Blessed are those who trust in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord. They shall be like a tree planted by water, sending out its roots by the stream. It shall not fear when heat comes, and its leaves shall stay green in the year of drought; it is not anxious, and it does not cease to bear fruit. Their delight is in the law of the Lord, and they meditate on God’s teaching day and night. They are like trees planted by streams of water, bearing fruit in due season, with leaves that do not wither; everything they do shall prosper. The words of Jeremiah and the first psalm sound great and inspiring, but here’s my confession, they are not my experience. Aside from the fact that not every tree by stream flourishes, the book of Job points directly at the contradiction I feel. Job was a righteous man we are told. That sounds like someone who puts their trust in the Lord doesn’t it? Everything seemed pretty great for him like the green leaves and fruit. He accumulated a great life and goods, property, servants, andfortune. We’re told he was doing the right thing and then, poof, it’s all gone. His life then seemed more like the parched, uninhabited salt land. No, bad things seem to happen to good people also. To me, and I think many other people, there are some mighty struggles in this life. In a moment’s notice we found ourselves confronting loss, illness, loneliness and a whole array of misfortune. So, the motivational poster aside, weird does that leave us in a journey of faith? I think many, many people are struggling and searching for meaning in life, for something deeper, for peace and understanding. Unfortunately, the church has, over the millennia, stigmatized struggle and doubt and I think so often they have been viewed as faithlessness. Let’s pay attention to Jesus and what he’s doing in the gospel today. Today’s gospel, there seems to be a lot to that saying, “location, location, location”. We see that Jesus went down to a level place and we don’t really give it a second thought. The word level in the scriptures often refers to a place of corpses, disgrace, idolatry, suffering, misery, hunger, annihilation and mourning. People are drawn to Jesus there and they feel his presence and power. The people are struggling and searching, wanting and needing. That’s where Jesus goes. It doesn’t sound very green and verdant to me. Jesus is there, eye to eye and he offers some blessings and woes to those around him. We heard what he said in the gospel reading, but what on earth is going on here? He’s not offering blessings inline with the green, river valley with its happy fruit bearing trees. He’s offering blessings commensurate with the surroundings, the salt flat, the levels, you know, the hunger, misery, disgrace, struggle, and searching. And not only that, but he shares that he feels sorry for those who seem to have it all. That was completely upside down from the Old testament understanding of what God’s favor looks like and pretty out of whack with how we tend to view things. Actually, The book of Job was also about correcting our understanding of what God’s favor and displeasure look like. So what’s the deal here? I think it has something to do with the saying that always gives me a little chuckle and the opportunity for a sarcastic quip, “It was in the last place that I looked.” Sometimes my fun reply when someone asks, “did you find it?” is, “Yes but hold on, I need to look to other places.” The interesting thing seems to be that Jesus is encouraging my smart-alec remark take as an actual thing we should be doing in respect to meaning. He’s sad for those that have found what they were looking for in riches, or their fill of food or pleasure. They’ve found it, or their definition of “it” or other’s definition of it and have stopped searching. Think about how often we hear about those who have reached that pinnacle of success and to whom we tend to feel have it all. Then we hear their stories of feelings of meaninglessness, disappointment and depression, or see their results. Boris Becker came forward after two Wimbledons and spoke of his struggles with suicide. Multi-millionaire George Vanderbilt leapt out of a hotel window, the brilliant scientist Robert Oppenheimer felt his achievements were meaningless along with many many others. We hear stories almost weekly about very successful people in their fields struggling with depression, anxiety, meaninglessness and hopelessness. So where we see lushness, greenery and fruit doesn’t seem to equate with having actually found it. I think the spirit led and walked with me down an interesting path this week. An interesting song first came to mind in the reading of the gospel. It was U2’s I still haven’t found what I’m looking for. It was written in the gospel style as a gospel song, but Bono, the singer, said that it was more of an anthem of doubt than of faith. You can hear the yearning as it tells of a search for meaning. The singer speaks of the struggle and effort of trying and succeeding at many different things