Haggling with God

Homily for Sunday, October 5, 2025
The Seventeenth Sunday After Pentecost
Habakkuk 1:1-4; 2:1-4

Early in Sophocles’ play, Oedipus at Colonus, Antigone says to the chorus: “Look through all humanity – you’ll never find a man on earth, if a god leads him on, who can escape his fate.”  [Antigone refers to Oedipus, whose tale Sophocles tells in his three Theban Plays.]  As you may recall, the gods had ordained that Oedipus would kill his father and marry his mother.  Oedipus discovered this fate when he forced it out of the blind prophet Tiresias, who, when he gave his reason for divulging the prophecy, likewise appealed to the concept of fate: “Well,” he said, “it will come what will, though I be mute.”   “Look through all humanity,” says Antigone,“you’ll never find a man on earth, if a god leads him on, who can escape his fate.”

This Greek understanding of the gods – that, “it will come what will, though I be mute” – is far removed from the prophet Habakkuk’s understanding of God.  In today’s Old Testament lesson the prophet Habakkuk is not – as was Queen Jocasta in Oedipus – [Habakkuk is not] skeptical of God and prophecy; Habakkuk is not – as was Oedpius – driven by hubris and the belief that he can outsmart God; nor is Habakkuk – as are Antigone and also Tiresias – resigned to accepting “fate.”  Rather, in response to the threat of an invasion [of Judah] by the Chaldeans, Habakkuk lashes out at God:

O Lord, how long shall I cry for help,

           and you will not listen?

Or cry to you, “Violence!”

           and you will not save?

Further, rather than accepting that (to quote Tiresias), “No man in the world can make the gods do more than the gods will,” Habakkuk demands from God an accounting of how God orders the world:

Why do you make me see wrong-doing

           and look at trouble?... [asks Habakkuk]

So [that] the law becomes slack

           and justice never prevails.

Habakkuk then proceeds to tempt not “fate” but God, insisting that he is not going anywhere until God speaks:

I will stand at my watch post, [he says]

           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.

Though it might have surprised the ancient Greeks for their gods to do so, Israel’s God responds to Habakkuk’s lashing out and demand:

Then the Lord answered me and said:

Write the vision;

           make it plain on tablets

so that a runner may read it.

And contrary to what we might expect had we read only Sophocles, God’s response to Habakkuk is kind, merciful,and filled with encouragement:

For there is still a vision for the appointed time;

           it speaks of the end and does not lie.

If it seems to tarry, wait for it;

           it will surely come, it will not delay...

           [and] the righteous will live by their faith.

In a way, it’s a loss that Habakkuk appears in our Sunday lectionary only once in the three-year cycle,for perhaps more than any other prophet, Habakkuk reminds us that with God, we can express whatever we might wish to express, and… it can make a difference.  For Habakkuk, God is not afar-off power who assigns us an immutable “fate;” God does not dispassionately stand by as human affairs unfold; nor is God deaf to our cries and immune to our objections.  And so, Habakkuk reminds us, with God it is OK to object, to be angry, to demand an accounting, and even to insist that God respond.  

To Abraham and Moses –perhaps rough contemporaries of Sophocles’ characters – [to Abraham and Moses] Antigone’s assertion that “you’ll never find a man on earth, if a god leads him on, who can escape his fate,” [to them, Antigone’s assertion] would have seemed foreign. For Hebrew prayer was interactive, with haggling, finger pointing and even goading of God.  For example, in Genesis, Abraham “haggled” with God over the city of Sodom, asking if God would spare the city if 50 righteous people were there.  Then, “What about 45?”  Or 40?  Or 30?  And so on down to 10 (Gen 18:16-33).  In Exodus at the incident of the golden calf, when God said to Moses, “Go down at once!  Your people whom you have brought out of the land of Israel, have acted perversely” (Ex 32:7), Moses pointed his finger right back at God, “O Lord, why does your wrath burn hot against your people, whom you brought out of the land of Egypt”(Ex 32:11).  In Numbers chapter 14 God became infuriated with the people in the wilderness and threatened to strike them with pestilence.  But Moses goaded God into relenting, saying to God: “[But] then the Egyptians will hear of it… And they will tell the inhabitants of this land… [And] then the nations… will say, ‘It is because the Lord was notable to bring his people into the land… that he has slaughtered them in the wilderness” (Num 14:13-16).    

And even Jesus – or perhaps especially Jesus – when he prayed was not resigned to “fate.” Recall how before the crucifixion Jesus asked that, “This cup be taken from me” (e.g.,Matt 26:39).  Recall how even Jesus recommended that, if at first God doesn’t do or give us what we want, we should keep “knocking on the door” (e.g., Luke 11:5-8).  And recall, too, how even Jesus in a way sought to hold God accountable, demanding to know why he was alone:  “My God, my God,” cried out Jesus on the cross, “why have you forsaken me?” (Matt 27:46).  

In regards to our own prayer…  If there were a spectrum of, on the one hand,the ancient Greeks because of the gods and “fate” feeling unable to make a difference, and on the other hand the Hebrews’ spirited, give-and-take interactions with God because they believed they could bring about a change – I have a hunch that many of us in our own prayer might fall closer to the Greek’s “unable to make a difference” end of the prayer spectrum. Whether because we believe ourselves too insignificant or God to be too great, or because we believe our desires and wants aren’t important, or because we believe that prayer simply doesn’t “work” [use air quotes] – whatever the reason, I have a hunch that we have much to learn from Hebrew prayer.  We can learn from the “lashing out,” the demanding of accountability, and the insisting that I-am-not-going-anywhere-until-you-answer quality that marks Habakkuk’s prayer.  We can learn from the haggling, the finger pointing, and the goading that characterized Abraham and Moses’ prayer. And we can learn from the earnestness, the perseverance, and the raw honesty of Jesus’ prayer.  

I wonder, what might it be like if we were to allow ourselves permission to say anything to God in prayer?   What might it be like to allow ourselves,like Habakkuk, to accuse God of not listening, or of allowing injustice, or of God himself being unjust?  What might it be like if we like Habakkuk were to insist that we will “stand at our watch post,”and “station ourselves on the ramparts” until God responds?  I wonder what it might be like to allow ourselves, like Abraham, to haggle with God, or like Moses to point a finger back at or to goad God?  The vocabulary of prayer is vast, and (to quote today’s Collect) God is more ready to hear than we to pray (BCP, p 234).  I suspect that, were we to take a chance on God, honestly opening our hearts in prayer, God will indeed hear.  And we are likely to be surprised at the way in which God answers.