A tree by the water

I have, I hope, been able to edit out my own coughing fits, but not those of the congregation!

From our first reading this morning, the passage from Jeremiah chapter 17:

“I will bless the person
    who puts his trust in me.
He is like a tree growing near a stream
    and sending out roots to the water.
It is not afraid when hot weather comes,
    because its leaves stay green;
it has no worries when there is no rain;
    it keeps on bearing fruit.”

And in the Psalm we read together, we are told that those who delight in the law of the Lord “are like trees planted by streams of water, which yield their fruit in due season. Their leaves do not wither. In all that they do, they prosper.”

Earlier in the week, I was watching a documentary about the Kalahari desert in Africa, which is one of the driest places on earth. But water still flows under, and very occasionally on top of, the dried river beds, and you could see, from drone footage, exactly where the rivers run, because they are lined with green trees, and it was those trees that enabled giraffes to live there, as they could feed on the leaves.

Israel is pretty dry, too, I understand – the Negev, do they call the deser there? Anyway, the whole thing of irrigation, and planting trees by the river, has a great many echoes in the Bible, so I imagine it must have been very much a thing, especially back in the days before modern irrigation techniques were able to make the desert, quite literally, blossom like a rose.

One of my favourite passages is in Ezekiel, where that prophet has a vision of a stream of water beginning in the Temple in Jerusalem and flowing down to the Dead Sea, becoming wider and deeper as it flows, full of fish, fertile, bringing fertility to the whole area, including the Dead Sea. And we are told that “On each bank of the stream all kinds of trees will grow to provide food. Their leaves will never wither, and they will never stop bearing fruit. They will have fresh fruit every month, because they are watered by the stream that flows from the Temple. The trees will provide food, and their leaves will be used for healing people.”

Zechariah also mentions this river, but says half of it will flow to the Mediterranean and half to the Red Sea. He doesn’t put trees alongside it explicitly, though.

This river appears, according to the book of Revelation, to be in the heavenly Jerusalem rather than the earthly one we know. The writer has a vision of the new Jerusalem, and in part, “The angel also showed me the river of the water of life, sparkling like crystal, and coming from the throne of God and of the Lamb and flowing down the middle of the city's street. On each side of the river was the tree of life, which bears fruit twelve times a year, once each month; and its leaves are for the healing of the nations.”

But the point of the passages in both Jeremiah and the Psalm is that it is we who are – or who can be – like the tree planted by the water. It is we who can bear fruit all year round, who can stay green and fresh even in times of drought. And at this point we all start to wriggle and feel uncomfortable and think, “Oh God, I’m not like that at all!”

And, of course, we aren’t like that. At least, most of us aren’t. Some of us are, and you will know who those people are in your life. But they won’t know it – partly because if they did know it, they would start thinking what great people they are, and then, of course, they wouldn’t be. Because the whole point is, those of us who do bear fruit, or green leaves, or whatever, are the ones through whom God’s Spirit flows. Jesus said that if we abide in him, we will bear much fruit, and apart from him, we can do nothing.

We know, too, what the fruit is that we are going to bear – those lovely, life-enhancing qualities that St Paul lists in his letter to the Galatians: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. And I am sure there are others – Paul’s lists are apt to be descriptive, not prescriptive!

But to get back to our passage, Jeremiah also points out that people who do not trust in God are like desert shrubs – small, stunted, good for nothing much at all. A far cry from the lush trees growing by the river. And we may well know people like that, too; people who do make a fair fist at being human, but oh, how much more they could be if only they trusted Jesus!

And Jesus himself had some pretty harsh things to say to people who only trusted themselves, as we heard in our Gospel reading. We are more used to the version of this teaching given in Matthew, I think, probably because Matthew’s version is so much easier. We can think of ourselves as poor in spirit, as hungry and thirsty after righteousness – but we are manifestly rich and well fed, just like those whom Jesus condemns here.

I imagine Jesus does not condemn us just for being rich and well fed and content – after all, that is largely an accident of birth. Had we been born in another country, at another time, things might have gone very differently for us. But it’s the “I’m all right, Jack” mentality that so often goes with being rich and well fed that is to be shunned at all costs. We may be all right – but there are plenty of people who aren’t. We may be going home to a big Sunday lunch, or we might be planning to go out for brunch, as there are so many good restaurants in this area that serve it on a Sunday. But what of those whose cupboards are bare, who depend on the food banks for today’s meals? What of those who are homeless and begging in the streets? These appear to be the ones who, in this passage, Jesus is praising and blessing.

I’m not saying, of course, that we should be giving to every beggar on the streets – there are better ways of helping to relieve homelessness. The Robes project is going on at Mostyn Road at the moment, and there are plenty of other homeless charities you could donate to, if you wish. And I hope you sometimes put something in the food bank box if the supermarket you use has one. But it isn’t so much what you do, as your attitude. Remember Jesus’ story of the rich man ostentatiously giving huge amounts to the Temple, and then the poor old beggar woman giving a tiny coin? It was, said Jesus, the woman who had given the most; the rich man wasn’t going to miss what he’d given, but that coin might have meant the woman going without her supper that day.

But how do we become that sort of person? I know I’m not! The sort of person who resembles a tree planted by the water, bearing fruit and leaves all year round – well, that’s not me! I’m far too selfish and lazy and greedy and so on…. But then, we all have our faults. And if I were to try to conquer mine in my own strength, I’d just be setting myself up for failure.

The thing is – and this isn’t easy, either – it’s about letting God grow us. We are to produce fruit, and fruit isn’t manufactures, it’s grown. Leaves aren’t stuck on the tree with Blu-tak, they are grown, too. I have an orchid at home, which is many years old now – my daughter and her husband gave it to us as a “thank you” for helping organise their wedding, and they have their twelfth anniversary coming up! But the orchid continues to flower, and is in bud at the moment, even though it is so old. I can’t do anything to make it flower – I occasionally give it a few drops of water, but orchids are best left alone most of the time.

Flowers grow. Fruit grows. Leaves grow. We can’t make them grow, and we can’t make ourselves produce the good qualities that are required of God’s people. But we can allow God the Holy Spirit to flow through us, to fill us, to indwell us, to enable us to become the people God designed us to be. And if we do that – and, let’s face it, we’re not going to be able to do that every moment, but the more we try to allow God to work in and through us, the more successful we will be – if we do allow God the Holy Spirit to flow through us, we will gradually become a tree planted by the water side.

Amen.