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Jeremiah 17.5-10

Thus says the Lord: Cursed are those who trust in mere mortals and make mere flesh their strength, whose 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. Blessed are those who trust in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord. 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. The heart is devious above all else; it is perverse— who can understand it? I the Lord test the mind and search the heart, to give to all according to their ways, according to the fruit of their doings.

Life gets more complicated all the time doesn't it? If it's not figuring out some new mystifying technology, it's figuring out how to protect yourself and your loved ones from the newest plague. You also have to figure out how to deal with so many other humans who have amazingly strong opinions about so many things. Even for the "doers" in this world, it can get overwhelming. Then here comes Jeremiah's words of wisdom. I'll admit that I was initially turned off when he starts off by talking about being "cursed" - but I read on and we got to the tree.

Trees just quietly stand there and trust through all seasons. They house the birds and squirrels. They shade even those who don't deserve it. Even naked their silhouettes against the winter sky take my breath away. The roots reach down and the limbs reach up and they quietly produce fruit and just do what they need to do. They wait, they stand and they trust.

God, help me to quiet down, look up and listen carefully. Help me to reach further down into your unending love and turn palms up as I receive your warmth and carefully trust day after day no matter what turmoil is going on. Thanks for these words Jeremiah.

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Psalm 31.4-5, 12-14

Take me out of the net, that they have secretly set for me *
for you are my tower of strength.
Into your hands I commend my spirit *
for you have redeemed me, O Lord, O God of truth.
I am forgotten like a dead man, out of mind *
I am as useless as a broken pot.
For I have heard the whispering of the crowd; fear is all around; *
they put their heads together against me; they plot to take my life.
But as for me, I have trusted in you, O Lord *
I have said, you are my God.

As a self-reliant person, it is hard for me to reconcile a God that created me this way for a reason, yet also wants me to find my strength and trust in him. How am I supposed to know the point at which I find my limits and God’s power begins? Or does this look more like a Venn diagram? These are confusing questions for me to consider.

One of my greatest fears is of being useless or weak. Take my calendar, for example. Before Covid, I famously wouldn’t look at a week or month in context. Rather, I tend to make commitments based on whether I am technically free at a given moment, rather than decide if I was truly that indispensable to take another thing on. Rather than try and seek God as a source of strength and discernment, I filled my calendar as if I had something to prove, and that I was in control.

Now I look at my calendar and I see monotony, if not boredom many days. The vast but temporary restrictions imposed by COVID has been a bit of an experiment in understanding what my life could be like with fewer commitments and (certainly) a lot less control. The environment I can control is perhaps contained within the same four walls, doing the same five activities, with the same people, every day. And honestly, one of those people is a toddler, so really -- I can’t control what happens within these four walls, either.

And so, 2021, with all its potential, has at least, for the moment, brought a forced moment of putting God back in His place as my source of strength and trust. It’s always been true, but the past year has really driven it home, that no one or nothing else in His world can come close to being as steadfast as He is.

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Matthew 23.1-12

Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples, “The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat; therefore, do whatever they teach you and follow it; but do not do as they do, for they do not practice what they teach. They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on the shoulders of others; but they themselves are unwilling to lift a finger to move them. They do all their deeds to be seen by others; for they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long. They love to have the place of honor at banquets and the best seats in the synagogues, and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces, and to have people call them rabbi. But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all students. And call no one your father on earth, for you have one Father—the one in heaven. Nor are you to be called instructors, for you have one instructor, the Messiah. The greatest among you will be your servant. All who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted.


Something new stuck with me in this reading that I never noticed before. "Jesus said...The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat; therefore, do whatever they teach you and follow it."

Jesus goes on to say that these Pharisees and scribes do not act as they teach, so do not act like them. However, considering how Jesus criticizes their behavior so verbosely, it is surprising to me that he does not tell his disciples to discount everything these scribes and Pharisees do AND say. It reads very much like the old adage, 'do as I say, not as I do.'

Why is it that Jesus instructs the disciples to do whatever these scribes and Pharisees teach them? The passage states it is because these scribes and Pharisees "sit on Moses's seat." I am not sure exactly what this means, but I assume it means something to the effect of they are following in the tradition of Moses's teachings. So part of it seems to be that the tradition and foundation of these scribes' and Pharisees' teachings in Moses is so solid that their teachings are derivatively good. However, these teachings must be inevitably difficult to follow if the teachers themselves are not doing so.

There is something else here that is speaking to me. Somewhere in this passage I receive the message that everyone has something to offer. Yes, these teachers are vain, they love titles, and positions, and power. However, they still have something to teach worth hearing. The instructions to follow these teachers' teachings reads to me as Jesus saying 'don't throw out the bath with the bathwater.' Despite these scribes and Pharisees acting in an ungodly way - and of course actions speak louder than words - their words still have value. They may act in very human ways, but Jesus tells us to still listen to them, to still do as they SAY to do.

I find this so interesting, and there is something godly in it. We are all human, and I know too often I get tied up in prestige, power, and the rat race (which often feels like a hamster wheel these days). However, that does not mean we do not hold some wisdom, that we do not have something to say that is worth listening to. And while certainly it is more important how we act, and that we strive to act in the ways Jesus asks us to, that does not necessarily mean we should always be silent. God speaks through us, even if our feet don't always move with the words.