Jeremiah 17:5-8
“Cursed is the strong one
who depends on mere humans,
Who thinks he can make it on muscle alone
and sets God aside as dead weight.
He’s like a tumbleweed on the prairie,
out of touch with the good earth.
He lives rootless and aimless
in a land where nothing grows.
“But blessed is the man who trusts God,
the woman who sticks with God.
They’re like trees planted in Eden,
putting down roots near the rivers---
Never a worry through the hottest of summers,
never dropping a leaf,
Serene and calm through droughts,
bearing fresh fruit every season.
Is it just me or has Epiphany seemed to be awfully long this year? I feel as if I’ve been writing Epiphany messages for months – I really haven’t of course, today is only the 6th Sunday in Epiphany season – it just feels that way.
This time between Epiphany and Ash Wednesday is a pretty fluid time. Epiphany falls on January 6th – it’s always a set calendar date.
Lent, however, gets its dates counting back from Easter – and Easter is a moveable feast. Now “moveable feast” doesn’t refer to a picnic eaten outdoors, as you might think. Instead, it means a celebration not set to a particular calendar date, but one whose date moves according to lunar cycles. The short version is that Easter comes on the first Sunday after the full Moon that occurs on or after the spring equinox.
Since our calendar is set up with twelve 30 or 31 day months (except February) and the lunar cycle is 28 days, these two never mesh and the period that lies between Epiphany and Ash Wednesday gets shortened or lengthened every year as we shift from calendar mode to lunar mode.
This is most likely way more information than you ever wanted, but yes, this is a long Epiphany and I’m enjoying it because it has allowed me to hit all the main Epiphany readings and still have some space for a handful of the Old Testament readings such as today’s scripture from Jeremiah – with a bit of Psalm One tossed in as well.
We have two more Sundays in Epiphany after today – those will be for my personal favorite Epiphany readings concerning the earliest days of Jesus ministering among us – and then Lent begins on March 2nd.
Today, however – now that I’ve spent so much time on explaining the calendar – is about US. This reading from the prophet Jeremiah isn’t really about tumbleweeds or fruit-bearing trees – it’s about us. And it’s about truly, deeply, honestly trusting God.
Jeremiah offers us a compare/contrast between those who trust in their own strength, their own wisdom, their own righteousness, and those who trust God to lead them through.
The first, Jeremiah declares, are wandering lost and unrooted because they are trusting in their own strengths and don’t even know how lost they are. He compares them to tumbleweeds – rootless and aimless, unable to settle and bear fruit.
The second, though, the ones who trust in God, he compares to trees planted near flowing water with “Never a worry through the hottest of summers, never dropping a leaf, serene and calm through droughts, bearing fresh fruit every season. These are the ones whose trust in God is deep.
Psalm One, which is the Psalm reading that goes with this Jeremiah text, puts it this way:
The Psalm goes on later to use Jeremiah’s language and description of the Trusting Ones:
So, I guess the question for today is, “How deeply are we rooted? How far does our trust go?” And that’s an uncomfortable question. How many of us proclaim our trust in God yet still find ourselves worrying ourselves sick over things in our own lives or in the world around us? Things we feel we should be able to control or “fix” all on our own?
How many times have we felt we’ve failed when we didn’t manage to make things come out the “right way” without ever stopping to think that maybe God never asked us to do that in the first place?
We take such burdens on ourselves, or we allow others to place them on our shoulders, and they were never meant to be our burdens in the first place. God has never intended for us to weigh ourselves down with burdens too heavy for us to carry.
Think about it. Why would a God who loves us as much as Jesus continually told us God does pile impossible tasks on us? Dump heavy, guilt producing work on us just to make us fail?
God has created us for deep, living water, not for rocky deserts. We are made to be trees that bear good, rich fruit. And to exist here in this place, we are meant to trust the God who created us and loves us every day. We are not promised that everything will always be rainbows and flowers, but we are told that in good times and in bad, God has been, is now, and will always be with us, to guide us and strengthen us and see us through.
Trust that. That is the word of God. Sink your roots down deep in that knowledge...and trust it.
I’m going to end here with a quote from Frederick Buechner. I haven’t quote him for awhile now and it’s time. On the subject of trust he has this to say:
What a beautiful image to end with. May you carry it with throughout this week.
