“Like a tree rooted by flowing water – free from fear and anxiety in times of stress and distress.” Did you notice that image from the prophet Jeremiah this morning?
I wonder how many of us, today, feel like you fit in that image? Vibrant and fruitful and well-resourced in the face of trouble?
Not me, most days, honestly.
I want to be strong, and fruitful, not vulnerable to the waves of strain and distress that come from the world around us. I long to be non-anxious in drought and trouble.
And sometimes, for a minute, a day even, I can feel that undaunted strength, flowing from God.
But most of us, here in this time and place, are taught to start with self-reliance instead of God-reliance – to turn to God only when the drought and trouble have already worn us out and dried us up, and when we’ve felt ourselves fail already, and might not even notice the resources God is trying to bring to our thirst – be it a thirst for healing or justice or relief or security or peace.
And Jeremiah warns us that’s not sustainable.
Jeremiah’s telling us, today, that his promise of peaceful, confident fruitfulness even in trouble is the blessing that comes not just from trusting God when we have to, but of trusting God before we exhaust our self-sufficiency. Trusting God before we trust ourselves; as the foundation of how we use our own resources.
That’s countercultural for many of us, however much we want, and need, to be able to meet times of trouble and distress with confidence and calm, like Jeremiah’s well-rooted tree.
But over and over again, humans like us, people of faith, have done that countercultural thing, trusted first in God…and we often tell their stories as heroes of the Bible, or saints of the church.
And we also can recognize that countercultural blessing in stories about lives close to ours, intertwined with and among us. This month, as we celebrate the leadership, hope, and achievement of African American History Month, the idea of Jeremiah’s well-watered tree reminds me of my visit last month to the Smithsonian Museum of African-American History and Culture.
Exhibit after exhibit resonated with the strength of communities and individuals well-rooted in connection to the divine, in trust in God, in love of one another, neighbors, and even enemies.
Roots well-watered in faith producing artistry, innovation, courage and beauty, whether amid stark deserts of enslavement and deliberate oppression, or the heats of political and social change. Stories of musicians and artists, politicians and preachers, healers and humorists, bearing fruit in droughts and rains, and watering the faith of others.
One story, dear to me, which has watered my faith, and my own trust in God, for years, is one The Episcopal Church officially celebrated for the first time last Tuesday.
February 11 is the anniversary of the ordination, in 1989, of Barbara Clementine Harris as the first woman bishop of the Episcopal Church, and of the world-wide Anglican Communion. In the United States, that remembrance resonates even more in February, because the first woman bishop in our church was an African-American woman.
One of the stories I’ve heard often re-told about that day is that despite the heated and often vitriolic objections to her ordination, despite the trouble roiling in the church as people struggled with the fear of change, despite even the death threats, Bishop Barbara declined the Kevlar vest she was offered for physical protection during the ordination service, saying that if she were to be shot, what better place to go than at the altar.
The tree watered in trust, Jeremiah tells us, will not fear when heat comes.
The granddaughter of enslaved persons, active in the civil rights movement, an advocate for justice and for the rights of the disenfranchised in her day-to-day life, both before and after her ordination as a priest, Bishop Harris knew a lot about living in the desert, in drought of respect, liberty, and choices; or in systems where resources were dried up and withheld.
A child of the Episcopal Church, born in Philadelphia, worshipping with her mother at the Church of the Advocate, steeped in the hymns of faith, Bishop Harris grew from, and nurtured, deep roots of trust in God’s strength and faithfulness and love.
On the anniversary of her consecration this week, a friend quoted Bishop Harris saying,
“Often as we sail over the tempestuous sea of life, our world is in storm on a personal, national, and global level. But not only is Christ on the ship, Christ is in command — even when he seems to be asleep. ….” And what a comfort lies in the simple thought: “His eye is on the sparrow and I know he watches me.”
Her deeply rooted trust in God’s faithfulness shaped her life and ministry even more than being “the first” of so many things in the church. History records the facts of her life, the barriers surmounted, the battles led and won for equity in the church across every line of gender, race, and sexuality through her deep strength in God.
But her friends and colleagues tell the stories that show the vitality of the living water of God’s faithfulness flowing through her – bubbling up in joy and wicked wit (mostly stories I can’t tell from the pulpit; ask me at coffee hour); in deeply personal care for others that made you feel like you were the only one in the room; in bluntly realist encouragement of others to act courageously and faithfully in the face of ordinary troubles and wide-reaching injustice; in community built by singing hymns around the piano, shared laughter… The fullness of God’s love and strength shone out of her, vibrant and vivid, even from across a large convention hall.
In fact, Bishop Barbara’s day-to-day life and actions not only demonstrated the fruitfulness of her own rooted trust in God, but rooted those around her into the deep, unquenchable waters of God’s faithfulness, knitting trust in God into the lives she touchedn – including mine, at a distance.
Rooting trust in God’s faithfulness into the church and the world she shaped, with her historic roles, and her whole and holy self.
And Jeremiah encourages you and me to be the same. To be deeply rooted in our trust in God, whose “eye is on the sparrow”, and will not forget us in our times of drought and trouble.
Jeremiah invites and admonishes us to trust in God, not just when we’ve already run out of options, but because our hearts always want to be rooted in a love that can’t be drained by the heats and strains of the world around us. Because our hearts want to be more whole, more loving, more holy. And the strength for that comes not from our own effort, but from a bone-deep, root-deep reliance on the faithfulness of God in all circumstances.
And then, like Bishop Barbara, like named and unnamed saints and heroes and ordinary folk throughout history, we too may be able to water the roots of others. To pour God’s unquenchable faithfulness into deserts of oppression or need, loneliness or pain, wherever and whenever we meet them. To resist any force seeking to dry up God’s love in our lives, and to water the lives of others with hope, and joy, and unlimited, nourishing, life-giving love.
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