Positive Growth in a Negative Environment
10-14-07
Jeremiah 29:1, 4-7; Luke 17:11-1
During the past few weeks, I have been working on putting a new lawn in at the parsonage. Of course, we are in the midst of long drought with no end in sight. I sprayed the weeds and old grass to kill it, but it wouldn’t die since it was dormant from the lack of rain and high temperatures. Normally, everything would be growing at a good pace, because the lower temperatures of fall are ideal for some weeds and also fescue grass, but once again, we haven’t had cool weather till now -- and no rain.
Grass seed requires moisture in order to germinate, and if you allow the seed bed to become dry, the new germinating grass will die before you see the first blade. So I have been laying down water daily. Yet a neighbor came by and told me things were hopeless and I should give up. But I had seen a few new blades of green and still have hope that I will have a full, lush lawn before winter. Negative environments don’t encourage hope, nor are they where you would normally expect to see growth.
While I was overseas, I learned to enjoy eating renkon, which is lotus root. It is a nice and crunchy vegetable, white, about the size of potato, but it has lacy holes through it, so when you cut it in slices, it looks like wheels with holes around the edge. It doesn’t take much work to cook them: You simply boil them with other veggies, sometimes in a meat broth to add flavor.
The lotus plant is an aquatic perennial. It grows in swamps or muddy ponds. Amazingly, even in such a yucky place, the lotus sends up a beautiful white flower or other color, depending on the variety. This is such a contrast: The tuber root is down in the muck, the leaves are floating on the surface in nasty water, but up pops a beautiful flower that looks bright and clean. Swamps and stagnant ponds are negative environments in which many things cannot live, yet this is just the type of environment a lotus thrives in.
In today’s lesson from the prophet Jeremiah, we are given to chance to do a little snooping: We get to read mail that he sent to the elders in Babylonian captivity. It seems he is still in Jerusalem. Three years after the people were carried off to Babylon, Jeremiah writes a letter of encouragement to the exiles. Jeremiah wants the people to live their lives in a normal way, not to give up or quit but to work, marry, have children and prosper, even in a place that was hostile and strange. In a surprising statement, Jeremiah even tells the Jewish people to pray for the prosperity of the city where they were living. I could understand praying for Jerusalem, or praying for each other, or praying for things to get better so they could go home. But to pray for their enemies to prosper reminds me of the teaching of Jesus, where he says, “Pray for those who mistreat and abuse you, bless them even!” Jeremiah explains that if the inhabitants of Babylon prosper, the Jewish people would prosper also. … Talk about trickle-down economics! Jeremiah was calling the people to be faithful in the everyday things of life: work, marriage, raising children. There was not going to be a quick fix of their situation, so they needed to be patient and live life in as normal a way as they could.
Sometimes, we may find ourselves in a negative environment: Things may not be going the way we want or things may be down the tube. It might be at work, school, home or even in church. God calls us to continue working, to be faithful and to be fruitful. This is a constant theme throughout the Holy Scriptures: in the Hebrew Scriptures, in Jesus’ teachings, and in the New Testament letters. God’s people are called to be fruitful; it seems God likes to see the family grow. God’s people are also called to a life of prayer. It is easy to pray when things are going well, and it is also easy to pray asking for change when things are going bad. What is difficult is looking at people who are strangers or who have caused us misery, and praying that they would prosper.
God calls us to have vision that looks beyond ourselves, and to see that those who are outside of our circles deserve God’s grace, mercy and blessing, as well. It seems when we start to seek good things for others and sincerely work toward blessing them, we are blessed. Living in a negative environment doesn’t mean we have to become negative or that we can’t function. Just think of the lotus flower, which is also a symbol of rebirth, because at night the flower falls toward the water and closes up, but in the morning, it lifts its head and opens once again.
God has given us new life and calls us to move on, despite how bad things might be, no matter how negative. Positive growth is what God calls for and what God makes possible through the power of the Spirit. Amen.