Questioning God in Times of Crisis

The minor prophet Habakkuk (pronounced Habákkuk) is unusual in not addressing the people of Israel directly, but instead engaging in a dialogue between the God of Israel and himself representing the people of Israel. Habakkuk wants to know why the political and social situation in Israel is so bad. In the late seventh century BCE, Babylon was on the way to invade Jerusalem and destroy the temple, the palace of Israel’s God. To get an idea of the impending chaos, think of recent wars – displacements, deaths, destroyed houses, ruined farmlands. The Israelite population had neither the resources nor the leadership to mount a defense.  

To make matters even worse, many people in Israel assumed the attack had been in some way authorized by the Lord, for they saw everything that happens no matter how awful as somehow willed, or at least permitted, by God. Habakkuk, representing the suffering nation, shouts out to God, “How long, O Lord, must I . . . cry out to you, “Violence!” and you do not intervene? / Why do you let me see iniquity?” In response to his anguished complaint, the prophet hears a reassuring but challenging oracle, “but the just one, because of his faith shall live” (2:4). The experience of Habakkuk can refer to any experience of God’s presence. Equivalently, the prophet is told that there are some sufferings in which a person must trust God. As to Jesus’s response to the disciples in the Gospel of Luke, it is possible to understand Jesus’s response to the request to increase the disciple’s faith as a rebuke of their little faith, “If you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you would say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.” But another interpretation is possible and more probable. Jesus does not imply that the disciples have no faith, but that the little faith they have (“mustard seed”) is enough to work outstanding miracles if only they exploit its full possibilities. To take the risk of faith seriously is to clothe oneself with the power of God.

Richard Clifford, S.J., has taught biblical studies for 55 years, most recently at the Clough School of Theology and Ministry, Boston College, and has written many scholarly and popular books and articles.