“A Tree or a Shrub?”
Sermon Presented February 14, 2010
Jeremiah 17:5-10
Last Monday on The Evening News with Diane Sawyer, I watched a story unfold called The Power of Half, the title of a book written by Hannah Salwen and her father Kevin. Hannah, a 14 year-old Atlanta girl, was riding with her father when they saw a homeless man at a stop sign. Immediately to his right was a Mercedes. Hannah commented that if the owner of the Mercedes were to sell his car, buy something less expensive, and give the excess money to feed the homeless; many people would no longer be hungry.
As they discussed this at dinner that night, Hannah’s mom questioned her: “Well what do you think we should do – sell our home and live in something half the size?” Hannah said yes! Over the next six months the family discussed what to do about this challenge. This was a home they had saved for – a home they loved – a home that cost more than 1 ½ million dollars. The last hold-out was Hannah’s younger brother, who finally decided to go along with the plan.
They sold their home – as well as the furniture and accessories that wouldn’t fit into the new house. The proceeds from the sale of the “stuff” as well as $800,000 from the sale of their home was put into a fund they established called “The Hunger Project” – a fund that is supporting a Village Center in Ghana to meet the needs of the people in that poverty-stricken village.
David Muir, the reporter who interviewed the family, closed with an interview with Hannah’s brother – the final hold-out to the plan. He said that he is amazed at how well the plan is working. Because they have only half the space they once had – the family is closer together. My guess is that the project – as well as the diminished space – brought them closer.
This family experienced a change of heart as the result of a casual remark made by a teenager. It’s the kind of change that doesn’t come easy – because heart changes usually don’t come easy! It was easy for Hannah, but not for everyone else.
Our text this morning is God’s call to the people of Judah to change their hearts – through specific actions. However, we need a little background to put this text into perspective. We have had several texts recently from Isaiah and Nehemiah that were written either during or after the exile of the Israelites into Babylonian captivity. This message from God comes before the exile!
Exile will soon be the new normal for the people. It’s their fault that they’re about to be exiled, and yet the prophet Jeremiah is concerned about how they will live in exile. Will they shrivel up and die or will they put down roots deep into the earth to find the water of God’s salvation? Will they become a desert shrub or a tall straight tree? Will they be cursed or blessed?
I’m reading from Jeremiah 17:5-10. This – like many other prophetic writings is in the genre of poetry.
The people can choose how they will live in exile. Those who rely on God will be blessed and those who put their allegiance elsewhere will be cursed. God’s curse is on those who trust in humans – instead of God. Their fate is to live in the parched places of an uninhabited salt land. Now if you have been to Israel and visited the Dead Sea or to Yellowstone and viewed the Devil’s Cauldron, you know what an uninhabitable salt land is like. Nothing grows there. It’s desolate and smells of sulfur. The only life there is visitors.
But not all desert land is this desolate. Consider the hillsides of Phoenix that appear to be dried up wastelands, but suddenly burst into bloom after a heavy rain. The seeds may lie dormant for years just waiting for the right amount of moisture, and when it comes, life and color burst forth bringing beauty to the desert.
Even though we may not inhabit a salt land where nothing grows, we all experience desert times – times when we are in exile. God’s message may lie dormant in our hearts, and when the stimulation comes through what we see or hear or sense, the seed is resurrected. We have a choice! God provides the water – the stimulus – but it’s what we do with that stimulus that makes a difference.
Jeremiah tells the people of Judah that exile and curse will come because they no longer trust God, but instead trust mere mortals. They have abandoned God and established new allegiances. The seeds of faith are drying up!
I believe the key word here is “trust”. Trust is not belief in a proposition, but commitment and devotion. Trust in God moves beyond belief to establish deep roots and fruitful actions. The Salwen family moved from belief in a proposition to a commitment to make the proposition become reality.
Now I don’t want you to equate trust with a lack of doubt. Reb Zalman Schaechter-Shalomi stated: “Doubt is not an enemy of faith. Doubt is the means by which we scrape off the barnacles from the ship of faith.” (Your Soul’s Compass by Joan Borysenko and Gordon Dveirin, p. 57) Frederich Buechner said: “Doubts are the ants in the pants of faith. They keep it awake and moving.” All thinking people have doubts about some of their core beliefs. That is because there is no empirical evidence to confirm those beliefs. Geneticist Francis Collins, the director of the Human Genome Project put it this way: “Faith is not the opposite of reason. Faith rests squarely upon reason, but with the added component of revelation.” (Ibid, p. 66)
God says through Jeremiah: “Blessed are those … whose trust is in the Lord…. 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.”
In our contemporary world, people tend to trust military might, social status, technological innovations, economic advisors, talk show hosts, or religious leaders. And many who trust these people or institutions seem to flourish. However, when we become self-absorbed and look only for what is beneficial to us as individuals, our desires can turn to obsessions or addictions. Part of the curse is dealing with the repercussions of our self-centeredness.
During the recent real estate bubble, some large metropolitan churches invited unscrupulous advisors into their churches to encourage people to claim God’s blessings by purchasing homes they couldn’t afford. These churches received kick-backs from the real estate companies. Church members were told that God wanted them to live in luxury and would provide the resources. Now many of these churches are being sued! When we park our common sense and what we know about God and about life, we pay the consequences. When we trust people instead of trusting God, we are cursed.
The question for us is: Do we trust and delight in God like a tree planted by a stream or do we trust in our own efforts? Our trust in God won’t eliminate times of exile or life in the desert because they come to everyone. Those who trust in mere mortals and those who trust in God all experience drought. Rain falls on the just and the unjust! The difference is that those who trust in God can emerge spiritually strengthened because their roots travel toward the stream – the source of life.
The focus of this text is on the inner life of the individual. God is concerned with the heart. However, the text concludes by pointing out that God looks at the fruit of our doings – at what emerges from the inner life.
A life centered on God is a life that is fed by God’s living water. A life centered on God isn’t fearful or anxious or barren. A life centered on God is available to each of us. And our actions expose whether or not our life is centered on God.
The text says that we can’t understand our hearts. We don’t always know why we act or react as we do. Understanding our hearts takes self-examination, and this takes a great deal of time and effort.
God wants us to take the time to do the interior work necessary to cleanse the arteries that lead to our hearts. That kind of work doesn’t require stints like former president Clinton had inserted last week, even though sometimes our interior heart work seems like surgery. When the living water flows through us, we are renewed.
We can’t always do our interior work alone, especially if the arteries are closed by deep wounds that have festered for a long time. Sometimes we need a mental health professional, a spiritual guide, a pastor, or a friend to help us move through the darkness. Our trust in God will help us find the help we need when we’re serious about doing the work.
This text begins with a curse, but it ends with God saying: “I test the mind and search the heart to give to all according to what they do!” The choice is ours alone. What will we do?
02/14/2010
