A sermon by the Rev. Guillermo A. Arboleda, written for and delivered at All Saints' Episcopal Church, Tybee Island, GA, on Sunday, February 16, 2025, the 6th Sunday after Epiphany (Year C).
Primary Bible Reading
Jeremiah 17:5-8
5 Thus says the Lord: Cursed are those who trust in mere mortals and make mere flesh their strength, whose hearts turn away from the Lord. 6 They shall be like a shrub in the desert and shall not see when relief comes. They shall live in the parched places of the wilderness, in an uninhabited salt land. 7 Blessed are those who trust in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord. 8 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.
Catching People with Love
By the Rev. Guillermo A. Arboleda, Program Manager for New Starts, ELCA
When I was in college, I studied for a semester in Jerusalem, which lies on what is now the border between Israel and the West Bank of Palestine. Two of the primary focuses of our program were geography and archaeology. My program was led mostly by American Christian scholars. We studied the land and we studied the physical records in order to better understand the Bible that we so cherish. Because every single part of the Bible is enhanced when you better understand the land where its authors lived and its stories take place. This is something my professor would drill home for us all the time, even though it sometimes seemed counter intuitive. What does geography have to do with a passage like this one from Jeremiah? A lot, actually. But if you feel intimidated by that idea because you have no plans to visit the Holy Land (especially now), that’s okay. Almost as important as learning the specifics of Israel’s land is to learn to think like premodern people who could not depend on technology for everything. They knew and felt their connection and dependency on the earth every day, not theoretically but literally.
Jeremiah was a prophet who spent most of his adult life in Jerusalem. Just east of Jerusalem is a long stretch of desert that goes all the way to the Dead Sea (the saltiest water on earth). I spent time in that desert in late August and early September, during the dry season, and everything was brown. There were only a handful of hearty shrubs with just a little pop of color, but everything else seemed dead. If you are an ancient traveler, the roads here are hot, dry, and dangerous. It’s easy to get heat exhaustion, and if you don’t bring enough water, there are very few places to get it. That sense of thirst and desperation is what Jeremiah says it’s like not to trust in the Lord: “5 Thus says the Lord: Cursed are those who trust in mere mortals and make mere flesh their strength, whose hearts turn away from the Lord. 6 They shall be like a shrub in the desert and shall not see when relief comes. They shall live in the parched places of the wilderness, in an uninhabited salt land” (17:5-6).
But, then, as you wander through this dry and desert land, seemingly out of nowhere, you encounter the ruins of ancient Jericho (Tell es-Sultan) and the nearby small, modern city of Jericho. There are trees, plants, animals, people, and their buildings. Even today, there is not much between Jerusalem and the Dead Sea besides Jericho. Why is there a city there? Why would anyone want to live in a desert? Why would people want to live there more or less continuously for 10,000 years?
It’s because there is water. Maybe this is obvious to you, but I was born and raised in a time when I thought that water was either in the ocean or it just magically came from faucets. Growing up on Long Island, NY, I went to the beach enough to know that it’s full of saltwater that we cannot drink, but that we always had fresh water in our homes. But for basically all of human history, if you are wondering why any town or city crops up where it is, it’s because there is water there. Human beings need water, like every day, and so we tend to settle where there is a steady natural supply, even today. And when cities in the ancient world are abandoned or moved, it’s usually because the wells ran dry. Seriously, it’s that simple. Even Savannah got built on the highest land next to what we call the Savannah River, and we’re here on Tybee Island along that same river.
Jerusalem got destroyed over and over again throughout its history, but people kept rebuilding – partially for religious and cultural reasons, but also because underneath the hill of Zion, there is a water reservoir that has provided for people for thousands of years, even today. During Jeremiah’s life, the Babylonians attacked and destroyed Jerusalem. But first, they besieged it, meaning they camped their army around the city to prevent anyone from going out or coming in. But they also camped their army between the city walls and one of the water springs, so that the people were cut off from part of their fresh water supply. People are cruel, but we’re also pretty simple.
So, Jerusalem has fresh water. To its west and north, there is a little bit more rain so things are green and you can grow food pretty easily. But to the east and the south, there is desert. Jericho is about 20 miles east of Jerusalem. And like I said, it just pops up out of nowhere. Everything around it seems to be brown, dead, and dying. But, Jericho is built around an oasis. The trees in Jericho are planted by water. Even though the ground around them is bone-dry, they carry on. They have deep roots that can access those underground reservoirs. They are sustained and nourished even in harsh conditions. Even if the rains don’t come, they are not anxious and they can still bear fruit. That is what it is like to trust in God. Trust in God gives us resilience. “7 Blessed are those who trust in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord. 8 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” (Jeremiah 17:7-8).
Jeremiah’s point is that trusting in mortals is a fool’s errand, like wandering into the desert without a canteen. Trusting in God is as sensible as being rooted by streams of fresh water. This is what Jesus is trying to get us to see in his blessings and woes in Luke 6. Blessed are you who are poor, hungry, and sorrowful, because poor, hungry, sorrowful people don’t have the world’s illusions of safety and security. They know they cannot trust in human beings to save them because human beings have been failing them for generations. Instead they know to depend on God.
To be clear, I’m not trying to romanticize poverty. I’m not saying that poverty is pleasant or fun or morally superior. But I am trying to echo Jesus and Jeremiah by warning us about the dangers of wealth, comfort, and popularity. Wealth, comfort, and popularity can deceive us into thinking that we can take care of ourselves, that we are self-made and self-reliant. They can trick us into thinking that we don’t need God or that God doesn’t make any difference to us.
But God is more trustworthy than wealth, more trustworthy than a full belly, more trustworthy than people’s approval. God cares for us in ways that go beyond the superficial. God gives us those deep roots by living water so that when the tough times come, we don’t give up. We know, in the words of the Psalmist, “Weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes with the morning” (Psalm 30:5, NRSV).
Trusting in God gives us resilience when wealth fails us, when people fail us, when institutions fail us. Trusting in God reminds us to love one another through the good times and bad. Trusting in God, relying on God’s strength empowers us to continue to be the Church even when things like faith, hope, and love seem cringey (slang for “embarrassingly naïve”). Trusting in God means trusting Jesus when he promises that he will set everything right and make all things new (Revelation 21:5). Trusting in God means trusting St. Mary’s prophecy that the mighty will be cast down from their prideful thrones and the lowly will be raised up (Luke 1:52). In the Reign of God, justice will rule the day, so that the people who used to get hated, spit upon, neglected, and abused will be healed, honored, and cared for. So stand firm by the streams of God’s living water, and trust that God will carry us through and love will win the day. Amen.
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