Riparian Planting

Scripture: Psalm 1 and Jeremiah 17:5-10

Video Link: https://youtu.be/PjnEYSNxYsQ

Structure:

• Introduction
• Psalm 1
• Jeremiah 17:5-10
• Conclusion

Introduction:

Good morning everyone.

If you watch Country Calendar then you will have heard of riparian planting. Riparian planting is the practice of planting trees and shrubs alongside the edge of rivers, streams and lakes.

There are many advantages to riparian planting. The tree roots give stability to the soil, preventing erosion, and the plants act as filters keeping the water clean by inhibiting effluent and fertiliser run off.

Trees along the water’s edge also provide shade, maintaining cooler more stable water temperatures. This prevents the growth of excess algae and weed as well as protecting marine life. Many fish in New Zealand cannot survive when the water temperature is above 25 degrees.

Riparian planting has a lot of benefits for the environment. And, as God designed it, these benefits do not come at the expense of the tree. Shrubs planted near water ways tend to thrive because they have a reliable source of moisture and nutrients. Life is connection.

Today we begin a new sermon series which I’m calling, The Testimony of Trees. The Bible has a lot to say about trees and what they have to teach us. We start our series this morning by thinking about two passages of Scripture which use riparian planting as a metaphor for a life well lived. Psalm 1 and Jeremiah 17.

Psalm 1 and Jeremiah 17 are similar in a number of ways. We are not sure which passage was written first, but we will start with Psalm 1 because that is the more familiar reading…

Psalm 1 

¹ Happy are those who do not follow the advice of the wicked, or take the path that sinners tread, or sit in the seat of mockers, ² but their delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law they meditate day and night. ³ That person is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither—whatever they do prospers. ⁴ Not so the wicked! They are like chaff that the wind blows away. ⁵ Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous. ⁶ For the Lord watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked leads to destruction.

May the Spirit of Jesus illuminate God’s word for us.

Robert Frost wrote a poem called The Road Not Taken. The famous last verse goes like this…

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I –

I took the one less travelled by,

And that has made all the difference.     

Perhaps one of the things Robert Frost is saying here is that life is full of choices. We are not governed by fate. We get to make a difference in our own lives by the path we choose.

Not everything that happens in life is down to the choices we make of course, but our choices can and do have a significant influence on the outcome. Which means that human life is not a joke. Human life is charged with responsibility, fused with purpose and invigorated by hope.   

Psalm 1 sets before us two contrasting ways of living, each with very different outcomes. The way of the righteous and the way of the wicked. The way of the righteous leads to fruitfulness and abundant life, while the way of the wicked leads to emptiness and destruction.

Psalm 1 begins with the word ‘Happy’ or ‘Blessed’. Think about that for a moment. The whole collection of 150 psalms begins with happiness. Apparently, God wants us to be happy. The Lord wants us to find abundant life.

But the road to happiness is not the path of least resistance. Verse 1 is a statement of what not to do if you want to be happy.  

Happy are those who do not follow the advice of the wicked, or take the path that sinners tread, or sit in the seat of mockers,

As Derek Kidner notes, following advice has to do with thinking. Taking a path has to do with behaving and sitting in a seat has to do with belonging. Thinking, behaving and belonging, this is how a person chooses their allegiance.

Maybe there is a kind of progression with these three things. It all starts with the mind, what we think about. What we think about tends to inform our behaviour. If we think about doing good, then we are more inclined to do it. And if we think about doing bad then we are more inclined to do that.

The path we take represents our routine way of doing things. Our daily habits. Do we make room in each day for prayer. Is our conversation filled with words of truth and grace. Do we deal with people fairly and kindly.  

Of course, how we behave invariably determines who we end up sitting with. That is, who we belong with. For example, if we choose to steal, we will end up hanging out with thieves. But if we choose to work and worship honestly, we will end up in the company of honest God loving people. 

In the Bible a ‘scoffer’ or a ‘mocker’ is one of the worst kinds of sinners because they are the furthest from repentance. [1] A ‘mocker’ is so far down the wide and easy road that they not only can’t see anything wrong in what they are doing, they also ridicule others who are living right and doing it hard on the narrow road.

Having said what the happy do not do (in verse 1), verse 2 then goes on to describe how happy, righteous people do behave…  

…but their delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law they meditate day and night.²   

Meditating has to do with what we think about, what we chew over in our minds. So the secret to happiness is not thinking all day and all night about what I can do to satisfy my every desire. The secret to happiness is found by thinking about what God wants.  

