Deep Roots
First Congregational Church of Evanston;
February 11, 2007 (Sixth Sunday after Epiphany)
Psalm 1, Luke 6: 17-26, Jeremiah 17:5-10
Rev. Dr James E. Roghair, Interim Pastor
NRSV PSALM 1:1,3
Happy are those...
their delight is in the law of the LORD,
and on his law they meditate day and night.
They are like trees
planted by streams of water,
which yield their fruit in its season,
and their leaves do not wither.
In all that they do, they prosper.
Cottonwood Trees
Our neighbors, here in Evanston have a cottonwood tree, and lots of people complain about it: “It is so dirty; it’s like a weed. The cotton fuzz goes all over the place.” They don’t like it.”
But, I have always had an affinity for cottonwood trees. I even sat down one spring and wrote a little poem to the cottonwood tree. ( I won’t bore you with the poem this morning.) However, perhaps I can share with you why I have always liked cottonwoods. Where I grew up on the prairie West of the Missouri River in South Dakota, the cottonwood was a special friend. If there were any trees around, they were likely to be cottonwoods. Wherever they grew, they seemed to thrive. They were persistent. They were trees that kids could get to know – with wide trunks that kids could climb. They were trees that were constantly in motion in the wind so they would be making noises all night long – the leaves rustling and the branches creaking.
But cottonwoods were not everywhere – only in the select spots. If you would get on the top of one of the rolling hills and look out over the miles, you would see patches of cottonwoods in spots where there was a source of water – near creeks, even creeks that were dry much of the year – near the rivers – in road ditches were water gathered from snow melt or rain. So when you look out across the mostly treeless expanse, the places that you see the cottonwoods are the places where you know there is water.
It takes a lot of trial and error for a cottonwood to reproduce itself. Because so much of the environment is hostile, the cottonwood sends out a lot of fuzz.
Oases in the Desert
In the words from Jeremiah that we used in our call to worship this morning, those who trust in God are like trees whose roots go down into the water. The biblical passage reflects not Western United States but geography of the Middle East. Someone wrote:
From a vantage point high above the desert, one can readily see where there is water. Look for the trees! Spotted in the dry vastness of brown, there will be clusters of green at an oasis or ribbons of green following the course of a river. The trees thrive in the wilderness because their roots search out and find the water by which they remain rooted. Not all the water is visible on the surface of the ground. Much of it remains hidden underneath; yet, it is there nonetheless. The tree trusts to find it by sending its roots hopefully even through the parched places. (Emphasis Feb 15, 2004)
Psalm 1, also, speaks of the oasis: “Happy are those ... [whose] delight is in the law of the LORD... They are like trees planted by streams of water...” For us reading in English, ‘law’ seems a bit cold and uninviting. We are used to laws being dry – lists of prohibitions and lists of requirements.
But the psalm is talking about ‘torah.’ The original meaning was much more comprehensive than our English word ‘law.’ To study the Torah is to study the teaching of God – to take God’s instruction. To learn the Torah is to learn God’s way. This Psalm is promoting God’s instruction for our lives. That’s why we might delight in it. The Psalm says: The righteous person is one who is rooted in God’s torah. The wicked person is one who is not rooted there.
A Little Cottonwood Tree
In thinking about the roots, I want to draw your attention back to the cottonwood, to one particular childhood experience I had. You have to know that we didn’t have any electricity or running water in our home. (We didn’t feel sorry for ourselves or feel especially put upon – our neighbors were living the same way.) But some of the things you and I take for granted today, were not in our experience then.
Washing the weekly pile of very dirty farm clothing was quite a production for my Mother. She had two huge boilers, which each held at least 10 gallons of water. On wash day, they were set early on the coal burning kitchen range. As it was needed the hot water was transferred into the tub of the Maytag ringer washing machine. It was operating with a roaring 2-cycle gasoline engine, that sounded every bit like a motorcycle. My father started with a foot-pump at the beginning of the day before he went out to do work in the fields, and it continued to run until the wash was done.
Getting the picture of this scene, surely you know that there was no sewer, either. So when the last of the dark colored clothing was done at the end of the day and was ready to hang on the clothesline, the well-used wash water was let out by a garden hose, to run down the hill away from the house.
In due time, we found a cottonwood sapling, and planted it on that hill where it would get some of this weekly runoff. Nothing was to be wasted! (You remember.) That little cottonwood grew quickly. And why not? It felt like one of those trees planted by the water that the Scripture talks about.
Then my Dad decide to upgrade things – to get rid some of the mess. He hired someone with a big auger come drill a dry well – really just a hole in the ground – to receive the wash water run-off. He had the hole dug near the little cottonwood, assuming, that it would continue to thrive.
But, within a few months the little cottonwood died. Its roots were too near the surface, since it had been getting the water drained on it each week. When suddenly the water was deep in the ground, the cottonwood did not have deep roots to get to that water. It did not have the resources to bounce back and it was a minor tragedy to loose that friend.
