Thoughts from St. Andrew's Episcopal Church • Birmingham, AL

Thursday, March 12, 2020

Old Testament: Jeremiah 17: 5-10

Gospel:  Luke 16: 19-31

Psalm 1

Psalm 1 asserts that the blessed ones meditate on and delight in the Law of the Lord day and night. They can become like trees planted by streams of water, “bearing fruit in due season, with leaves that do not wither” (vs. 2-3). By contrast, the Psalmist also declares that those who linger in the crooked ways of the world with the scornful, the distracted, the sinners, are “like chaff which the wind blows away” (vs. 4). The Hebrew Prophet Jeremiah echoes the Psalmist’s foundational Torah admonitions (vs. 5-10).  Let us focus on the encouragement given us in the positive, life-giving images of streams, trees, leaves, roots, and fruit.

To be like a tree, grounded by deep roots, beside a stream or in a forest, is, over time in a storm-tossed world, to be kept stable, rooted in God.  The beloved American poet, Mary Oliver (1935-2019) shows us her way of grounding mind and heart: her regular, slow rambles in the Cape Cod woods. “When I am among the trees, especially the willows and the honey locust, equally the beech the oaks and the pines, they give off such hints of gladness. I would almost say, and daily.”  The trees call out to her: “Stay awhile.” Light is flowing to her through their branches. They say again, Mary, “It’s simple, and you have come into this world to do this, to go easy, to be filled with light, and to shine.”  

On Shades Mountain in Birmingham, each morning I greet the trees and the birds and God the Creator with thanksgiving (well, most mornings!) to remember to choose the delights of God’s Law, to seek advice for going forth nonviolently and with loving compassion into an increasingly distracted and conflicted world. So let us imagine flourishing fruitful trees: apple, fig, tangerine, apricot, pistachio, and olive: beautiful and life-giving, rooted and watered. Not like chaff which blows away with the wind. 

One of the early Christians from Rome, Hemas (100-160 AD/CE), in his treatise “The Shepherd” suggests some simple, challenging ways that we can be rooted and “fruitful” in our daily lives: “Do good, and with simple hearts share the fruits of your labor, which God gives to you, with all those who are poor, not wondering to whom you should give and to whom you should not give. Give to all, for God wishes that you give to all from [God’s] gifts to you.”

Stanley Rich