As Jesus says in Matthew 7: ‘In everything do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law and the prophets.’

Delighting in the law of the Lord is not about feverishly following a list of rules and regulations. It’s about realising the freedom we have to love God and love our neighbour as we love ourselves.

We delight in the law of the Lord (his Word) because through it God shapes our thinking, heals our hearts and reforms our behaviour so that we are set free to do what is right and stand with God’s people.

So, who then is righteous and who is wicked? I mean, most people appear to be a bit of a mixture.

Well, it’s like Jesus said in Matthew 7: ‘You will know them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorns, or figs from thistles? In the same way, every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit…’

Perhaps Jesus is saying here, you can’t really judge a person by first impressions. You have to look at the fruit of a person’s life. You have to look at what outcomes their actions produce. Do their actions reveal God’s good character and bless others, or not?

Verse 3 of Psalm 1 goes on to describe the outcome (or the fruit) of those happy ones who meditate on God’s law…

³ That person is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither—whatever they do prospers.

Here we have the image of riparian planting. A well-established tree, planted by a waterway, doing good for the environment it is in.  

Fruit of course is not enjoyed by the tree itself; it is enjoyed by others. The fruit is anything that blesses others – anything that is good for others. What’s more the fruit arrives in its season – that is, in a timely way.

The fruit could be an act of justice, a gift of mercy, a helping hand, some wise listening or a kind word, just when it is needed.  

The reference to the leaf not withering is a poetic way of saying that the tree is not adversely affected by drought. It is not that the tree never experiences difficult circumstances, it does. The point is the tree (or the righteous person) is able to withstand the dry and difficult times because they are nourished at their roots by the water of God’s Word and Spirit.

When it says, whatever they do prospers, it doesn’t necessarily mean that good people get rich and stay healthy. It means the good work they do prospers. God sees to it that the lives of the righteous have meaning and are not wasted, even if they do happen to suffer in some way.

If the righteous are like fruitful trees planted by a stream, then the wicked are like chaff that the wind blows away. You couldn’t get a greater contrast.

Chaff (in the Bible) is the ultimate example of what is rootless, weightless and useless. Chaff is the complete opposite of a fruitful tree. Fruit has seeds, it perpetuates itself. But chaff doesn’t. Chaff is dead, it comes to nothing.  

At the final judgement, the wicked won’t have a leg to stand on. In the end, they are separated from the righteous in much the same way that chaff is separated from grain.

Psalm 1 concludes with a kind of summary statement in verse 6…⁶

For the Lord watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked leads to destruction.

Psalm 1 is saying, when you boil it all down there are basically two ways you can live your life, each with a very different outcome. You can choose happiness or emptiness. You can live as if God’s instructions matter, or you can live as if they don’t. You can be a riparian planting of the Lord, or you can be chaff.

Jeremiah 17

Jeremiah 17 gives virtually the same message as Psalm 1. From Jeremiah 17, verses 5-10 we read…

⁵ This is what the Lord says: “Cursed is the one who trusts in man, who draws strength from mere flesh and whose heart turns away from the Lord. ⁶ That person will be like a bush in the wastelands; they will not see prosperity when it comes. They will dwell in the parched places of the desert, in a salt land where no one lives. ⁷ “But blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in him. ⁸ They will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit.” ⁹ The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it? ¹⁰ “I the Lord search the heart and examine the mind, to reward each person according to their conduct, according to what their deeds deserve.”

Fashions change. These days tanned skin is considered attractive but prior to the 20^th century white skin was the desired look. To achieve this white complexion, wealthy people would apply a pale lead-based makeup to their face.

Lead is toxic of course and the makeup had a detrimental effect on people’s health. Some even died from lead poisoning while others did damage to their skin, which they only made worse by applying more lead makeup.  

Not that we are much better today. Over exposure to the sun in pursuit of the perfect tan puts you at risk of skin cancer.

Similar to Psalm 1, Jeremiah 17 contrasts two very different types of people. Those who put their trust in God and those who don’t. Jeremiah thinks of righteousness in terms of trust in the Lord.

Those who turn away from the Lord in their heart are likened to a bush in the wastelands. They will dwell in the parched places of the desert, in a salt land where no one lives. In other words, they will end up thirsty, fruitless and isolated.

In the eyes of the world the bush may appear to be doing well. But just because someone appears successful and attractive at first doesn’t mean they will flourish and be fruitful in the end. Sometimes people cover over a sad reality with a lead-based makeup, more concerned with how things look than how things really are.

