EVEN IN A YEAR OF DROUGHT

Jeremiah 17:5-8

Sunday, February 11, 2007

As I count them, we’ve had at least two Sundays in a row when it didn’t snow and melting is starting to happen. Maybe you and I can trust the weatherman again—or at least, the ground hog in Pennsylvania who’s “predicted” that spring will arrive in six weeks. We even took our Christmas lights down outside, so the Christmas season is ending, perhaps along with winter.

As that season ends another has already begun. I don’t mean spring or even Lent—there are something like fifteen candidates that have already announced their intentions to run for president. Didn’t we used to not have to deal with this until Iowa’s caucuses in the year of the election? They’re getting earlier all the time. But each one of these people who want to be president has basically the same message for you and me: “Trust me. The others are bums, trust me.” Whom do you trust?

Whom do you trust? To whom do you tell secrets, trust with your life—your hopes and dreams? Who’s got your back in a crisis?

Today, Jeremiah meets us with a similar question behind the words of our text. Is who you choose to trust enough in a crisis? Trust in your leaders, your friends, yourself, Jeremiah says, and lose—dry up. Trust in the Lord and live, counting on Him and His strength—even in the year of drought.

On whom or what do you count? I would imagine that as I ask this question, the names of family members or friends come to mind. People who have proven themselves trustworthy over years of friendship—in hard times, when you really needed someone, he or she was there for you. But what happens when their help isn’t enough?

What happens when the person you have trusted with everything in your marriage walks out, leaving your life and your heart in pieces? What happens when that person upon whom you have counted dies? What happens when you reach that point when you admit you are completely exhausted and have nothing left? Jeremiah uses the picture of a shrub in the salt flats of the desert—nothing to draw upon, no hope, left alone.

In El Paso, Texas, the largest youth gang in the city was named “the Fatherless Ones.” Their name describes their lot—with no parents to trust, no family structure in which to find refuge—they turned to one another—but in a culture of loyalty that leads to death. It isn’t just young people in El Paso, Brent Howard, our DCE, attended a conference that described one of our youth’s primary emotions as abandonment—feeling abandoned even by the Church that wants them only for its programs. It doesn’t matter what name you call it by—in the 1970s this was known as “anomie” or “normlessness.” When these folks grow up, they grow up finally without hope in anyone but their own resources. That’s not enough—in a year of drought.

If we turn up empty-handed when faced with a crisis, how do we face God?

Do you remember a television show in the 1970s and 1980s named “Barney Miller?” The lead character was played by Hal Linden and the show took place mostly in a New York City police detective precinct. One of the characters, Dietrich, was especially cynical—he represented these folks who trust themselves. In one episode, there was a discussion of life after death.

Dietrich confided that he didn’t believe in such a thing—when you died, that was it. Do what you can in this life, and then you die. Barney asked him, “What if you’re wrong?” Asked what he would say to God, Dietrich replied, “Ooops!” “Ooops” is not going to be enough with which to meet God.

The Bible offers two paths or two ways for us to live—live like Dietrich, counting on your self and your ideas of even like most of the folks we meet in the world, counting on the strength of armies or our wealth or wits—Jeremiah points out this flaw in judgment to Judah’s kings and so to you and me. The other way to live is to count on God.

Someone who has just come in to this room might jump up and ask, “Why should I? What does God put up for me in a crisis?

Jeremiah offers God as the Creator and Provider in his words that form our text. He is strong—He has made everything. He provides for His Creation. That same person might then remind us that Creation doesn’t always treat us well, pointing to earthquakes and tidal waves, even Hurricane Katrina—Creation has even been ruined by sin’s entry. So, is this all God has to offer?

No, He offers His Son.

Because you and I can’t put up enough, God gives us His all. Remember God so loves you and me—and all of us who would trust in ourselves or others or other things before we trust Him—that He didn’t want us overwhelmed and overcome by sin. He sent His Son. What Jesus brings is enough.

Jesus meets the crisis of our sin. Our sin has left us alone, cut off from God. Our sin has left us without enough to face the year of drought. Our sin has imprisoned us in our fears—it leaves us with only “oops.” Jesus takes this crisis upon Himself. He pays for our sin—which demands death—with His life. His gives His life in place of ours, meeting the crisis. Raised with Him then—in faith and in the waters of Baptism—we live His new life. He meets the crisis with His strength and Himself—which He gives to you and me.

Jesus meets the crisis of our destiny. His Easter opens the way for an Easter for each of us. Dietrich is wrong—death isn’t just the end. Because Jesus lives, we live and will live forever.

Jesus meets the crisis of our moments. He meets you in His Supper with Himself—the One who has overcome death and sin, meets you now with His strength to face your hurt, your loneliness, your abandonment, your wound—to fill the hole in your life with Himself. The One who is raised from death, meets you with that resurrection to assure you that the crisis of this moment isn’t greater than the resources He brings to you.

Count on God, Jeremiah advises, and on no one else.

That visitor might still ask, “Where is God, that I might trust Him?” Jeremiah answers that question with his picture of the two plants in his words. The two plants look the same. The kind of shrub that he describes looks green as it stands in the salt flat, seems standing firm in the desert. But it has no roots. When the winds of summer come, it blows away—like some sort of Palestinian tumbleweed. It looks like the tree by the stream—you can’t see a difference right away, except when the summer comes and in the year of drought. It bears fruit because its roots hold deep into that nurturing water that you can’t see. So also with you and me—our roots hold deep into the nurturing waters of Baptism, connecting us to God and His resources in Jesus Christ—so we can bear fruit even in the year of drought.

What does that fruit look like? I think that death might well be the greatest crisis we face in our lives. You’ve met people who are like the shrub in the desert. They seem to be fine until this crisis comes—you’ve seen them frightened and disoriented and disconnected. They are “blown away” by death.

I have seen you in this greatest of crises. I have walked away from cemetery plots with you and I have gathered around the beds of dying loved ones with you. I have heard you confess, “I don’t know where I would be without faith.” I have heard you confide, “I have to trust the Lord. He has a plan.” That’s the fruit that’s borne even in the year of drought. It’s the fruit that shows God is there, working and strengthening you and me with His grace. God shows Himself in the fruit we bear to be trustworthy.

Who are you going to trust? On whom are you going to count? Even in the year of drought, God is with us in Christ, nurturing us with His gifts and Spirit, caring for us with Jesus’ love—helping us grow, even in the year of drought.