This time between Epiphany and Ash Wednesday is a pretty fluid time. Epiphany falls on January 6th – it’s always a set calendar date.
Lent, however, gets its dates counting back from Easter – and Easter is a moveable feast. Now “moveable feast” doesn’t refer to a picnic eaten outdoors, as you might think. Instead, it means a celebration not set to a particular calendar date, but one whose date moves according to lunar cycles. The short version is that Easter comes on the first Sunday after the full Moon that occurs on or after the spring equinox.
Since our calendar is set up with twelve 30 or 31 day months (except February) and the lunar cycle is 28 days, these two never mesh and the period that lies between Epiphany and Ash Wednesday gets shortened or lengthened every year as we shift from calendar mode to lunar mode.
This is most likely way more information than you ever wanted, but yes, this is a long Epiphany and I’m enjoying it because it has allowed me to hit all the main Epiphany readings and still have some space for a handful of the Old Testament readings such as today’s scripture from Jeremiah – with a bit of Psalm One tossed in as well.
We have two more Sundays in Epiphany after today – those will be for my personal favorite Epiphany readings concerning the earliest days of Jesus ministering among us – and then Lent begins on March 2nd.
Today, however – now that I’ve spent so much time on explaining the calendar – is about US. This reading from the prophet Jeremiah isn’t really about tumbleweeds or fruit-bearing trees – it’s about us. And it’s about truly, deeply, honestly trusting God.
Jeremiah offers us a compare/contrast between those who trust in their own strength, their own wisdom, their own righteousness, and those who trust God to lead them through.
The first, Jeremiah declares, are wandering lost and unrooted because they are trusting in their own strengths and don’t even know how lost they are. He compares them to tumbleweeds – rootless and aimless, unable to settle and bear fruit.
The second, though, the ones who trust in God, he compares to trees planted near flowing water with “Never a worry through the hottest of summers, never dropping a leaf, serene and calm through droughts, bearing fresh fruit every season. These are the ones whose trust in God is deep.
Psalm One, which is the Psalm reading that goes with this Jeremiah text, puts it this way:
- How well God must like you--
you don’t walk in the ruts of those blind-as-bats,
you don’t stand with the good-for-nothings,
you don’t take your seat among the know-it-alls.
The Psalm goes on later to use Jeremiah’s language and description of the Trusting Ones:
- You’re a tree planted by flowing streams,
bearing fresh fruit every month,
Never dropping a leaf, always in blossom.
So, I guess the question for today is, “How deeply are we rooted? How far does our trust go?” And that’s an uncomfortable question. How many of us proclaim our trust in God yet still find ourselves worrying ourselves sick over things in our own lives or in the world around us? Things we feel we should be able to control or “fix” all on our own?
How many times have we felt we’ve failed when we didn’t manage to make things come out the “right way” without ever stopping to think that maybe God never asked us to do that in the first place?
We take such burdens on ourselves, or we allow others to place them on our shoulders, and they were never meant to be our burdens in the first place. God has never intended for us to weigh ourselves down with burdens too heavy for us to carry.
Think about it. Why would a God who loves us as much as Jesus continually told us God does pile impossible tasks on us? Dump heavy, guilt producing work on us just to make us fail?
God has created us for deep, living water, not for rocky deserts. We are made to be trees that bear good, rich fruit. And to exist here in this place, we are meant to trust the God who created us and loves us every day. We are not promised that everything will always be rainbows and flowers, but we are told that in good times and in bad, God has been, is now, and will always be with us, to guide us and strengthen us and see us through.
Trust that. That is the word of God. Sink your roots down deep in that knowledge...and trust it.
I’m going to end here with a quote from Frederick Buechner. I haven’t quote him for awhile now and it’s time. On the subject of trust he has this to say:
- “At certain rare moments of greenness and stillness, --when we’ve been feeling as if we are unattached to this good earth, living in a barren land, we are still shepherded by the knowledge that though all is far from right with any world you and I know anything about, deep down all is right.
- “And being right with God, trusting the deep-down rightness of the life God has created for us and in us, we ride that trust the way a red-tailed hawk rides the currents of the air in this valley where we live.”
What a beautiful image to end with. May you carry it with throughout this week.
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