For the Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time…
Blessed is the one who trusts in the LORD,
whose hope is the LORD.
He is like a tree planted beside the waters
that stretches out its roots to the stream:
It fears not the heat when it comes,
its leaves stay green;
In the year of drought it shows no distress,
but still bears fruit.
Jeremiah 17: 7-8
I love this poetry of Jeremiah. So often dubbed “the weeping prophet,” this Sunday we have the man of God who has hope. His beautiful imagery depicts the goal of life: to be in union with God, like a lush tree that stays green against drought or harsh circumstances.
The “tree planted beside the waters” is a juxtaposition to the “barren bush” in the desert, or one that stands in “a lava waste.” (See Jeremiah 17:6.)
A few years ago I was traveling near Bend, Oregon. There I experienced the natural beauty and incredible views of the Cascade Range, where the wild country not only offers visions of trees planted beside pristine rivers and lakes, but also hardened lava flows of now-cooled magma that sprang from colliding tectonic plates of the earth. Those lava fields might as well be an asphalt moonscape for nothing grows there except the tiniest of plants that can survive in the lava’s dust.
We can draw our own conclusions where we ought to be putting down our roots.
Lord, keep me rooted in you.
