Sermon: Like Trees Planted by Water: Psalm 1

September 19, 2010

The Rev. Shelby Ochs Owen at Trinity Church, Staunton

At Virginia Seminary my classmates and I were clearly taught to preach from the lectionary, the table of readings assigned for each Sunday morning. And we were firmly told that if we veered from it we better have a pretty good reason for doing so! Well, today, I have a pretty good reason for veering from the lectionary, and it’s not just that I find today’s gospel lesson disturbing! Today we begin a new program year and the theme of our new year, Like Trees Planted by Water comes from Psalm 1, so it will be from Psalm 1 that I preach today. So would you please get out your Book of Common Prayer and follow along with me while I read aloud Psalm 1. It is found on p. 585.

Psalm 1 can be seen as a wisdom psalm, wisdom literature often including elements of instruction. It all sounds pretty good, “Happy are those who do not follow the advice of the wicked, who delight in the law of the LORD and meditate on it day and night. In all they do they prosper.” And conversely, “The wicked are not so but are like chaff that the wind drives away. The way of the wicked will perish.” That all sounds well and good and fair and just until about ½ second after reading it when one might say, “Something is wrong here! And what planet was this psalmist living on?” If we have lived to see our second birthday we realize that way too often the righteous are not prospering and the wicked are reaping all of the treasures. A five year old is minding her own business while playing with her favorite toy. Her little brother snatches it away from her and she speaks sharply to him; when she is the one to get the “time-out” the little girl could explain to you very well, “Life isn’t fair!” And as we move through life we realize behaving righteously is not a guarantee for our own personal happiness. Experience reminds us that goodness is not necessarily rewarded nor is evil necessarily punished.

So what is the psalmist saying? Perhaps the point is that as the first psalm, a prelude, of 150 psalms it sets the tone for the rest of the psalms of radical dependence and trust in God lived out in obedience. Whatever is to come, the ups and downs of life which will be well portrayed in the rest of the psalms through very real human expressions of sorrow and joy, of disappointment and thanksgiving, of doubt and faith can be seen through this radical dependence and trust.

So this psalm is a starting place. Psalm one begins with a beatitude, “Happy are those who do not follow the advice of the wicked…their delight is in the law of the LORD and on his law they meditate day and night. They are like trees planted by streams of water, which yield their fruit in it season, and their leaves do not wither.” The writer believes that obedience to the law of the LORD is at the heart of success and righteousness, and that radical dependence on and trust in God is the key to one’s ultimate well-being.

The writer uses this wonderful image of trees planted by water to convey that deep radical trust that comes with obedience to God, and to convey what it means to stay connected to the source of life, to be rooted in God’s ways. So what might it mean to be like trees planted by streams of water? The psalmist says in order to be happy or blessed, as some translations indicate, one would need to be teachable, to be able to learn God’s law, and to delight in God’s ways. To be like trees planted by water is to be rooted in something other than oneself, to be rooted in a life-giving source and to recognize the need for God, to know we need help. To be planted by streams of water indicates a need for on-going instruction, an on-going willingness to learn. We are not to stagnate. One cold bucket of water dumped on the tree once a month does not sustain it! The tree needs to remain connected to the running water just as we need to remain connected to our source of life - God. Essentially the psalmist is saying that the righteous are open to God’s teaching and the “wicked” believe they have no need for God, no need for help.

A few months ago Trinity’s Novel Theology group read Flannery O’Connor’s short story “A Good Man is Hard to Find” where the wicked character called “The Misfit,” a heartless murderer, is asked why he does not pray. His response: “I don’t want no hep. I‘m doing all right by myself.” Autonomy. Easy to see why in the Misfit’s case his not seeing a need for help results in all out evil. And yet autonomy is something praised in our world of self-orientation. I don’t need any help. I can do it myself. We say it and we want to mean it. The psalm is calling us though to move from an orientation toward self to an orientation toward God. Independence from God is far from God’s law as it distances us from God and from one another. The fact is we DO need help from God and from one another.

So, all you trees out there, where do you find yourselves planted? Where are your roots? Are you planted in the barren, dry soil of self-sufficiency; are you planted in addiction that satisfies for a second and leaves you more thirsty than ever? Are you planted in worldliness or busyness that satisfies and delights on one level but at the deepest level leaves you pretty dried up? Or do you find you are indeed planted by streams of water which satisfy and delight, which see you through the darkest moments as well as the moments of bubbling over joy?

Today we begin a new program year, which offers an opportunity to establish or re-establish our roots in the true source of life. How do we make sure we truly are planted by streams of water? How do we stay rooted in God? We can be like trees planted by water when we study scripture, when we pray in corporate worship or in private, when we do the will of God. Without raising your hands, how many of you own a Bible? Now, if you own a Bible, do you actually know where it is? If you don’t own a Bible, GET one…preferably a study Bible, and when you GET one, open it up and read it! And pray as you read it. Invite the Holy Spirit to join you. Referring to reading scripture, author Carol Bechtel says that often we think we are working on the text, when indeed the text is working on us. (Kerygma Study Guide of Job) And remember the text is pointing to the God who is eager to be in relationship with you! Being planted by streams of water is recognizing our on-going need for God as we study and pray and do the work of God. Today we begin again. We can choose to be like the Misfit and declare, “I don’t want no hep.” And in choosing independence close ourselves off from God and others or we can choose to be open to God’s teaching, to be open to God’s work in us, to root ourselves in the most real entity of all, to be open to the source of life that keeps our leaves from withering. Opportunities abound to connect with the source of life through Study, prayer and the doing of God’s will. Listen to the wisdom that this psalm teaches us: that happy are they who put their trust in God, who know their need for God, who remain teachable, whose roots drink in the ever flowing divine water that assuages the deepest thirst of the soul.

Amen.