The Sixth Sunday after Epiphany
Jeremiah 17:5–10
The text from Jeremiah today offers a nice, concise saying of wisdom. There were two plants. One was out in the desert. The other was next to the stream. Both were doing fine. But then, severe droughts came. And when they did, the plant out in the desert was anxious. If there were no rains, it had nothing to fall back on. But the tree that was near the stream, though it also experienced the severe climate, did not have to be afraid. It knew that it would be safe because it could always rely on the water from the constant stream. It an allegory. Those who trust human beings are like the shrub in the desert. Those who trust in God are like the tree by the stream. Don’t trust in human beings. Trust in God.
Of coarse, it’s very easy to take this too far. “Don’t trust anything human. All things in this world are bad, unreliable, and even evil. You can only trust in God, so forget about everything else.” But I don’t think that’s really the point of this passage. It’s more complicated than just believing that if we trust in God we will never experience hard times. It’s more complicated than saying God is good and people are bad, more complicated than deciding to live a life where we only trust God.
For one thing, how would we even begin to live by only trusting God and refusing to ever trust anything mortal or human. How would we eat if we refused to trust the farmers and farm workers who grow our food? Would we expect God to send us manna every day, or would we have to trust that human can generally be trusted to do agricultural work? And how would we raise children if we refused to trust in the work of people? Would we just leave the child out in the wilderness and trust that God would take care of them, or would we have to trust that parents and families and teachers and doctors can work some good in the life of a child? How could we do anything if we couldn’t trust anyone, not even ourselves to be able to do it? We couldn’t. If only God is able to act, and anything human is unredeemable, then we should probably just do nothing at all, make God do all the work. But we know that that isn’t right. We know that God created us for action. We know that God calls us to act. And we know that God works even through feeble human hands.
There are a few words in this passage that really struck me. Jeremiah tells us that in the year of drought, the tree planted by the water will not be anxious, but the shrub will. And it got me to thinking, what exactly does it mean for a plant to experience anxiety? Well, there’s actually an old article from NASA, of all places, that explores that question. The title: “Prozac for Plants: How do you get plants to grow on Mars? The first step: relieve their anxiety.”
Apparently, according to NASA scientists, plants really do experience anxiety. Or, at least, they experience stress. Just like humans, plants produce a chemical called superoxide to let the whole body know that it is time to go on high alert. The problem is that superoxide is toxic. If it stays in the system too long, it starts to cause all sorts of health problems. The article says, “In stressful conditions… plants often partially shut down. They stop growing and reproducing, and instead focus their efforts on staying alive—and nothing more.”
So modern science seems to confirm what Jeremiah told us, that plants under stress actually do experience anxiety the same way that we do, and that in their anxious state they stop producing fruit and focus only on survival.
In the third through fifth centuries, many Christians went out into the desert regions of Egypt seeking a better way to find God. In fact, people came from all over the Christian world to go out into the wilderness and become hermits, monks, and ascetics. They are usually called the Desert Fathers, although there were some Desert Mothers as well. The most famous of these ascetics was St. Anthony.
“Antony was born to affluent Christian parents who farmed along the Nile river village of Coma in Upper Egypt. At age twenty, shortly after the death of his parents, he entered a village church and heard the saying of Jesus to the rich man: ‘If you would be perfect, go and sell all that you have and give to the poor, come follow me, and you will have treasure in heaven.’ Seized by the words, he sold the farm, gave his money to the poor and moved to the edge of town to live among local hermits and ascetics….
“Over time, Antony moved further and further away from the village, into the wilderness… His days were occupied with prayer, fasting, and the recitation of scripture. In 286, Antony entered a period of absolute solitude… at a desert fort near the Red Sea. For some twenty years, he fought the demonic powers and overcame the forces of evil on their own turf: the interior life of the self. In 306, he emerged from the desert to a flock of followers seeking his wisdom and guidance… He earned his income gardening and making mats, all the while encouraging persecuted Christians.” (J. S. Hudgins, “Antony, Abbot of Egypt,” For All the Saints: A Calendar of Commemorations for United Methodists, 2nd ed., ed. Heather Josselyn-Cranson, Order of Saint Luke Publications, 2013: 70.)