The Righteous and the Wicked
Psalm 1 is talking profoundly about that sort of tragedy on a human level: Blessed are the ones who are rooted in the instruction of God. They are like trees planted by the streams of water – rooted where they need to be rooted – in God’s instruction. The wicked are not so rooted.
To be blessed or happy means to be rooted in God – to be God-centered. For the Scriptures happiness is not so much enjoying oneself, as it is being delighted in God. Prosperity does not mean getting what we want, but being connected to the divine source of life. The righteous are not so much those who make the right choices, as they are those who recognize that their lives belong to God.
But wickedness is self-centeredness – the total concentration on enjoying ourselves, on acquiring what we think will make us happy, turning ourselves away from God. J. Clinton McCann, Jr. writes:
“What is so unsettling ... is that what Psalm 1 and the rest of the psalter calls ‘wickedness’ is perhaps what North American culture promotes as the highest virtue– autonomy. What generally marks maturity among contemporary North Americans is self-sufficiency. Wanting or needing help, whether help from others or from God, is taken as a sign of weakness or instability. The effect is to produce a society of isolated selves. The irony is tragic – the pursuit of self-fulfillment yields self-alienation...(New Interpreter’s Bible)”
McCann goes on to speak of Flannery O’Connor’s character in the story “A Good Man Is Hard to Find.” The character, called Misfit says he does not pray: “I don’t want no hep’... I’m doing all right by myself (NIB).” This is what the scripture calls wickedness – the total reliance on ourselves – the lack of need for anyone else. Self-centeredness is not blessedness in the biblical understanding.
Jesus’ Challenge
When Jesus preached the beatitudes – those words about blessedness – he turned every conventional way of understanding happiness upside down. He declared that God rewards the poor, that God fills the hungry, that God makes the sorrowful laugh. It is only as we are rooted completely in the biblical God – the God who offers us a totally counterintuitive sense of everything – that we will be truly happy or blessed.
How Does This All Relate to Us?
So this business about blessedness – about righteousness and wickedness – about rootedness and rootlessness – How does it relate to you individually? How does it relate to this church in this real time? The issues are profound.
In a culture that promotes self-sufficiency and self-aggrandizement, how do we grab onto something that is totally different? How do we plant our roots in an ancient stream of wisdom and life that is profoundly different from the stream in which our colleagues, neighbors and even our friends may be planted? How can we be sure that our roots are planted in the succulence of God rather than in our own self-sufficiency?
Perhaps the Bible seems too old – not relevant enough for us – we can’t get into it. I would challenge you to keep trying. It is within the Scripture that we find the recorded struggles of many generations to come to grips with our relationship to God and to our surroundings. I believe that it is in the struggles of contemporary people to make sense of their own lives, in light of the Scriptures, that we will find the rootedness that is offered. There are plenty of other sources that offer us a place to root, but which will in the end leave us thirsty, and dried up. Like the little cottonwood which could not reach the water.
So as individuals and as a church, I encourage your digging into what faith means to us in our contemporary life. Now, that may fly in the face of what you like to think and do in this church. I have heard it said that at First Congregational ‘we don’t like God-talk.’ That may be true. But without God-talk – what do we have? Without wrestling with who we are in the presence of God, what roots do we have as Christians? The Psalm suggests we are unhappy or not blessed “like chaff that the wind drives away” – the opposite of being happily rooted in the living streams of God.
How do you as a church that prides itself on being non-creedal – so you do not impose creeds on one another – how do you talk to each other – how do you support one another so that you nurture the roots in God? How do you sustain and care for one another as God’s plantings? It is a difficult job! And yet the rewards are rich. I encourage you to go for it.
And how do you, as a Congregational church, which cherishes deeply your independent and congregational heritage – How do you reach out for the sustenance which comes from God through the whole Christian tradition? How do you connect to the Church Universal? The Christian Church is world-wide. People who are very different from you are struggling to be faithful. You need them, and they need you to strengthen the roots in God. How will you connect to God through them?
These are the questions that you will continue to struggle with. Your transition team will bring you a statement in a few weeks that describes who you feel yourself to be. These are the questions that you will continue to struggle with as you ask how to reach out to a needy world. There are people within walking distance of where we meet today who do not know the Christian story.
The world around us is filled with people who need the rootedness that only comes from faith. But they have never heard a really compelling message about how faith makes any difference in their lives. How will you assure yourselves that you and your church are rooted and grounded in the faith enough to pass on that wondrous message to those who need it desperately?
And as your search committee has been formed and is beginning its work, pray for them, support them. They, too, try to help you answer some of these questions. They will try to get you the absolute best leader to take you on into the second decade of this new century – and even beyond.
I invite you to be in prayer that God will reveal to you how to flourish in God’s way – a tree planted by the water – a tree that shall not be moved.
Amen.
Last Updated: Wednesday, February 6, 2008