Readings: Habakkuk 1:1–4; 2:1–4; Psalm 37:1–9; 2 Timothy 1:1–14; Luke 17:5–10

“There is still a vision for the appointed time” (Habakkuk 2:3). Israel’s pilgrimage of call and commission, disobedience and devastation, rescue and remembrance — a pilgrimage joined by those adopted into Jesus’ family — is mapped not by any human “sneer of cold command,” not by those worthies who “find out what the world needs, then invent it,” but by God’s promise.

Luther paraphrases the prophet here: “The prophecies or visions of the advent of the Christ and of his kingdom are not at an end, even though we [i.e., Israel] are being destroyed for a time, but they still stand and remain firm, just as they were spoken by the prophets. This involves a definite time, which is known to no one but is committed to God. And when this vision comes to pass in its own time, it will act freely and not fail, or lie” (Lectures on Habakkuk, German text, Luther’s Works 19).

“This vision … will act freely.” Some technology enthusiasts are fond of saying that “information wants to be free,” in other words, that software, news, and other kinds of knowledge should not be shielded by patents or hidden behind paywalls. Whatever may be the right thing to do with humanly developed knowledge, the vision — the community-forming, reality-determining, Spirit-given revelation of God’s will and God’s work — comes and acts, not in thrall to our bureaucratic policies, not according to our market constraints or calendar urgencies or ideological prejudices, but in order to accomplish God’s kingdom as heralded by his Son Jesus.

(“Sneer of cold command”: Percy Bysshe Shelley, “Ozymandias”; “find out what the world needs”: Thomas Alva Edison, Wikiquote)