Rev. Doug Floyd

Pentecost +10 – A Fruitful Tree in a Dry Land
Rev. Doug Floyd
Psalm 1

The prophet Isaiah proclaims,

“The poor and needy search for water, but there is none; their tongues are parched with thirst. But I the Lord will answer them; I, the God of Israel, will not forsake them. I will make rivers flow on barren heights, and springs within the valleys. I will turn the desert into pools of water, and the parched ground into springs.” (Isaiah 41:17–18, NIV84)  

I was sitting in church daydreaming. This was the first church where I served full time; a lively inner-city Pentecostal church and folks carried their offering to the front while singing. I was at the front, it was a big church, and I had a long wait. My mind wandered. I envisioned walking across a vast desert. The sun above beat down upon me. Thirst took hold. I cried out, “Lord I need water!” Suddenly, a canteen was flung down from the sky. “No I need water. More water than that canteen.” As I looked ahead, I saw a lush green spot. Rich vibrant trees encircling a beautiful blue pool of water. I ran and jumped in the water, quenching my thirst by total immersion into this blessing of God.

Back to the service. People were still singing and dancing their way to the front, so I picked up my Bible and decided to read a little. I flipped it open, and the first passage I saw was Isaiah 41:17-20.

““The poor and needy search for water, but there is none; their tongues are parched with thirst. But I the Lord will answer them; I, the God of Israel, will not forsake them. I will make rivers flow on barren heights, and springs within the valleys. I will turn the desert into pools of water, and the parched ground into springs. I will put in the desert the cedar and the acacia, the myrtle and the olive. I will set pines in the wasteland, the fir and the cypress together, so that people may see and know, may consider and understand, that the hand of the Lord has done this, that the Holy One of Israel has created it.” (Isaiah 41:17–20, NIV84)

Weird. That passage sounds like the daydream I just had. Gradually, I began to think that the Lord was giving me a vision of some sort and just maybe it had to do with the journey ahead. I’ll come back to this in a moment.

Today, we pause over Psalm 1. We see a picture of a person meditating upon the law of the Lord. Imagine yourself sitting and reflecting on God’s Word. I imagine sitting beside the flowing water up in the Smoky Mountains. I hear the water rippling as I read. You might imagine walking along the beach on an early morning, ruinating on God’s Word as you hear the roar of the ocean in the background. Then again, you might see yourself sitting by a cozy fire. The wood crackles and the fire pops as you meditating upon a passage of Scripture. Now wherever you are in your imagination, listen the psalmist.

He tells us that this person has faced and avoided the counsel of the wicked, the way of sinners, and the seat of scorners. This person has resisted those distractions and continues to contemplate the Law of the Lord both day and night. The psalmist also tells us that this person is like a tree planted by the streams of water who bears fruit in season and whose leaves never wither.

Let’s sit with that picture this morning. First, we notice that there are wicked people, naysayers, critics, and scoffers that this person encounters regularly. Proverbs 2 gives us a similar picture. The person who seeks for God’s wisdom and meditates upon God’s Words will gain wisdom and know the true path. He will not be moved by those who left the path of righteousness and now speak perverted speech, and he will not be seduced by the adulteress who seeks to lead him astray.

Throughout the Psalms and the rest of Scriptures, we see a host of characters who have left the paths of God and chosen the way of sin and death. In many places the psalmist cries out,

Psalm 3:1–2: “Lord, how many are my foes! How many rise up against me! Many are saying of me, ‘God will not deliver him.'”

Psalm 7:1–2: “Save me and deliver me from all who pursue me, or they will tear me like a lion and rip me to pieces with no one to rescue.”

Psalm 17:8–9: “Hide me in the shadow of your wings from the wicked who are out to destroy me, from my mortal enemies who surround me.” [1, 2]

Psalm 57:4: “My soul is in the midst of lions; I lie down amid fiery beasts— the children of man, whose teeth are spears and arrows, whose tongues are sharp swords.”

Psalm 41:9: “Even my close friend in whom I trusted, who ate my bread, has lifted his heel against me.”

Psalm 120:7: “I am for peace, but when I speak, they are for war!”

As it turns out, the psalmist is not sitting around enjoying the “best life now” and singing songs or posting pictures about it. Even in the Promised Land, the psalmist cannot escape hardship and struggle.

Psalm 1 prepares us for a book of prayers and praise that are also filled with grief, struggle, cries for help, and questions like “God where are you?”

We live in one of the richest countries in the world, and we enjoy privileges that most people in history couldn’t imagine, and yet we still face struggle, suffering, doubt, pain, grief, and people who turn against or seek to lead us astray.

In the middle of this struggle, the psalmist begins to talk about the Law of the Lord. Most of us grew up in a culture where law was a bad thing that Jesus came to deliver us from. We are free.

When I first heard about Richard Foster’s book, Celebration of the Discipline back in the 1980s, I thought, “I’m under grace, I’m not reading any of that legalism stuff.” Finally, I did read t and reread. As a result, Richard Foster, who was a Quaker, started me on a path to becoming an Anglican.

