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6 Epiphany Year C 2/16/2025
Jeremiah 17:5-10; Psalm 1; 1 Corinthians 15:12-20; Luke 6:17-26
Rev. Mark A. Lafler
In our world today, we have a lot of things that demand our attention…
Things that pull us in this direction or that direction…
Pressuring us to follow the lead of various people and various ideas…
Of course, in our world of instant knowledge, constant media,
and a never-ending news cycle…
The fear and worry of our world are off the charts…
Many can claim that they have the solutions…
Many can claim that if you invest in this or that you can rise above the fray…
Many in our world look to others for help and hope…
And still others reject the help of others and look at one’s self…
A strong cultural message is to look deep inside yourself…
To find your inner peace…
To find your perfection, your satisfaction, from somewhere in the depths of one’s soul.
Whether it’s the hope of a leader…
Or the hope from the self-inflated ego of one’s own positive vibe…
The message is the same.
The human person is the answer to the human problem.
Put your trust in the goodness of humanity.
And that is the key word – trust.
The firm belief in the reliability, ability, or strength of someone or something.
What is the message that we believe.
The message that we trust.
Our reading from the prophet Jeremiah builds a contrast between the trust in humanity and the God of the Holy Scriptures.
The prophet writes concerning this trust in humanity:
Cursed is the strong one
who depends on mere humans,
Who thinks he can make it on muscle alone
and sets God aside as dead weight.
He’s like a tumbleweed on the prairie,
out of touch with the good earth.
He lives rootless and aimless
in a land where nothing grows.
In contrast the prophet Jeremiah writes concerning the one who trusts in God – Yahweh – the Hebrew name for God.
But blessed is the man who trusts me, God,
the woman who sticks with God.
They’re like trees replanted in Eden,
putting down roots near the rivers—
Never a worry through the hottest of summers,
never dropping a leaf,
Serene and calm through droughts,
bearing fresh fruit every season.
It’s a powerful text…
And it is very similar to our appointed Psalm – Psalm 1.
The prophet, Jeremiah, most likely, had access to the Psalm and used it as a source and a point of encouragement in his writing here.
Both contrast the one who trusts in God and the one who trusts in world.
And in using the Psalm…
Jeremiah invokes a personal confession of trust…
Experiencing what it means for him to trust in the kings and rulers of his day…
And what it means to him to trust in the King of kings and Lord of lords.
The contrast is clear…
The Cursed and the blessed in Jeremiah…
The cultural message of follow your own heart…
Rings the same.
To turn away from Yahweh is to reject his sovereignty and to reject his covenant.[1]
It is to reject his rule and path.
Jeremiah expresses two weaknesses…
First, he suggests that following man is aimless…
Like tumbleweed on a prairie…
Roaming wherever the trending breeze takes it.
Our world is moving fast…
Real fast… lightning speed…
But where are we moving toward?
What is the destination?
Progress? For the sake of progress?
Technology…
Will it really birth a utopia, or will it really breed a dystopia?
Does anyone really know where we are heading?
Second, Jeremiah suggests that following man is rootless…
Without roots you don’t have growth…
Without roots you don’t have fruit…
Without roots you wither away when hard times come.
When we follow the power of man instead of the rule of God, we move with the trends…
And we will fall for any message that tickles our ears or lights our fancy.
As the scriptures warn us in 2 Timothy (4:3-4):
For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires,
they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.
They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.
According to Jeremiah,
those that trust in mankind,
will be aimless,
rootless,
and falling for whatever the message of the world is.
But God has called us…
The people of God…
Calling us to much more than this.
To not be a people who are aimless and rootless.
A people whose trust is not in men…
But as Jeremiah says: Their trust is in the LORD.
Instead of rootless…
The people of God have roots…
And the roots thrust out toward the stream!
The Hebrew word here is a vigorous action.
Not just any roots, but ones that aggressively grow out toward the water source.
Instead of aimless…
The people of God put aside worry…
They remain serene and calm when the hard times come…
Because their trust is in God.
The God who does not change…
The God who is the same yesterday, today, and forever…
The God in whom we pray in our Prayer Book:
May we rest in God’s eternal changelessness!
(BCP, 133)
It comes down to trust.
And trust is a heart decision…
Everything turns on where one’s heart is…
Where our trust is.
The people of God have their roots – our security…
Our faith…
Is in the name above all names…
Jesus Christ…
The one who came to die for our sins…
making atonement on our behalf…
satisfying the justice of God…
so that we might be forgiven and cleansed of our sin…
so that we might be justified and made righteous…
not because we trust in ourselves…
but because we trust in Jesus Christ…
the one who is worthy…
the lamb who was slain…
We trust in the God of our salvation.
Not ourselves.
And it is by this grace…
That we can be saved in the name of Jesus.
The people of God have an aim – our direction…
Our hope…
Is in the name of the Lord…
The maker of heaven and earth…
It is in Jesus that we will live forever…
In the new heaven and new earth.
Because it is Jesus who rose from the grave…
It is Jesus who conquered sin and the grave…
As we heard in our second reading from 1 Corinthians today:
But in fact, Christ has been raised from the dead,
the first fruits of those who have died.
Because Jesus rose from the grave…
We his people…
by faith…
Will rise again with Jesus Christ.
In the New Testament our trust…
our faith is in Jesus Christ.
Not in ourselves…
Not in others…
But in Christ Jesus.
When the trends of our world shift…
When our leaders, our government,
our corporations, our finances,
our health, our people,
even the church….
When they let us down…
We hold firm because our trust in the Lord!
I came upon a short anonymous poem in my studies this week.
I think it sums up the theme and lesson for today.
We’ll finish with this.
It says:
Trust Him when dark doubts assail thee,
Trust Him when thy strength is small,
Trust Him when to simply trust Him
Seems the hardest thing of all.
Trust Him, He is ever faithful,
Trust Him, for his will is best,
Trust Him, for the heart of Jesus
Is the only place of rest.
My prayer for us today is that in the moments that we live…
Throughout this day…
Throughout this week…
In these very times that we live…
May our trust remain steadfast in the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob…
May our faith remain in Jesus Christ…
May our lives reflect the Holy Spirit who is in us…
May we live for the one that we have been baptized into…
In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
[1] J. A. Thompson, The Book of Jeremiah, NICOT (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1980), 420.