but still not finding what he was looking for. The last verse states, “I believe in the Kingdom come, that all the colors bleed into one, but yes I’m still running. You broke the bonds, you loosed the chains, you carried the cross of my shame. You know I believe it! But I still haven’t found what I’m looking for. The song was a huge hit and it’s been recorded by many many people and gospel choirs and will get a revival with the movie Sing 2, as it is the focal song of the movie, sung by the character in the story that was struggling, hurting and searching for a way forward after a great loss. I think the song resonates with our reality and our experience. Ultimately, we believe, but the struggle still remains and it hurts all the more when it is dismissed by others and especially by the church. The song is an anthem to our experience, it is the music of the level place, of yearning and searching, the place to which Jesus goes and is present. There’s no pat answers. It fits with much of the Psalms and Jeremiah and Lamentations. I remembered that the song came from the album Joshua tree. This is where things got really cool, because I wondered what a Joshua Tree was. So, I googled it. Guess where it grows. The Mojave desert, the flats of Utah and Nevada, the level places. U2 chose the Joshua tree because it lives in a very dry arid place and its survival and thriving there. There don’t seem to be streams there, yet it lives and is an anchor or a lynch pen species in those deserts and serves through its its connection and relationships with many other species. It has a reciprocal relationship with a moth for fertilization and feeding their larvae, it also serves the Scots Oriole, the loggerhead shrike, the ladder back woodpecker, the wood rats, the antelope ground squirrels and spotted night snakes, all in the inhospitable, level, desert. No huge roots, just thousands of quarter inch roots at the thickest, spreading out into the soil as wide as the tree’s crown, 3 to 4 ft deep that connect to the needed moisture, to the water of life. The Joshua tree lives an average of 500 years and it’s in the yucca family, and even we can eat it. Actually, the oldest yucca in the Mojave desert is 12,000 years old. They’re sufficient water in the depths and dark in the Mojave for the Joshua tree to thrive, live and to give, well, for a long time. I don’t so much resonate with the always flourishing stream trees, but wow, I get the Joshua Tree for whom things aren’t so easy and cut and dried. In Christ, God is the God of the level places. We are not forsaken and alone in our struggles and doubts or because of them. The level places are where the cross of Christ abides. For those who find themselves in the levels, think of the Joshua Tree. Connected through thousands of roots, relationships in the kingdom of God and nourished by the baptismal waters of grace,, the grace that understands, encourages and validates our searching, and helps us to connect and serve in the level place. For me,I still haven’t found what I’m looking for, but as the Bible says, “For now we are looking in a mirror that gives only a dim, blurred reflection of reality as in a riddle or enigma, but then when perfection comes we shall see in reality and face to face! Now I know in part imperfectly, but then I shall know and understand fully and clearly, even in the same manner as I have been fully and clearly known and understood by God.
After choosing his twelve apostles, Jesus teaches a crowd of followers about the nature and demands of discipleship. He begins his great sermon with surprising statements about who is truly blessed in the eyes of God. Luke 6 [Jesus] came down with [the twelve] and stood on a level place, with a great crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea, Jerusalem, and the coast of Tyre and Sidon. They had come to hear him and to be healed of their diseases; and those who were troubled with unclean spirits were cured. And all in the crowd were trying to touch him, for power came out from him and healed all of them. Then he looked up at his disciples and said: “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. “Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled. Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh. “Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man. Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven; for that is what their ancestors did to the prophets. “But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. “Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry. “Woe to you who are laughing now, for you will mourn and weep.“Woe to you when all speak well of you, for that is what their ancestors did to the false prophets.”
The lord be with you, let us pray. Living God, in Christ you make all things new. Transform the poverty of our nature by the riches of your grace, and in the renewal of our lives make known your glory, through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord.
Amen.
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