- Habakkuk 1:1-4, 2:1-4 (All Saints Sunday)

Photo credit: Linda Gerbec, used with permission via Unsplash

To listen to the sermon, you can click here.

There are two major narrative arcs in the Hebrew Scriptures (the Old Testament) – two big stories. There’s the story of the people being enslaved, and God setting them free. And there’s the story of the people being taken into exile, and God bringing them home. Over the course of those two big stories, the people discover something of who God is, and something of who we are. And we read that in the poetry, stories, psalms, proverbs, and prophetic word of the Hebrew Scriptures.

We’ve spent a good bit of time this year, with the prophets, in that second story – the story of exile and return. King after king comes to power, king after king abuses that power. Israel and Judah set up systems that exploit the poor and the land; the judicial systems prop up the powerful, and push down the vulnerable; the powers reign by violence and threat; and the people ignore God’s insistent call to protect the widow, the orphan, and the immigrant in the midst of them. And the prophets say, Stop! Look! Listen! God is bringing all of that to an end. And after that, God will do a new thing.^[1]

For centuries the prophets warn... and then calamity comes. The powers fall; their house comes down on their heads – and the people are taken into exile in Babylon. And eventually... God brings them back home.

Two weeks ago, we turned to Jeremiah, writing in the midst of that moment when everything is crashing in.^[2] Next week, we’ll turn to Haggai, who will write in that moment when the people have come home, and, standing in the rubble of the world, they are ready to rebuild.

But this morning, we find Habakkuk in that moment just before.^[3] The prophets have warned, and what they have warned is coming to pass. We find Habakkuk on the ramparts, the walls of the city, watching the oppression and suffering of his world, watching for God to move, to speak, to act.

Habakkuk begins with lament: How long O God? How long? It’s the cry of the prophets of his day, and of ours. We may know that cry from the sermons of Martin Luther King, Jr.: “How long O God? Not long.”  “Everywhere I look,” Habakkuk says, “I see wrongdoing, corruption, and harm. There’s destruction – your world being smashed – violence. The law has no effect; justice never prevails – the powers rage and roil. How long?”

It’s a bold thing to say to God – basically, God, how long until you do something? But God doesn’t snap back at Habakkuk. Instead, God says: “You know what, Habakkuk? You’re right. You’re right; the powers have abused their power for too long. And it’s time for me to act. This corrupt world the powers have constructed it’s about to come crashing down from its own rot, and Babylon will come and raze it to the ground. How long? Not long. Get ready.” (The lectionary reading this morning leaves that part out – the “gird up your loins, Habakkuk” part.)

And Habakkuk says, “Well, now wait a minute, God, I didn’t mean that. I didn’t mean let our whole world come crashing down – I was thinking more like, just fix things. Bring some justice. Make people better.” And with that clarification to God, Habakkuk goes up on the ramparts and takes his watchpost, and says: “I will watch now to see what God will say to me – watch to see how God will respond, watch to see what God will do.”

And God responds. God says to Habakkuk, watching up on the ramparts: “Habakkuk, write the vision down; make it plain on the tablets; make it so that a runner can read it, and run with it – to tell all the people. There is a vision for the world yet to come – it may tarry – but I will surely come and act. Watch and wait. And in the meantime – live in faithfulness – live trusting in me – live in God’s faithfulness.”^[4]

We’re left with this image of Habakkuk – up there on those ramparts – looking to the horizon – the lone sentinel – keeping watch. In those days, that “keeping watch” was a round-the-clock, life and death matter. The one up on the walls of the city would keep watch for trouble on the way – hostile armies coming into view, storms and such. They would take turns, one after the other, keeping vigil, so that someone was always keeping watch for the well-being of the people.

They watched for trouble, and they also watched for help. Remember Psalm 121 – I will lift mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help? My help comes from God. A couple scholars suggest that Habakkuk’s “watchpost” might actually have been in the Temple – a place there where the prophet keeps watch for a Word from God. Either way, there Habakkuk is – keeping watch over the trouble of his world, keeping watch to see how God will show up to help.

