Our True Nourishment is Rooted in God

A Sermon preached by The Rev. Tom Pumphrey

At St. Mark’s Church, Honey Brook, PA February 11, 2007

The Sixth Sunday after the Epiphany, Jeremiah 17:5-10

Jeremiah 17:5-10 (NRSV) Thus says the Lord: Cursed are those who trust in mere mortals and make mere flesh their strength, whose hearts turn away from the Lord. They shall be like a shrub in the desert, and shall not see when relief comes. They shall live in the parched places of the wilderness, in an uninhabited salt land. Blessed are those who trust in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord. They shall be like a tree planted by water, sending out its roots by the stream. It shall not fear when heat comes, and its leaves shall stay green; in the year of drought it is not anxious, and it does not cease to bear fruit. The heart is devious above all else; it is perverse— who can understand it? I the Lord test the mind and search the heart, to give to all according to their ways, according to the fruit of their doings.

Psalm 1 (BCP pg. 585)

Happy are they who have not walked in the counsel of the wicked, *

not lingered in the way of sinners, nor sat in the seats of the scornful!

Their delight is in the law of the LORD,* and they meditate on his law day and night.

They are like trees planted by streams of water, bearing fruit in due season, with leaves that do not wither*

everything they do shall prosper.

It is not so with the wicked; * they are like chaff which the wind blows away.

Therefore the wicked shall not stand upright when judgment comes, *

nor the sinner in the council of the righteous.

For the LORD knows the way of the righteous,* but the way of the wicked is doomed.

(Luke 6:17-26)

This morning’s Gospel reading is Luke’s account of the Beatitudes. Luke remembers Jesus offering words of blessings, but also offering warnings of woe to those who do not follow his words—to the rich and scornful who have no care for the poor. Today’s psalm makes the same contrast between the wicked and the righteous.

Happy are they who have not walked in the counsel of the wicked,

* nor lingered in the way of sinners, nor sat in the seats of the scornful!...

Their delight is in the law of the LORD, * and they meditate on his law day and night.

They are like trees planted by streams of water, bearing fruit in due season, with leaves that do not wither; * everything they do shall prosper.

The Prophet Jeremiah, in today’s Old Testament reading, picks up on the Psalm’s imagery as he also contrasts the way of the wicked and the way of the righteous.

“Cursed are those who trust in mere mortals and make mere flesh their strength, whose hearts turn away from the LORD. They shall be like a shrub in the desert, and shall not see when relief comes…” Jeremiah goes on to say “Blessed are those who trust in the LORD…They shall be like a tree planted by water, sending out its roots by the stream, It shall not fear when heat comes and its leaves shall stay green; in the year of drought it is not anxious, and it does not cease to bear fruit.”

Both the Psalmist and Jeremiah use this image of the tree to talk about where we get our nourishment—how we are sustained amid the challenges of life. For both the Psalmist and Jeremiah, our nourishment is rooted in God.

Think of the image of this desert shrub or tree. In dry sand, a tree’s roots find little water and no stability. Strong winds overcome the shallow roots and loose sand. In dry sand, shrubs become tumbleweeds. A drought can kill a tree planted in the desert. But if you transplanted that tree by a stream of water, the roots would eventually be able to find water in the ground, and strengthen and grow. Even in a drought, by a stream there is enough water to keep the tree alive. The tree with strong roots can survive the hardship of wind and drought, and continue to bear fruit.

Jeremiah and the Psalmist say that our lives are just like these trees. When we rely on our own priorities, we are like trees in the desert. But our true nourishment is rooted in God.

The metaphor of a tree isn’t unusual, of course. We often remark about the stability and steadiness of other people, saying that they are “grounded” or “well rooted.” Did you ever notice that no one ever says “he is so well grounded in his pursuit of wealth?” No one ever says “she is so well rooted in selfishness!” Being rooted or grounded means being connected to something more permanent and reliable and more true. The people who are grounded in this way have surprising strength to be joyful and stay steady and strong even in times of hardship.

