I want to talk with you this morning about vision. As I do, I know it goes without saying on this October 31 that when we talk about vision in the church we are not talking about creepy other worldly apparitions – there are no ghosts here. When I talk about vision, I mean that which we see with far more than the physical eye. What has God shown our spirit? The vision here is about what is seen in the heart and soul.

Human beings are capable of great vision. On their wedding day, couples dream of a lifetime with their marriage partner. When children are small, parents have visions of how they will turn out, so they sign them up for little league and dance, pee-wee football, and music lessons, hoping that they will become solid, well rounded people. We are a people who long for vision.

We want vision from politicians, from business leaders, from educators, and especially from our church leaders. But sometimes it is hard to realize the vision, too much gets in the way. Politicians are more likely to tell us why their opponent should be denied public office, and less about why they should be trusted with it. Business is about profit, and when profit and customer service conflict, too often care of the customer becomes secondary. We still struggle to give every child a quality public education, and as we have seen in some public and painful news stories, church leaders, like all leaders are imperfect humans who can, by their own lack of judgment cause great harm.

Our own lives make realizing a vision casting difficult. Our finances are not as secure as we hoped; family life produces more anxiety than fulfillment, and our spiritual life seems dry and empty.

There is violence all around us. Gun violence in the street, you saw, I am sure the story of the teenager who stole a bag of Beggar’s Night candy at gunpoint last Thursday evening. There is emotional violence in our homes, political violence in our world and in our country. We are a great nation that is divided by war, uneasy about an uncertain economy, and a few days before what ought to be a grand demonstration of our greatest right as citizens of a free country, too many of our citizens are at each other’s throats.

Habakkuk lived in a time not unlike ours. The poor, those without the financial means to protect themselves were too often exploited, and the king, Jehoiakim was the chief exploiter. Jehoiakim so mistrusted and disrespected his own people that he forced the poorest among them to work without pay. He taxed the people harshly so that he could impress his Egyptian allies. He was accused of brutality and murder. So lacking in accountability was the king that when Jeremiah compiled all of his prophesies in one notebook, and presented them to the king, Jehoiakim tore the book apart and burned it page by page (Jeremiah 36). We should not be surprised that this corrupt king was overthrown when Babylon invaded Judea (New Interpreter’s Bible, volume VII, Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1996, p.631). Habakkuk cried out, “How long, O Lord”.

This is not the world we want. “How long, O Lord, do I have to call out and cry out and look out for your promised salvation. You said it was coming, I just can’t see it. So we pray.

As we talk with God, ours is a prayer of lament and request. We say to God: “All around us, we see trouble and wrongdoing. Our world is consumed by violence and destruction. Even in your church, O God, are strife and contention. The [sin] of this generation hangs heavy upon us. We cannot worship you apart from the turmoil that lies so close at hand. Listen to us, God of all people. Hear our longing for a new day in which your reign of love is established among us. Amen” (Gathered by Love. Lavon Bayler. Cleveland: United Church Press, 1994, p.152).

But there is hope. Habakkuk says he will not give up totally. He will be like a soldier who stands on a watchtower and waits a word from God. We know what it means to watch and wait too. We have kept watch at the time of birth, and we have kept watch at the time of death. We have watched as people, some elderly and in wheelchairs or on walkers wait in long lines to get a flu shot. We wait for the phone to ring with news of test results, or with a job offer. We wait for word that we have been admitted to the college of our choice, and God love them, Boston Red Sox fans waited 86 years between World Series victories.

Waiting is not always easy. It makes us uncomfortable and anxious, and the anxiety is real. But we are invited into a time of prayerful holy patience during which we watch for God and listen to God, and as we do, we will hear from God. “Listen”, God says: “There is something I want you to do”.

The vision will come in its time, wait for it. When it gets here, it will be written large enough so that someone running by will see it. What kind of runner? The term is symbolic of someone running away from danger into exile; think of the women and men in Darfour, Sudan or of Floridians evacuating before the hurricanes hit. The runner could be “someone running and living in the divine promises found in the vision. The runner is like Habakkuk a prophet, a preacher, a messenger of God who ran to deliver the messages entrusted to them. Taken in this way, Habakkuk is commissioned to record the vision in order to carry it and announce it to the people” (New Interpreter’s Bible, p. 641). It is our mission too.

The promise of a vision – an opportunity to see and do what God wants us to do has been written. It is clear to some of us; it is not yet clear to all of us, but we pray it will become so because it is time for us to take the vision and run with it. How shall we run?

We can accept the vision as our own. I know a congregation of God’s people that wants to be faithful to the good news of Jesus Christ. Because they are building trust by communicating with each other better than they have before; because they are listening to each other’s hopes and dreams, caring for each other in times of joy and in times of pain; and sharing their transforming experiences of Jesus Christ with the people in their neighborhood and beyond, they are gifted and called to become a true community.

Because they gather week by week around the Lord’s Table; worship the living God with hope, are growing in faith, practice generous stewardship, and engage in outreach, they are doing all they can to embody deep Christian spirituality. Part of their spiritual discipline is stewardship. Last week we celebrated Consecration Sunday, and if you were not here, today is your day to consider prayerfully how generous you can be as you make your financial commitment to this congregation in 2005. As we make consecrate our commitments and make them sacred, we will begin to live out the vision God has showed us.

Because they are committed to being an anti-racist and pro-reconciling church, and to doing evangelism, because they take seriously Christ’s call to go beyond their doors into the world, and because they want to include everyone who open to God’s call in their lives, they are led by a passion for justice (Values and Seeds of Vision for the Christian Church in Ohio).

As they claim their vision, they want to become a “safe and welcoming place for all people seeking a spiritual home where their relationship with Jesus Christ can be nurtured and strengthened” (from the purpose statement of Broad Street Christian Church).

That is the vision I hold for this congregation, I believe that we are that church. As a congregation, led by the Holy Spirit and transformed by the living Christ, we can not only claim the vision, and believe that God will show us yet more things, but we believe that our time of waiting really is over, our vision is before us, now is the time for ministry and mission.

We can as we go, declare that we are in this church together, and together we will do all that we can to embody its vision, while we live as a true community with deep Christian spirituality, and a passion for justice.

Then while we accept the vision and claim that our vision time is now, we can thank God and pray for each other daily. The reading from II Thessalonians says that Christians then, and we Christians now were and are a people who are faithful in all times. Even in anxious times, we pray believing that our prayer and the presence of Christ in our lives will make our anxious times bearable, and we can become stronger as we walk and talk with God with visionary hope.

Prayer is an act of desire as we pray for what we want and it is an act of memory as we call to mind those for whom we pray. Thank God this day for the visionaries in our lives. They are our hope bearers. They help us to believe that we are indeed worthy to be called daughters and sons of God and that we will be determined to glorify Christ in all that we do.