That image of Habakkuk keeping watch has me wondering how we keep watch. Most closely to this Scripture, we have our own prophetic watch. We are charged to keep watch for the trouble in our world, to keep watch for how God is on the move, to keep watch for the work that is ours to do. Cheryl Kirk-Duggan – writing out of the experience of the African-American community – says that Habakkuk’s “How long?” resonates with the pain and suffering of those who have experienced slavery, genocide, and the exile of dislocation and apartheid.^[5] We are called to keep watch, to say true things about the pain of the world, to look for God’s liberating action, and to live steadfastly.^[6]

·      We see cruel and flagrant hostility to the stranger in the midst of us – those coming to this country for refuge and a new life – and we join those who are determined to offer shelter and support.

·      Looking around the world, we’re charged to say true things about the genocide in Gaza, while the world remains silent – to anguish at that silence and at our own – and to strain to see our way to some type of help. How long, O God?

·      And in one of this congregation’s long-standing commitments in the world, we stand watch with the hungry. In this moment, as millions across the country may lose access to food stamps, we’ll focus in just a bit on how we will amp up our commitments to our community fridge and to the Food Bank. And after church, there’s an opportunity to write postcards to our Congressfolks to tell them to do better – to do their job.

We are called to stand watch for the trouble in the world, and as Jesus says, to bring good news to the poor, feed the hungry, heal the hurting, help free the captive and all who are oppressed. There is our own prophetic watch.

There’s the watch of caregiving that we’ve talked about recently. “Keep watch, O God, with those who wait and watch and weep.”^[7] If you think about it, at any given moment in our life together, there are always folks in this community (and beyond) who are keeping watch over those they love (those we love) who are sick or vulnerable. Watching, each day, and then through the night, watching in love for their needs, so that we can do our best to embody God’s healing, comforting touch, in response. And we – our church family – we surround those folks who are giving care, our deacons especially, and ask, How can we help?  It is a watch of love and tender mercy.

There is also a watch of caretaking. I’ve been thinking of that as we enter stewardship season. We watch over that which has been entrusted to our care. In a church community, that includes the buildings that house our worship, and our preschool, and our music, and our gathering together, and so many other groups that call this place home. We are entrusted with the ongoing ministries of the church, as together we serve in the world over the years. And beyond just this church community, we are entrusted with care of the world – this planet that we have together damaged to the point of climate unravelling – we keep watch over the trouble we have caused, as we seek to do better, and live life faithfully in new realities.

A prophetic watch. The watch of caregiving. The watch of caretaking. Those are three ways I see us climbing those ramparts with Habakkuk.

When I googled this “keeping watch” – I found something I hadn’t thought of – something we don’t encounter every day – but a long tradition of keeping watch. “Keeping watch” is still very much a part of life for those who are on ships at sea. Like Habakkuk on the ramparts, on a ship, there’s always someone keeping watch. On deck, at the helm, keeping watch. On a ship, if you don’t keep watch, you might run aground.        

I did some reading. Over the course of a ship’s life, there are always sailors keeping watch – 24/7, 365 days a year.^[8] There are different types of watch: There’s the Officer of the Deck; there are lookouts for the sky, for the surface of the water, for fog; for other ships; watches for security and safety. The rules for keeping watch require full alertness and attention – watching for trouble, ready to respond with help. The watch is continuous, one person after another; the one keeping watch can’t leave their post until they are properly relieved.

Fortunately, I just happen to have a nautical theologian in our family (not every family has one) – my cousin Blair, who has served faithfully in the United States Navy and is now studying theology at Oxford (whom Jeff and I went to visit this summer). So I texted Blair. What’s it like, this keeping watch? Blair described her experience of serving as the Officer of the Watch on a US Navy ship.^[9]She said that before she took over her watch, she’d prepare by checking in  -- with folks in the engine room and elsewhere – to see how the ship was doing.  What was working, what were folks working on? What were the issues facing the ship? Then, as she took the watch from the officer before her, she’d listen carefully to what they had to say – what had happened, what was going on weather-wise, what was going on in general with her team members. And then she was on watch, leading at her post, in constant communication with those who were at their posts, working alongside each other to keep watch.

