In the Midst of the 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. Jeremiah 7:7-8

“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.”

These are the words we heard from the prophet Jeremiah in the first reading today, and in a very real sense they frame the other readings and the Psalm. They set us up to hear Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians and Luke’s Gospel.

At a time of great uncertainty and international tension between Judah and Egypt, and under threat from the powerful Babylonian empire, Jeremiah’s counsel to the Judean leadership was to trust in God, was not to follow their own assessment of the situation or thinking they had all the answers. It was a time of great anxiety.

Jeremiah’s counsel to trust in God and God’s provision was painted in the image of a tree planted by the banks of a stream. This tree is able to survive during difficulty, during times of drought. It is not anxious.

Well, there is plenty of anxiety in the air these days – in the news, on-line, in conversations people have with one another. We don’t know quite what to expect; we don’t know what’s going to happen next; and that makes some of us quite anxious.

When we are living in a place of anxiety – whether it is our personal circumstances about health or employment, finances or family members, or a broader scope of tensions and uncertainties in the world as a whole – when we live in a place of anxiety it is very easy to think that we should fall back on our own resources, withdraw to a place we think we can control, shut    the door, pull up the drawbridge, and hunker down.

But Jeremiah’s picture is to locate a place of water and abide there, put down roots. Of course, in very arid climates, a stream is a blessing; it is life-giving. We can understand that.

But even more, the symbol of a tree and of a stream reaches all the way back to the Garden of Eden; God’s place of original    blessing of humankind. There was the river that arose in Eden and watered the face of the ground and flowed out of the Garden to the four corners of the known world. And in the midst of the Garden God planted the tree of life, a symbol of God’s sustenance and blessing for all humanity.

This same image of a tree planted by the side of the river is picked up again in Revelation - the vision of the river of the water of life, and the tree growing on either side with its leaves for the healing of the nations. And the Cross itself is understood by the Biblical authors as being the Tree of Life – planted this time not in a garden, but in a place of destruction and desolation that takes the evil, and sorrow, and sin, and brokenness of humanity and transforms it into new abundant life in Christ’s resurrection.

This image of the tree planted by the stream is an invitation to us to trust God – even in the midst of anxiety, even when it doesn’t seem to make sense; even when the rational part of our brain says no; even when it would be far easier to rely on our own resources – emotional, relational, or material.
And to press the point even further, in the Gospel today we hear Jesus teaching – the inner circle of the Twelve, and the larger group of the disciples, and the great crowd that has gathered from far away seeking healing and relief from unclean spirits.

This is Luke’s version of the Beatitudes, less familiar to us than the way they appear in Matthew’s gospel. Luke puts a sharp, concrete edge on what Jesus is saying.

He says that those gathered at that level place who are poor, who are hungry, who are in grief, who are hated, excluded, reviled, and defamed because of they follow Jesus, are blessed. Not that they will be blessed in the future but that they are blessed now. And a great many people present there were experiencing one or more     of those realities – poor, hungry, grieving, excluded.

In contrast to those he calls blessed, Jesus issues a warning to those who rely on their wealth, their self-satisfaction, their status, and their contempt for others. Woe to you, trouble ahead, how terrible for you (those phrases are all different ways to translate that word) who rely on these things and not upon living and walking the way Jesus offers, who trust only in your own counsel and resources.

As Jeremiah said, when we do that, when our “hearts turn away from the LORD, we shall be like a shrub in the desert – with shallow roots, like a tumbleweed - and shall not see when relief comes; we shall live in the parched places of the wilderness, in an uninhabited salt land”.

And yet, anxiety and fear can drive us to those places where the certainty of our own control, our own wanting to be in charge, can keep us from trusting God, from walking in the way of Jesus. We end up getting in our own way eventually, we pull back from anyone or anything who challenges or upsets our own personal status quo. Anxiety makes us smaller, more brittle, more apt to hurt others.

Instead, the Way of Jesus, the Way of the Cross, of trusting God’s wisdom and love, is the Way of Life – abundant, generous,    hope-filled life. It is like living in a well-watered garden where the Tree of Life can grow; an Eden blessing even when all around us may feel like Jeremiah’s uninhabited salt land.

The Way of Jesus, the Way of the Cross, quenches our thirst, nurtures us, roots us deeply in love, sustains us in times of drought and adversity, and bears fruit in our lives that extends out beyond us to the world God has made.

Let us pray.
Gracious God, help us to delight in you, to meditate day and night on all your ways and purposes for us; that we may be like trees planted by streams of water, bearing fruit in due season, with leaves that do not wither, prospering in your good time; to the glory of your most holy name. Amen.

Victoria Geer McGrath
All Saints’ Episcopal Church, Millington, NJ
Sixth Sunday after Epiphany
February 16, 2025