And eventually, I began to study Torah. I discovered that the Jews saw this as the greatest gift of God they ever received. All through Psalm 119, we hear rejoicing for the gift of the Law, of Torah:

“How can a young man keep his way pure? By guarding it according to your word. With my whole heart I seek you; let me not wander from your commandments! I have stored up your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you. Blessed are you, O Lord; teach me your statutes! With my lips I declare all the rules of your mouth. In the way of your testimonies I delight as much as in all riches. I will meditate on your precepts and fix my eyes on your ways. I will delight in your statutes; I will not forget your word.” (Psalm 119:9–16, ESV)

The Torah was seen as a way, a path, a way of blessedness that could lead through the wilderness and still bear fruit. Yet, why is Paul so opposed to Torah? Isn’t the book of Galatians and Romans about the terrible effect of the Law? I do not have time to do justice to this question today, but I might highlight Paul’s opening verse in Roans 8,

“There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.” (Romans 8:1–2, ESV)

The Law, Torah, God’s instruction does not forgive sin or make me righteous. That gift comes from God alone. Humans since the beginning of the world must depend upon the Creator for life and health and holiness and forgiveness. It’s all grace. God the Father ultimately fulfills this way of grace in His Son, Jesus Christ. As Romans 8:1 states,  There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” Our of life and salvation is rooted in Christ Jesus alone. He is the way, the truth and the life. Our salvation is always personal. Rooted in the person of Jesus Christ. We turn to Him, we look to Him, we trust in Him.

And yet, all of Scripture is filled with His guidance. He teaches us through His word. Eugene Peterson speaks of “torah” as a javelin. In his book Answering God, Peterson writes,

God’s word has this aimed, intentional, personal nature. When we are spoken to this way, piercingly and penetratingly, we are not the same. These words get inside us and work their meaning in us. As we prepare to pray, to answer the words God addresses to us, we learn that all of God’s words have this characteristic: they are torah and we are the target. God’s word is not a reference book in a library that we pull off the shelf when we want information. There is nothing inert or bookish in these words. God’s words, creating and saving words every one, hit us where we live.[1]

Why do we have faith in Jesus Christ? The Word of God has pierced us. Penetrated our hearts by the power of the Holy Spirit. By His grace, faith awakens in us and we follow Christ.

Our psalmist is calling us to heed the Word of God. We’re not trying to accumulate as much knowledge as we can about Scripture. We read with a listening heart. Sometimes that means reading a verse or two and praying it back to God. We are listening, soaking, reflecting. Other times it can mean that we are reading through the whole Bible each year. This is a different kind of listening. We are letting the grand story of Scripture shape our imagination. As we discover this story, it reshapes how we think about God and about this life.

The psalmist is suggesting that as God’s people soak in this word, they are like a tree, taking deep root in God, in Christ and bearing fruit. This takes me back to that vision of walking through the desert a few moments ago. Isaiah is giving us a picture of the exiles returning home and of God restoring His people. Keep this in mind as we think about Psalm 1.

Eugene Peterson suggests we night read Psalm 1 through the lens of the people in exile in Babylon. They are in the blazing heat of Babylon. In Psalm 137, we hear the cry of the exiles:

“By the waters of Babylon, there we sat down and wept, when we remembered Zion. On the willows there we hung up our lyres. For there our captors required of us songs, and our tormentors, mirth, saying, “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!” How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land?” (Psalm 137:1–4, ESV)

The people are grieving. Their people are dead or taken captive. The Temple is destroyed. Their hope is gone. In this dreadful land, the people cannot sing. In fact, some abandon their faith. They join the mockers, the scoffers, the wicked.

Others become trees in the desert. An oasis bursts forth like that vision of Isaiah. It is a river of flowing water from the Word of God. In the midst of the struggle, in the midst of the grief, in the midst of the hopeless situation, these people become trees of righteousness. Their leaves do not wither. They bear fruit.

It makes me think of Ezekiel’s vision of the rebuilt Temple. He writes about this vision in exile with the other captives. At one point he sees water flowing out from the Temple and trees on either side of this river. He writes,

“And on the banks, on both sides of the river, there will grow all kinds of trees for food. Their leaves will not wither, nor their fruit fail, but they will bear fresh fruit every month, because the water for them flows from the sanctuary. Their fruit will be for food, and their leaves for healing.”” (Ezekiel 47:12, ESV)

The captives are exiles in a strange land. Like Psalm 1 says, those who meditate on the Word, who listen and seek God’s face, they become like trees flourishing, bearing fruit, with leaves that do not wither.

Sadly, we do wither sometimes. We do feel dry, overwhelmed, fearful, angry, weary. Ultimately, Jesus is that tree that never withers, always bears fruit, is always vitally alive. He is the Tree of Life. He sustains us, speaks His Word of Life into our hearts, feeds us with His body and blood. He is the oasis in the desert, the wilderness.

In and through Christ, God’s people have thrived in dark and difficult times. They have brought beauty and joy and healing and life to world drowning in darkness. My prayer is that we might overflow with the very life of Christ to the world around us. May we become like the trees in Revelation:

“Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.” (Revelation 22:1–2, ESV)

Our Lord let your healing grace flow through to world in desperate need of your grace.

[1] Peterson, Eugene H.. Answering God: The Psalms as Tools for Prayer – A Biblical Guide to Finding Fulfillment in Your Spiritual Life (p. 25). (Function). Kindle Edition.