Earlier, this past week, when I opened up these Scriptures to prepare some words for today, I got a big shock. And I said to myself, "Well, thank God this Scripture was not scheduled three weeks ago, because it would, perhaps, have been too much for us at that time, because it expresses only too well the feelings we had then and indeed the feelings that perhaps persist to this day. May I remind you of the words we just heard a few minutes ago from the Prophet Habacuc? "How long, O Lord? I cry for help but you do not listen. I cry out to you, 'Violence!' But you do not intervene. Why do you let me see ruin? Why must I look at misery? Destruction and violence are before me. There is strife and clamorous discord."

Did we not wonder where God was on September11th? Did we not ask ourselves, "How could God permit such a horror, such a blasphemy against the human person that is made in God's own image and likeness?" Now, let me say straight off that I don't have any glib answer to the perennial problem of evil in our world. And after September 11th, who could ever doubt that there is evil in this world? I do, however, believe that we human beings have been given free will. It is a most precious gift. Without it, we would not be the human beings that we are. Freedom always has a price, and free will has a price. And the price of free will is our ability to choose evil instead of good. And we know from our experience of ourselves that that is a reality. We are not robots in God's hands. God is not sitting there manipulating the strings of puppets. He has made us free. We can make free choices, and unfortunately some people abuse that freedom and choose evil instead of good.

Come back to the Prophet Habacuc. In the Jewish tradition, the Prophets of old had no inhibitions whatsoever when it came to expressing their feelings to God. And you will recall that Jesus was in that same tradition when He cried out, "My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?" In the passage we read, the Prophet cries out in anger. He's angry. We are angry. We echo his complaint and his questions. His cry, our cry, is however not a scream of despair, but actually comes from our deep faith in God. We believe, as he believed, that God will be somehow present in all of this suffering. So we cry out to God, and we call God "Father." Yes, we should be sufficiently intimate with God, sufficiently comfortable with our relationship with God, that we know He's not going to throw us out of the house just because we get mad at Him from time to time. Yes. It's all right to complain to God, a cry rooted in our faith in a God Who is good, because we do believe that God is present even in the darkest tragedies. How else.... how else do we explain the extraordinary displays of human kindness, of human fortitude, of selfless giving that we have witnessed these past few weeks? Rarely was there so much evil. Never was there so much good.

Yes. We can be bold in our complaints to God. But we should also be bold in proclaiming that the way forward must be the Christian way, the way taught by Jesus, lived by Jesus. Certainly injustice, mass murder, must not be allowed to stand. And the actions of the terrorists can never, never, NEVER be justified on any pretext whatsoever. And, in these circumstances, it is regrettable, but no doubt inevitable, that the bombing of Afghanistan should have started today. That having been said, we as Christians must keep the vision that Jesus gives us ever clear before our minds. Habacuc, the Prophet, went on after his complaint and his cry to God.... He went on, "Then the Lord answered me and said, 'Write down the vision clearly upon the tablets so that one can read it readily, for the vision still has its time, presses on to fulfillment, will not disappoint. If it delays, wait for it. It will surely come. It will not be late."

And what is that vision? What is the vision of Christ? It is the vision of a World at Peace. It is the vision of peoples honoring and respecting each other. It is a vision of compassion and forgiveness and love. And surely, in the light of that vision, Christ would want us to do everything we humanly can do to root out the causes of anger, to reach out in compassion to the millions of dispossessed, the millions of refugees who are without hope, the peoples deprived of their lands, the children without food because these are the seed beds of despair and anger and terror.

We have witnessed this morning the beginning of the bombing of Afghanistan, but our government (Thank God. It is something we can be proud of.) has also promised that food would be dropped to those who are hungry, that humanitarian needs will be met. And we pray that that promise will be fulfilled. We also pray today for all of our service men and women who are now in Harm's Way. We pray that they may be safe, as we pray also that the innocent may be spared.

Just this past week, the British Prime Minister, Mr. Tony Blair said, "The test of any decent society is not the contentment of the wealthy and strong, but the committment to the poor and weak." And this surely must be our long term goal as a Christian response to evil.

This is not an easy Gospel to preach. This is not an easy Gospel to live at this time of stress. Let us remember what Paul wrote to Timothy that we read today, "I remind you to stir into flame the gift of God, for God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather of power and love and self-control. So do not be ashamed of your testimony to Our Lord. But bear your share of hardship for the Gospel with the strength that comes from God. And, as Christians, we are called upon to hold fast to the vision that Christ has given us. Let us be bold in preaching our Christian values even in the face of unspeakable evil. Amen.