In contrast, those who trust in the Lord are like a riparian planting. They will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream.

They are not anxious or afraid of hard times. Nor do they need to pretend to be something they are not. They flourish and remain fruitful, whatever the climate, because they depend on the Lord.

It is worth noting that the tree of verse 8 is the person as heaven sees them.[2] The values of heaven are different from the values of this world. The person of verse 8 may not always appear successful from a worldly point of view. And they might not always feel like they are flourishing. But ultimately, the person of verse 8 is like the proverbial tortoise who wins the race in the end. Only heaven sees us as we really are.

When Jesus gave the beatitudes in Matthew 5, he was describing those who are truly flourishing from the perspective of heaven. For example, blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed are those who mourn, blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness and so on.  

In the eyes of the world, the poor, the meek and those who grieve do not look like they are doing well, nor do they feel great. But from heaven’s perspective they are the lucky ones because they are depending on God. They rely on the Word and Spirit of the Lord from the roots of their being.   

The key to a tree’s fruitfulness and resilience is its roots. The roots are the unseen foundation. The roots are what connects the tree to life giving water and nutrients. The roots feed the tree.

The roots of the human soul are our heart and mind, our inner life. What we feed our mind on, tends to shape our conduct and our character.

Jeremiah draws a connection between the roots of a tree and the human heart and mind in verse 9 where he says: The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?

In this context the heart is not the physical blood pump in your chest. It’s the heart in a spiritual sense. What we today would think of as the mind, emotions and will, our inner life where decisions are made. 

Jeremiah is putting his finger on the root cause of the problem. It’s a Catch 22 situation. There is no way we can cure our minds. The only instrument we have for understanding our minds is our own minds. [3] But because our mind is desperately sick, we can’t accurately diagnose the sickness, let alone treat it.

We might think we are being honest with ourselves, but our mind deceives us. Our conscious mind is blind to what’s going on in our unconscious. We don’t know what we don’t know.

Like the people of centuries past who covered over the problem with lead-based makeup, the very things we think will help become the very things that make matters worse. We have no way out of the vicious cycle, at least not on our own.

Knowing that the Lord is able to search our heart and examine our mind and reward each person according to their deeds, is a fearful thought. It means there is no hiding from God. There is no makeup (lead based or otherwise) that can disguise the truth of what we are from God. The Lord sees the whole person from root to fruit and he holds us to account. 

And so we find ourselves praying with Jeremiah, in verse 14: Heal me, O Lord, and I will be healed; save me and I will be saved, for you are the one I praise.

We need God to heal our heart and mind if we are to bear good fruit. 

Conclusion:

Jesus is the answer to Jeremiah’s prayer. Jesus is the one God sent to heal us. Jesus is the source of living water we need to be planted beside. Or to say it more plainly, Jesus is the Word of God and the giver of God’s Spirit. Jesus is our righteousness. Our life and fruitfulness depend on Christ.

As we read in the gospel of John, chapter 7… 

³⁷ On the last and greatest day of the festival, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. ³⁸ Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.” ³⁹ By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive… 

Let us pray…

Merciful God, grant us the grace to put our roots down deep into the soil of your marvellous love. Nourish our souls with the water of your Word and Spirit, that we would be fruitful to the praise of your glory. Through Jesus we pray. Amen.  

 

Questions for discussion or reflection:

1. What stands out for you in reading these Scriptures and/or in listening to the sermon? Why do you think this stood out to you?
2. What are the benefits of riparian planting?
3. According to Psalm 1, what must we do (and not do) to be happy / blessed?
4. Compare and contrast Psalm 1 with Jeremiah 17:5-10. How are they similar? How are they different? E.g. What word pictures do Psalm 1 and Jeremiah 17 use to describe a righteous person? What words pictures do Psalm 1 and Jeremiah 17 use to describe a wicked person?
5. Why is our thought life so important? What sorts of thoughts normally occupy your mind? What practices support you to meditate on God’s Word in the Bible?
6. How might we discern whether we are truly a riparian planting of the Lord, from heaven’s perspective?
7. What (or who) is God’s answer to the sickness of the human heart and mind?

 

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[1] Refer Derek Kidner’s commentary on the Psalms, page 64.

[2] Refer Derek Kidner’s commentary on Jeremiah, page 73.

[3] Refer John Goldingay’s commentary on Jeremiah, page 95.