Now, it might seem strange to seek God in the desert, especially after Jeremiah’s words that seem to paint the desert as a Godless place. But in a way, that is precisely what Anthony and these oter Christian ascetics were looking for. They wanted a place where they could test themselves, where they could practice a disciplined life. They were doing a sort of spiritual calisthenics, building up their strength under controlled conditions so that they would be ready when the real spiritual challenges came their way. The desert provided the perfect fitness center, the perfect laboratory, where these faithful monks and nuns could see firsthand what it was to live on the edge, to struggle for survival in harsh conditions. It is this austerity that allowed them to develop their own life-giving springs and streams, that allowed them to grow in their relationship and reliance on God, so that they would have a faith that was able to endure any conditions.
And that’s getting closer to the point of Jeremiah’s lesson. You see, both the shrub in the desert and the tree by the stream do just fine under normal conditions. They grow, and produce their fruit in due season. They reproduce and even thrive. It’s only when the drought comes that the difference can be seen. The shrub, out there on its own, becomes anxious. It has to fight for its own survival, and so stops trying to do anything else. It stops producing fruit. But the tree by the stream still has everything it needs in ample supply. Yes, there is drought all around, but the tree can draw from the resource of that ever-flowing stream. It doesn’t have to depend on the rain. And consequently, the tree is not anxious. It still produces good fruit even though the conditions are harsh.
Being connected to God does not keep us from experiencing hard times. It doesn’t keep the drought away when it comes. What it does do is help to prepare us for when troubles come. If we maintain an interactive relationship with God even when times are good, then we will find that when times are bad, we already have a means for accessing God’s help. But if we wait until things are bad before we try to approach God, it is a much more difficult proposition. It isn’t that God won’t help us. But we may not be very well conditioned for receiving God’s grace. And just like a plant in distress, we’re likely to shut down, likely to slip into a survival mode, to stop producing good fruit.
During my time at seminary I ran into some trouble. I was overworked, confused, and emotionally and spiritually drained. In the past, I had generally been able to see myself through times of trouble. But this was a severe drought of the soul, and like that shrub in the desert, I shut down, and I focused on nothing more than survival. Part of the problem was that I wasn’t very well conditioned for relying on God. I was far away from my church family. My prayer life was somewhere between not good and non-existent. And the God I knew was one that demanded things of me, but did very little to help.
Eventually things got a bit better. Feeling so utterly helpless had made me realize my need for God in a new way. And it had made me recognize God’s ways of caring for me, the family and friends and teachers and doctors and colleagues that I had refused to rely on in the past. It was a growing experience, a time when I had to send down deep roots just in order to survive.
It would have been easier if had done more of the work before things got bad, if I had spent the time growing deep roots into the stream of God’s grace before the drought had come and I desperately needed the water. But once those roots had grown, it became easier to weather the harsh conditions. And the next time I was tested by those same forces, I was better prepared, more connected with God, better able to cope. And as I continue to grow in God, I have faith that though the droughts will still come, I will be better able not only to survive, but to keep producing good fruit, to keep doing God’s work. I have not reached the goal, but I am growing.
So if you find yourself in a time of plenty right now, a time when things are really going pretty well, it might be a good opportunity to spend some time in the wilderness, to do some spiritual conditioning, to grow your relationship with God so that you will be better prepared for the hard times when they come. And if you are in one of those hard spots now, know that God is still there to help you. Look around and see all the people and means that God has provided for your assistance. And try to have the courage to reach out to them for strength, knowing that God is reaching out to meet you, until you come to be like that tree by the stream: stable, free from worry and anxiety, firmly grounded in God’s love.