A Sermon by J. Stuart Taylor III

St. Mark's Presbyterian Church

February 11, 2007

Imagine that you and I are hiking together on a warm beautiful winter day. Before us to the east is the natural cathedral of Cochise Stronghold. Stretching North and South is the lush riparian area, a living ribbon of life along the San Pedro River. We sit down in front of the largest cottonwood tree in the state of Arizona. It is so large that the two of us cannot come close to reaching around it. When we look at this magnificent tree with its massive trunk and its branches reaching up into the sky, we are only seeing half of the total organism. The more interesting half, the root system is below ground, out of sight. Trees like Cottonwoods can only grow by a river or water table where they can they find the water necessary to sustain their extensive canopy. The cottonwood that we are admiring undoubtedly has a deep taproot that extends down deep into the ground drawing up the water that the visible trunk and branches and leaves need to survive. It is the taproot that anchors the tree giving it a stable foundation. It is this taproot that sustains the tree when there is a drought in the land. A third person joins us. Across 25 centuries, the voice of the prophet Jeremiah speaks: " Blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord. He is like a tree planted by water, that sends out its roots by the stream, And does not fear when heat comes for its leaves remain green, And is not anxious in the year of drought for it does not cease to bear fruit". Jeremiah has offered us a wonderful metaphor for the life of faith. So as we sit here by the San Pedro contemplating this wonderful cottonwood, let’s continue the conversation. What are the roots that ground and sustain and nourish your faith, your life in the world?

Arizona has been in a drought for as long as I have been living here. We know that these drought conditions can come in cycles of whole decades. And when you are out and about hiking and exploring S. Arizona, it is easy to see plants that somehow are managing to flourish, while many others that are suffering and stressed. Jeremiah invites us to consider the drought like conditions that we encounter in our world, in our personal lives and even in the church. We are certainly experiencing a drought in our world. I am an absolute news junkie, -can’t get enough. But there are moments when I can’t take in any more bad news. From the spiral of violence wreaking havoc in the Middle East, to aids pandemic to global warming to the crystal meth epidemic that is afflicting midtown. Every person who cares about the world will sooner or later face the dark night of the soul, the time of drought in which it will appear that all human efforts to change the world are futile and misguided. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer and evil seems to flourish. Jeremiah knew this kind of drought. Jeremiah who is known as the weeping prophet never really saw the vindication of his life's work. But he dug in and his roots went deep and deeper, and in that time of drought, of persecution and controversy, of feeling that it was all for naught, his leaves remained green. Jeremiah continued to bear the fruit of hope and of revolutionary patience. Underneath any prophetic ministry there must be deep spiritual roots that allow the prophet or the community to renew and refresh themselves. It is an important message to this community of faith, and to every one of us involved in so many important ministries in our society, trying so very hard to be faithful to the witness of the prophets calling us to justice. Jeremiah learned the lessons of the long haul. So must we.

What about the drought that we sometimes experience in our personal lives? Have you ever felt like your life was like a forced march through a dry and weary land? It could be a miserable job or unemployment. It might be a serious challenge to your health or to the health of someone you love. It might be turmoil in your marriage or in your family. It might be simply weariness of keeping up with life. I know that when I am going through a drought, the last thing I want to hear is some optimistic truism or silver lining. And because those don’t work very well for me, I try not to resort to that when you are sharing with me your own experience of drought. But I wonder if you have found this to be true as I have. It is the season of drought that forces our roots to go deeper in search of the water that will sustain us. When everything is sailing smoothly along we can afford to stay on the surface, we can live in the illusion of our self-sufficient autonomy. But when the drought comes, Whatever it might be this very challenge this very struggle can force us to deepen our roots in search of the water that will sustain us.

I may be wrong but I think we are going through a time of drought as a community of faith. St. Mark’s has experienced loss, change, and the appearance of scarcity. Maybe we wonder if God will provide the sustenance that we need to flourish as a congregation. How do we as a community of faith, push our roots down deep into the ground of our very being? Two Sunday’s ago I had an experience that watered my roots. After church, our confirmand class gathered with their parents for lunch and a time of faith sharing in which the young people were going to ask their parents questions about their faith. I was tired and not sure how it was going to go. But then the questions came from our young people and they were good and sincere questions that they may have never asked before. Like what is the hardest thing about your faith? What do you do with your doubts? When did you decide to be in relationship to god and why? And the stories that came back from the parents, from the heart with honesty and directness. And I felt myself sinking into an awareness of the Holy. I felt my roots being watered in this experience of Holy Communion. Our roots get watered when we listen to and share our stories with one another. Our Roots get watered whenever we look around this sanctuary and see these people and say, "this is my community". I may not know everyone I may not like everyone; that is not important. I belong here. These are my people; these are the ones with whom I travel through time seeking to be faithful to the call of discipleship.

