February 16, 2025

Epiphany 6, Year C

Jeremiah 17:5-10; Psalm 1; Luke 6:17-26

Epiphany, Winnipeg

In case you didn’t notice the first time around, I’ll just read again what we heard a few minutes ago from Psalm 1. It’s the very first line of the entire collection of 150 psalms.

“Happy are they who have not walked in the council of the wicked, nor lingered in the way of sinners, nor sat in the seats of the scornful!”

I like an older translation better: Happy are they who have not sat in the seat of scoffers.

I used to think that what this all really meant was something along the lines of “Happy are those who have not done bad things and been bad people.” And somehow, God’s going to be really angry with those walk in the council of the wicked and linger in the way of sinners and sit in the seats of the scornful.

But here’s what’s happened to me and to I don’t know how many people over these past months, and once or twice yesterday, and several times over the past week: I’ve spent more time than I’m comfortable admitting sitting at a chair in my living room with my phone in my hand scrolling through all kinds of things that just make me angry. I’ve read about a president and a billionaire who…well, I won’t ever go there. I’ve read again and again about all the ways things just seem to be going wrong everywhere, and about Canada becoming a fifty-first state and all the nonsense about nations being purchased and on and on. So much time scrolling through all that. And always, always, always, I end up being so mad at those people I’m reading about and that my friends are posting about, and I get this weird feeling in my gut and my brow furrows and that’ll give anyone a headache. All of that anger and negative energy eats a hole in my soul. And it’s so easy to keep going back to it.

I sit in the seat of the scornful. And God doesn’t need to curse me for that, because I just do it to myself.

That’s actually why I didn’t watch the Canada-U.S. game last night. Whatever the outcome I knew I’d end up sitting in the seat of the scornful. And I know what the score was, and I don’t want to talk about it.

That’s why five times in the last month I’ve deleted Facebook from my phone. I don’t want to sit with all that anger. And five times I’ve re-installed Facebook so I can maybe watch some skiing videos or see what my friend in Norway is up to. But I always end up in the seat of the scoffers again.

These are divided times. And I know that I can’t stand back and wag my finger at someone else about causing the division, because I’ve done my part along the way.

It strikes me then that these readings for today are a bit of a problem, because they are the kinds of things that could just feed these divisions if we’re not careful.

We heard first from the prophet Jeremiah. Jeremiah is writing to a nation of people who find themselves living in exile. They were carried away to live in a far away country while what’s left of their own country slowly decays. They’re losing their home, their country, and their freedom. Jeremiah insists, and he insists that God insists, that the people have gotten themselves into this problem because they have run after idols and they have not been just with each other. But some of the people Jeremiah is accusing insist that it’s not their fault but it’s the fault of people like Jeremiah, and they throw him in a pit and haul him off to another far-away place. “It’s your fault; no, it’s your fault.” And Jeremiah says, “Cursed are those who trust in mere mortals, in human laws, in politics and in power. Blessed are those who trust in the Lord.” The good guys, the bad guys, the cursed, the blessed, the split, you see how that can feed what we’re doing right now?

Then we read the Psalm again that ends with the words that you and I said together: “The Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked shall be destroyed.” The righteous and the wicked, can you see can happen? These are divided times, and even our own scripture can have such a divided way of speaking. Even Jesus, speaking on the wide open prairie to his followers there and seeming to say this: “Blessed are you, and woe to you.”

These are divided times we live in.

But notice this, and if you’re not quite sure take a minute after worship is over and read through it all again. Jeremiah 17, Psalm 1, Luke 6. No one ever really says, “This is how you tell the good people from the bad people.” There’s no list that says that the ones who do this and this and that are wicked, and the ones who think this and believe that and do the same are righteous. And even Jesus doesn’t actually say “Blessed are the good people, and cursed are the bad.” He just says that the ones who seem to be losing it all will taste goodness and life, and the ones who seem to have it all will lose it all, even if that time doesn’t come until we draw our last breath. We know that that’s true.

Scripture is really not about who the good people are or who the bad people are. Our faith is not about separating the good people from the bad people. All of these things that we read and said and heard this morning really just do one thing: They call us back to the place where our roots are sunk deeply and where we are fed. The writer of the Psalm points to the teaching of God: It’s like a stream of water that soaks into our roots and plants us firmly in the ground, and it feeds the fruit that we produce, and keeps us from withering and drying up. It keeps the life in our life.

Jeremiah picks up the same theme and we see that our life is in God, and our roots reach deeply into that water and it feeds us and keeps us going when things just get too heated – like when the tension heats up between people who don’t agree - and it carries us along through drought, even these dry spells when the capacity to care seems to wither, and it’s really hard to love…and it’s hard even to feel loved. We are brought back again today by stories and poems written in times of exile and division; brought back to our God who is like a stream that flows, always flows, always fresh, always refreshing. And we’re called to sit by that fresh stream, and to let our roots settle into that water of life…settle into that baptismal water where we taste fully and freely, and where our roots are always planted.

And when we’re called back to all those waters we remember that our life comes from our God, not from our being right or wrong. Our life together has its roots sunk deeply in the water of baptism: water that made us one long before we could divide ourselves into two or three or more. Our roots are not planted in a faction or a party or a country or a philosophy or a national anthem or protest sign or a flag or an argument. Any of these things could be good, and we can turn them into a blessing or a curse. But our roots are planted in this water of the one who gives us life.

Bo back to that Psalm again, the very first Psalm in that entire collection of 150 psalms, sort of the hymn book of the most ancient of God’s people. We heard it again, and were reminded again, right in the middle of that first psalm: “We’re like trees planted by streams of living water, bearing fruit in due season, with leaves that do not wither.” Our deepest roots will always only be a blessing…. Our deepest roots are planted in Christ, whose resurrection promises that our life will be made new. Here, and now and always, our roots are deep in that one water that always promises to give life for us all.