Delivered on Sunday 09 September 2007 in St George's Chapel

Habakkuk 3

A visitor to this part of the Castle, known as the College of Saint George, will be struck by the amount of building work going on. The whole of the west front is under the most enormous scaffold; the Bray chantry behind me is full of scaffolding; and there is a great trench running up one of the aisles. But those of you who live here will know that there is much more going on besides. Work is taking place in Horseshoe Cloister, there are two other buildings dominated by scaffolding, and some of you may have had to jump over the rather extensive trench that traverses Canons' Cloister. Frankly the place looks a bit of a mess. It was no surprise, then, that last week a member of the community expressed the view that it was all a bit like the Flanders and Swann song 'The gas-man cometh'. I knew exactly what he meant. But rather than recite the words of the song, I thought we could go one better. We could hear it! So with many thanks to Giles and John, let's do just that.

Singing of song

'Twas on a Monday morning the gas man came to call.
The gas tap wouldn't turn - I wasn't getting gas at all.
He tore out all the skirting boards to try and find the main
And I had to call a carpenter to put them back again.
Oh, it all makes work for the working man to do.

'Twas on a Tuesday morning the carpenter came round.
He hammered and he chiselled and he said: "Look what I've found:
your joists are full of dry rot But I'll put them all to rights".
Then he nailed right through a cable and out went all the lights!
Oh, it all makes work for the working man to do.

'Twas on a Wednesday morning the electrician came.
He called me Mr. Sanderson, which isn't quite the name.
He couldn't reach the fuse box without standing on the bin
And his foot went through a window so I called the glazier in.
Oh, it all makes work for the working man to do.

'Twas on a Thursday morning the glazier came round
With his blow torch and his putty and his merry glazier's song.
He put another pane in - it took no time at all
But I had to get a painter in to come and paint the wall.
Oh, it all makes work for the working man to do.

'Twas on a Friday morning the painter made a start. With undercoats and overcoats he painted every part: Every nook and every cranny - but I found when he was gone He'd painted over the gas tap and I couldn't turn it on! Oh, it all makes work for the working man to do.

On Saturday and Sunday they do no work at all;
So 'twas on a Monday morning that the gasman came to call...

To the list of gas-man, carpenter, electrician, glazier and painter, Flanders and Swann would need to add surveyors, architects, project managers, archaeologists, consultants and governmental departments. In short, I am first to agree that looking around would make you wonder, is there anybody in charge of all this? Or are they just going round and round in circles?

That question - who's in charge? - is hardly a new question and has been applied to much more serious situations than building works. In fact it was a question asked by the author of our first reading this morning; he looked out at the troubled world in which he lived and he asked who's in charge?

Over the past weeks we've been looking at the words of Habakkuk. We first took at look at the problem he poses at the beginning of his book: why do bad things happen? I don't want to rehearse the whole argument again but in a nutshell I was suggesting that bad things happen when people fail to live up to their humanity; when they don't live up to expectations. We then moved on to Habakkuk's critique of society and began to understand that whatever it was that Habakkuk was asking and explaining, it was just as relevant today as it was in own time. Rising crime rates, exploitation, violence - problems, then as now - are I suggested bound up somehow with the notion of idolatry. If only we could move away from the worship of idols - whether those idols are wealth, learning, power or whatever - then we might be able to focus on the worship of God. And then this morning we have his concluding remarks. He has posed his questions, he has critically analysed social behaviour and now he says:

Though the fig tree does not blossom,
and no fruit is on the vines;
Though the produce of the olive fails
and the fields yield no food;
Though the flock is cut off from the fold
and there is no herd in the stalls,
yet I will rejoice in the Lord;
I will exult in the God of my salvation. [1]

Everything might look a disaster; I might not be able to make sense of all that I see, BUT nonetheless I will rejoice in the Lord. When all is said in done, I know who's in charge, the Lord God almighty.

Habakkuk is nothing if not confident. It takes a considerable step of faith to state boldly that God is in charge. In proclaiming - God is in charge - we are, teaches Habakkuk, moving towards answers to his first two problems. Because to say "God is in charge" is the start of tearing ourselves away from the many idols that we construct for our amusement; to say "God is in charge" and to let that view take root in our hearts - and bear fruit in our lives - is at the very core of what it is to be human. As Augustine famously put it: "our hearts are restless 'til they find their rest in thee".

We, like Habakkuk, might well look out on our world and wonder - who is in charge? His answer comes back loud and clear and confidently: who in charge? God.

[1] Hab. 3:17-18