Twenty-seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time – Cycle C
Reflecting on Habakkuk 1:2-3, 2:2-4
And I thought Oprah Winfrey invented vision boards. Those are collages of pictures and positive statements about the job or car or success you are going to achieve in the future. It turns out that the prophet Habakkuk promoted vision boards way back in the seventh century B.C., and he commanded that the vision be engraved so clearly that “a courier may run with it.” That means that, in the social media of the ancient world, the message would be large enough for people to read while the courier ran from village to village.
There are thousands of courageous people who wrote their visions down and then spent their lives working to see them fulfilled. Bartolomé de las Casas―1484-1566― was a Dominican friar who was appalled at the atrocities committed in the enslavement and genocide of the native peoples of the West Indies. But he didn’t start out that way. He himself was a slave owner. Once he was converted from that sin he suggested bringing slaves from Africa rather than enslaving the Indians. Finally, he was converted from THAT sin and became a fiery opponent of all slavery.
Habakkuk understood that visions of justice take time. In our own lifetimes we are seeing the convulsions of cultures around issues of what constitutes (and should be the punishment for) sexual assault, or the slaughter of legally protected dolphins, or the hunting and killing of elephants for their ivory. Those are just a few of the issues―and they’re not even in my top ten― about which we pray the next generations will say, “Seriously? You really did that?”
So take heart, and be strong. “If the vision delays, wait for it. It will surely come” (Habakkuk 2:3).
What vision of justice do you spend your life announcing?
Kathy McGovern ©2016