Talking with Blair, this image of Habakkuk, up on the ramparts, all by himself, a lone sentinel, keeping watch -- that image shifted for me.

We keep watch together. We keep watch in community. There on Blair’s ship. Habakkuk with his hurting people. Us, in the troubles of our day. There are folks keeping watch with us right here, right now, in this moment. There are those who have come before, who have handed the watch over to us. There are those yet to come (or maybe over there in Sunday School) who will relieve us from our watch.

Yes, we just opened a new guest room. And. Back in the 1950s, this church welcomed Dino Misailidis and his family, after they left Romania, when it came under Soviet domination. This church welcomed our dear Asma, as she immigrated here from Afghanistan, first welcomed by a Lutheran community, then us. Asma is one of the folks who welcomed me. We stand in continuity with those who have gone before.

Over the years, folks in this church have stood for peace. Your commitment to the well-being of the people in Palestine has been decades in the making – years of planting olive trees for peace, years of relationship and listening.

Your commitment to hunger action – Centsability, the food barrel, the REST Shelter, the Community Fridge – steadfast over the years in so many ways. On All Saints Day, we remember so many who have gone before, keeping watch, and then handing it on to us.

When I was writing and reading last week, I came upon something Eleanor Roosevelt once wrote: “You know, there really is so very little in life that we ever accomplish totally on our own.” ^[10] We keep watch together.

This is our watch. This is our day. God’s word to Habakkuk is a word to us. We are all too aware of the trouble in our world, and we watch and wait to see how God is showing up to help, inviting us to help. And when we see and hear that call, we join in the work. God says to Habakkuk. Look. Listen. And then write it down. There is a vision that God is birthing even now. It may tarry: You may not see it in its fullness as soon as you would like. But live lives of faithfulness, live lives of trust, live lives trusting in God’s faithfulness. God is here, and always has been. And God is always on the way.

So come, stand with me on the ramparts of our troubled days, and let us keep watch together – in community with those who have gone before –  for the sake of those who are yet to come. Let us look to the horizon. God’s word is steadfast and true. Let us look together, and watch together, and work together, for that bright future that is dawning even now.

© 2025 Scott Clark

^[1] See Walter Brueggemann, The Prophetic Imagination (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1978).

^[2] https://www.togetherweserve.org/post/grow-where-you-are-planted-jeremiah-29-1-4-9-19th-sunday-after-pentecost

^[3] For background on this text and the Book of Habakkuk, see Wilda C.M. Gafney, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah(Wisdom Commentary Series, Book 38) (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2017); Lydia Hernández-Marcial, Commentary in Connections, Year C, vol. 3 (Louisville, KY; Westminster John Knox Press, 2018);  Theodore Hiebert, “The Book of Habakkuk,” New Interpreters’ Bible Commentary, vol. vii (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1996), pp.623-44; Cheryl Kirk-Duggan, “Habakkuk” in The Africana Bible: Reading Israel’s Scriptures from Africa and the African Diaspora (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2010), pp. 197-201; Richard W. Nysse, Commentary on Working Preacher at https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-31-3/commentary-on-habakkuk-11-4-21-4-5

^[4] A more familiar traditional translation is “the righteous live by faith,” but most scholars agree that a better translation is “faithfulness,” with textual ambiguity as to whether we are to live by our faithfulness or God’s. See, e.g., Gafney, p.159.

^[5] Kirk-Duggan, pp.197-98.

^[6] See id.

^[7] See https://www.togetherweserve.org/post/at-the-dimming-of-the-day-genesis-28-10-19-15th-sunday-after-pentecost

^[8] This basic information on keeping watch comes from a U.S. Department of Defense guide to “Watch Standing.” See https://media.defense.gov/2014/Feb/21/2002655425/-1/-1/1/140221-N-ZZ182-5350.pdf

^[9] These observations of standing watch on a U.S. Navy ship are gleaned from my conversation (written texts and video) with my cousin Blair Milo. I’m grateful for her wisdom and insight, and for her service to her country.

^[10] See Eleanor Roosevelt, You Learn by Learning: Eleven Keys for a More Fulfilling Life (New York, NY: Harper Perennial, 1960 (EPub. ed. 2011)).