We desire these qualities in ourselves, but finding our own grounding and rootedness proves elusive. We so often plant ourselves in the dry and sandy soil of material wealth, thinking that enough money will buy a strong and stable life. We plant ourselves in the shifting sands of the pursuit of our careers, thinking that our accomplishments will build value in our identity. We try to put down roots in the fantasy of the perfect family—the family without conflict or disagreement, but our real families will never reach perfection. We dream of perfect bodies, but our health is always changing, and we need more stable soil. These dreams are compelling to us—they capture our attention and imagination and energy, but when the winds of crisis and turmoil blow, we topple like trees planted in dry sand.

The Psalmist and Jeremiah offer a very different vision of health—a very different vision of what it means to be “rooted” or “grounded.” If we only speak of being “rooted” or “grounded,” we forget to ask the question “rooted in what? Grounded in what?” For the Psalmist and for the prophet and for Jesus, the desert is for those whose trust is in themselves—in their riches or their own strength. If we want that “grounding,” that “rootedness,” then we need to plant ourselves in God, and stretch out our roots deep into God’s stream of clear water for our souls. In God, we truly find the nourishment our souls and bodies need.

So what does it mean for us to be “grounded in God” or “rooted in God?” For Jeremiah, we begin by trusting God. Jeremiah repeats himself for emphasis “Blessed are those who trust in the LORD, whose trust is the LORD.” When we trust in our own strength, we will eventually find ourselves lacking. Surely, we can be strong sometimes, but just as surely, we are not always strong. Those times seem to be just the times when life gets tougher that we can handle. But when we trust in God and in God’s strength and wisdom, our lives are centered around the priorities of the one who made us and who loves us.

“They shall be like a tree planted by water, sending out its roots by the stream. It shall not fear when heat comes, and its leaves shall stay green; in the year of drought it is not anxious, and it does not cease to bear fruit.”

The Psalmist says that those like trees planted by streams of water are those whose “delight is in the law of the LORD.” Of course, the word for “law” is Torah. The Torah is the opening books of the Bible, but Torah is also the living covenant with God—the relationships between God and his people. When our delight is in our relationship with God, then we are grounded in the one relationship that renews and enlivens all our relationships. Jeremiah calls us to trust in the LORD and the Psalmist calls us to delight in the Torah of the LORD—the living covenant and living word of God alive in our relationship with God.

Perhaps this still sounds a bit foreign. Perhaps this still sounds like trusting in Biblical teaching about right and wrong. Well, that’s true—trusting in Biblical teaching is part of it, I suppose, but there is more to our grounding in God than just good ethical standards.

Perhaps the best activity that helps us to find our grounding in God is prayer. Prayer is the wellspring from which we can drink of the water of true life. Prayer is where we exercise our trust in God. One woman recently told me that in the midst of all the anxious rush of her life, if she takes the moment to pray and give that situation to God, she feels an immediate lift to her anxiety. I can’t say that I always feel that way every time I pray, but when I pray, something does indeed change. Something changes in my life when I am more aware of God’s presence.

The act of prayer implies even a basic trust in God—that God would care to listen to us. That trust involves disturbing our self-reliance enough to recognize both God’s greatness and to recognize God’s love for us. Prayer is what we call the experience of God’s presence. In prayer, we can listen for God’s voice, God’s guidance. We can pray as we read and meditate on our Torah of Holy Scripture.

We have the formal prayer of our liturgy. We have the moving emotion of singing our prayers. Today’s service of Evensong is part of the church’s discipline of prayer. We can pray quietly, stilling our souls and letting God’s presence bring peace to our lives. We can pray like Tevya in “Fiddler on the Roof,” speaking aloud our doubts and struggles and needs.

Through prayer or any of the Christian disciplines, we give more and more of our strange, unpredictable lives into God’s care. As we give more of our lives to God, we send out our roots to those streams of living water that will nourish us and keep us strong. When the droughts come through—spiritual, physical, relational—we will still be strong in God and bear fruit in our lives. When the dry winds of conflict and distress blow, we will not topple or wither. With roots deep in our loving creator, we will find the nourishment our souls and bodies need.

We find our nourishment rooted in God.