He is like a tree planted beside the waters…
Are we rooted in the Lord?
The prophet Jeremiah uses vivid plant imagery to describe two different human scenarios. On the one hand, those who seek their strength in flesh and whose hearts turn away from the Lord are like a barren bush in the desert that stands in a lava waste. Such an individual is not rooted in the Lord but in a void; he trusts in his own accomplishments and has abandoned God. On the other hand, the one who trusts in the Lord is like a tree planted beside the waters that bears fruit. We have life so long as we remain connected to God, rooted in God, no matter where we are. If we are without God’s presence because we have cut ourselves off from God, what blessing is possible? But if we are, as Psalm 1 says, people who delight in the law of the Lord and meditate on his law day and night, we too will yield fruit. We must thus concentrate on how to stay close to the Lord, rooted in the love of God.
To be rooted in God is to be blessed. In Luke’s Gospel, the Beatitudes name as blessed those for whom nothing stands between them and the Lord: Blessed are you who are poor, for the kingdom of God is yours… The blessed will inherit the kingdom because they can possess the kingdom more easily, because nothing gets in the way. By contrast, Luke paints the rich as already having received their consolation; having “all” they need, they have no need for God. To be blessed thus suggests closeness to God, while woes are for those who have put themselves at a distance from the Lord. Paul reminds the Corinthians that they too need to be rooted in what God has done: having suffered despair and physical anguish, Christ has been raised from the dead, Paul reminds them, so that humanity could be transformed. To negate this core belief of our faith would be to put oneself at a distance from the Lord, to be uprooted.
Ultimately, we need to be rooted in God and his love for us, not in some substitute, be it land or worldly possessions or a false belief. Better by far to remain blessed, that we might rejoice and leap for joy, because we are able to bear fruit in the name of Christ who died for us.
This post is based on Fr. Pat’s Scripture class.
Image source: www.wordclouds.com
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