The one who trusts in the Lord is like a tree planted by water. Jeremiah presents this wisdom in the context of a vivid contrast between two ways of life. Jeremiah is not only saying yes to a life of trust. He is saying no to a life that is oriented in upon itself. I would describe this as the Humvee worldview. Jeremiah describes self-reliant individualism this way: " Cursed is the one who trusts in man and makes flesh his arm, whose heart turns away from the Lord. He is like a shrub in the desert, and shall not see any good come. He shall dwell in the parched places of the wilderness, in an uninhabited salt land." All the prophets, like Jeremiah were always presenting the people with either -or. They forced the people to make a decision between this and that. They preached for conviction as David Sholin would say- do you trust only in your self – your power, your intelligence. Or do you entrust yourself to providential care of God. The prophets were always talking about repentance - turning from this way and going that way. In a culture as rootless as is our own, Jeremiah’s prophetic word is really calling us to re-root ourselves. Only by taking root downward can we be God’s people who know who they are, committed to living out the life of faith in a particular place, rooted in a vision of who God calls us to be.

You know, I think there is something significant about the fact that this metaphor of a tree planted by the waters comes to us from two different places in the scriptures, from the Book of Jeremiah and from the Psalms. Whether our Christian faith is primarily expressed through our activism in the world, our prophetic ministry as with Jeremiah. Or whether our Christian faith is primarily expressed in worship, in devotion, in spiritual practices of prayer and meditation, as with the Psalmist each, both must be rooted in something deeper than itself. We must find the taproot of our faith, the taproot that will both anchor and sustain us in the times of drought. The spiritual function of the taproot is to hold in place, to anchor, to sustain. But for the roots to continue to grow and to serve the entire organism they themselves must be nourished from above. Just as the leaves bring about photosynthesis in their interaction with the light, and send down food to the roots. So must we nourish and deepen our roots. We cannot expect that root will sustain us unless we nurture and sustain it. But how do we deepen those roots?

The African American theologian, Howard Thurman tells the story from the time when he was a theological student in Rochester NY. Late one night he was returning to the seminary campus by way of Main Street, the central artery of traffic in the city. The hour was late and the streetcars ran infrequently and there was almost no traffic. As he walked along, he became aware of what seemed to be the sound of rushing water. He realized that he had been hearing this rumbling for quite some time but had only that moment become aware of it. The next day he was talking with one of his professors who told him that for a certain distance under Main Street there was a part of the old Erie Canal. This was the sound of water that he had heard. The sound itself was continuous. But when there was the normal traffic in the daytime, the sound could not be heard. It was only when the surface noises had stopped that the sound came through. This experience became a living metaphor for what Thurman called centering down. We are able to center down when we observe spiritual disciplines like Sabbath keeping, and worship, bible reading and study or personal prayer and meditation. Spiritual disciplines are pathways by which our roots sink down into the ground of God’s being for sustenance.

Some years ago, I was with a beloved member of this congregation who was going through a spiritual drought of loss, of hardship and I was talking to her and she reached for her bible and I noticed that the bible was worn out. There were numerous pieces of paper stuck in it with readings, and there were countless verses underlined that had become like old friends who offer their support in times of trouble. I encourage all of us to rediscover the practice of reading your bible so that you are able to root your story in the sacred story of God’s people as revealed to us in the scriptures. Those of us who are doing the silent meditation on Tuesday mornings are exploring how the simple act of breathing can be a way of rooting ourselves peacefully in the present moment. Sharing our stories. Reading the Bible. Breathing mindfully. All of these spiritual disciplines can water our roots. Ultimately the taproot of faith is that deep root that goes down into the ground of our being to an inexhaustible source of water, living water that is our Life in Christ. You and I and Jeremiah have been contemplating this ancient cottonwood beside the San Pedro River. When the time of drought comes, when what we need to survive and flourish is not immediately visible in our situation, our roots reach down in trust. And what flows up from those roots from the ground of our being is what we need to sustain ourselves. Blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord. That one is like a tree planted by the water.