Sixth Sunday after the Epiphany [Proper 6], rcl yr c, 2025
JEREMIAH 17:5-10; PSALM 1; 1 CORINTHIANS 15:12-20; LUKE 6:17-26
Blessed are those who trust in the Lord
I can’t imagine that Jeremiah would have been a big fan of strategic plans. I did not say this, by the way, when I was asked to speak about the diocesan strategic plan at the most recent Doctrine and Worship committee meeting. That probably would’ve been
a bad idea.
We can fairly imagine Jeremiah, though, if he were called into whatever equivalent committee ancient Judah might’ve had and where perhaps they talked about such things as plans to renew the state of religious and political life, we can imagine it going something like this:
“It seems Jeremiah we haven’t been particularly faithful.”
“Correct.”
“It seems that perhaps we haven’t kept up our side of God’s covenant with us.”
“Indeed.”
“And Jeremiah it seems that we may be on a road of great suffering and peril because of this.”
“You got that right.”
“So we have a three point plan to remedy the situation. It begins with cozying up to foreign powers, and after that we might worship some other gods just in case, and then I think we will end by congratulating ourselves for doing such a good job.”
And Jeremiah wept.
So no, I didn’t try to embody Jeremiah at Doctrine and Worship, and to be fair, the diocesan strategic plan is not like our imaginary proposal from the concluding courts of the Kings of Judah. But strategic plans and the like have been on my mind, not least as we find ourselves at St. John’s between strategic plans, and as I (finally) got my Rector’s report in for vestry. If you have a chance to read it, and you get the sense
that I’m between strategies and focus in my own work here at St. John’s, you’d be right. I am wondering, and I hope you are wondering too, about what might be around the corner for us.
And so coming to Jeremiah, with diocesan strategic plans, and our tentative steps towards a new plan, my own sense of being between plans, and as we approach Vestry, this is what I brought to Jeremiah this week.
If Jeremiah did have what we might call a strategic plan, it would have been relatively simple: Phase one: repent. Phase two: return to the Lord. For Jeremiah, just about the most important thing that the people could do was to turn back towards the one holy and living God, and to keep God’s covenant, a covenant of worship, and of caring for the orphan, widow, and stranger. Jeremiah reminded the people that there would be dire consequences to not keeping covenant with God: that Jerusalem would be destroyed.
And as for that, Jeremiah was right. Jerusalem was destroyed and the people were carried away for foreign lands, where they would have no temple, they would have no king, they would have no home.
Now I don’t think we’ve been as unfaithful as Judah; but this does not mean that we are without the need for conversion, nor does it mean that Jeremiah has nothing to say to us. And where I see Jeremiah speaking to us in the age of strategic plans is about where it is we would place our trust. Do we put our trust simply in our capacity to make plans for what we would like to see happen?
“Cursed are those who trust in mere mortals and make mere flesh their strength,” says Jeremiah. When hearts turn away from the Lord, “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.”
In his time, this was a prophecy about the destruction of Jerusalem. But for us it is a slightly different reminder. Our hopes and plans are no more than vanity when such things are not grounded in trust, in worship, care of others, and in prayer and supplication to the one holy and living God, Lord of the heavens and the earth. “Blessed are those who trust in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord,” says Jeremiah. Because “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.”
Be like a tree, says Jeremiah. Be like a tree by the water’s edge, a tree that has no fear of drought, because the tree by the water’s edge is tapped into life and can draw on that life no matter the passing circumstance. Trust in the goodness of the Lord, even when it is difficult to see what the Lord has in mind for you.
For Jeremiah the turning is two-fold: as we repent and turn to the Lord, the Lord is faithful towards us, and we prosper. These aren’t consecutive, but they are twin movements, happening at the same time, in such a way that we can say “yes as we plan, and as we put plans into action, even as we carry out those plans, they are fruitless without the faithfulness of God. And without God’s faithfulness, all of this will come to less than nothing.”
And so Jeremiah feels cautionary as we embark on plans, Jeremiah reminds us that we aren’t a people trying hard to be good, good people with a good plan that God will reward. Instead, we are the people of the one holy and living God, fearsome in his hope for us—we are the people of the one holy and living God, the God worthy of trust and worship—a deep trust, a trust that reaches way down deep, like the roots of a tree by the water’s edge; and that it is by that trust that we will be sustained by what gives us life.
Such a people, such a church, “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.”
The Revd Canon Preston DS Parsons, PhD
Rector, St John the Evangelist, Kitchener