{"id":1663,"date":"2025-02-17T23:21:13","date_gmt":"2025-02-18T04:21:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/?p=1663"},"modified":"2025-02-17T23:21:15","modified_gmt":"2025-02-18T04:21:15","slug":"the-facts-of-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/2025\/02\/17\/the-facts-of-life\/","title":{"rendered":"The Facts of Life"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-audio\"><audio controls src=\"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/The-Facts-of-Life-21725-11.10\u202fPM.mp3\"><\/audio><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">A Sermon for the Locust Grove United Church of Christ of York, PA<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">by Rev. James Eaton, Interim Pastor \u00a92025<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Sixth Sunday After Epiphany\/C \u2022 February 16, 2025<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><a href=\"https:\/\/bible.oremus.org\/?ql=606852147\">Jeremiah 17:5-10<\/a> * <a href=\"https:\/\/bible.oremus.org\/?ql=606852176\">Luke 6:17-26<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-pullquote\"><blockquote><p>We shall not, We shall not be moved,<br \/>We shall not, We shall not be moved.<br \/>Just like a tree that\u2019s planted by the water,<br \/>we shall not be moved.<\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This song is so resonant for me. Mavis Staples is a gospel and R&amp;B singer who sings a version of this song and tells a story with it. When she was young, she was one of those brave young people who marched with Martin Luther King, Jr., in Birmingham. She talks about going with a group to a caf\u00e9 in the still segregated city, sitting down, hungry, waiting for the server. The server told them to leave and called the police. Can you imagine being a black kid in Birmingham, hearing police sirens, knowing the long history of violence against black people there by police? Can you imagine how scared they were? What do you do when you\u2019re scared? What these people did was to sing this song: \u201cWe shall not, we shall not, we shall not be moved. Just like a tree, that\u2019s planted by the water, we shall not be moved.\u201d What they did was simple: they turned at that moment of fear to faith in God. They trusted God and their faith and the faith of others moved an entire nation that summer. The song was a prayer, and they ran to God in that prayer. Where do you run when you\u2019re afraid?&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Jeremiah was a prophet in a troubled time. God\u2019s people were being led by kings who ignored God\u2019s way. They believed God would always rescue them from powerful foreign armies. Jeremiah said no: that their faithlessness would lead to disaster. Just like the kids in Birmingham, he goes to a familiar form to make his point. In his time, a kind of preaching called Wisdom was well known. Wisdom preaching often sets out two different ways, one is faithless, one is faithful. That\u2019s what Jeremiah is doing in the portion we read this morning. Those who trust in mortals, he says, are trusting the wrong thing. He compares them to a familiar scene: shrubs in the desert who get blown away because they aren\u2019t rooted deeply. It must have been a common sight; it is today out west in Montana, in some parts of Texas and New Mexico. Whole bushes can be seen tumbling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But those who put their faith in God, Jeremiah says, are like tough trees who put down deep roots. Anyone who\u2019s ever tried to remove a tree knows what he means. Cut down the trunk, and you\u2019re not even halfway done. You\u2019re left with a stump and under it perhaps a dozen big, thick taproots that lead to hundreds of smaller roots. Some of them go deep; some go horizontally. Removing them is a long, tough job. Trees planted by water are sustained by underground streams and stand up even in drought. They are sure, they are certain. They are something to cling to when the wind blows, when fear comes. Jeremiah announces this choice not as a set of options, not as possibilities but simply as facts, the facts of spiritual life. Put your faith in human things, and you\u2019ll become like a tumbleweed; put your faith in God and you have something sure to hold on to even in tough times. It\u2019s the meaning in the song: \u201cWe shall not be moved, just like a tree that\u2019s planted by the water.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Jesus is also announcing facts of spiritual life. Matthew also has a version of this story; some scholars believe this version in Luke is the oldest, the closest to Jesus\u2019 original words. He\u2019s in a level place and Luke tells us that people from all over have come to him. Tyre and Sidon are up north, outside the country; it\u2019s like saying, \u201cPeople from Toronto\u201d. People from all over Judea are there; those are locals. And there are the urban folks from Jerusalem. They press close and try to touch him. Today, they\u2019d be trying to get selfies with him. But here in this place what they want is healing and exorcism. This is the three-fold ministry we read about over and over in Jesus\u2019 life: teaching, healing, freeing people from demons. Just before this reading, he has named a group of 12 disciples; now he gathers them close, and he teaches them the facts of spiritual life.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I imagine they were surprised, don\u2019t you? Blessing isn\u2019t something anyone thinks of for the poor, the hungry, those weeping in grief. Blessing isn\u2019t something anyone thinks of for those who are ostracized, who are excluded, who are hated. Matthew took this teaching and softens it by adding \u201cin spirit\u201d to poor; He makes the hunger about righteousness. But I wonder if the scholars aren\u2019t right; nothing is soft in the teaching of Jesus. That\u2019s why people get mad. So let\u2019s take him on his own terms, how is it possible to see blessing in these conditions?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Annie Dillard is a writer who has a wonderful thought about what she calls, \u201ca healthy poverty\u201d. She says,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">When I was six or seven years old, growing up in Pittsburgh, I used to take a precious penny of my own and hide it for someone else to find. It was a curious compulsion; sadly, I\u2019ve never been seized by it since. For some reason, I always \u201chid\u201d the penny along the same stretch of sidewalk up the street. I would cradle it at the roots of a sycamore, say, or in a hole left by a chipped-off piece of sidewalk. Then I would take a piece of chalk, and, starting at either end of the block, draw huge arrows leading up to the penny from both directions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">After I learned to write I labeled the arrows: SURPRISE AHEAD or MONEY THIS WAY. I was greatly excited, during all this arrow-drawing, at the thought of the first lucky passer-by who would receive in this way, regardless of merit, a free gift from the universe. But I never lurked about. I would go straight home and not give the matter another thought, until, some months later, I would be gripped again by the impulse to hide another penny.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The world is fairly studded and strewn with pennies cast broadside from a generous hand. But \u2014 and this is the point \u2014 who gets excited by a mere penny?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It is dire poverty indeed when a man is so malnourished and fatigued that he won\u2019t stoop to pick up a penny. But if you cultivate a healthy poverty and simplicity, so that finding a penny will literally make your day, then, since the world is in fact planted in pennies, you have with your poverty bought a lifetime of days. [<a href=\"https:\/\/www.awakin.org\/v2\/read\/view.php?tid=2312\">https:\/\/www.awakin.org\/v2\/read\/view.php?tid=2312<\/a>]<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Just like Jesus, we live in a culture that has put enormous stress on wealth and connected it to power. But where does faith in wealth lead? We\u2019ve seen so many times from the Great Depression in the 1930s to the Housing Bust of the 2000s to know that faith in wealth makes us tumbleweeds. A healthy poverty is to focus on what we need, not what we want; on what is enough, not always more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There is a blessing sometimes found in hunger, too. When I was young and in seminary, I managed for the one and only time in my life to buy a new car, a Ford Pinto in that weird, fluorescent blue. I had the car two days and then, pulling away from a curb, someone plowed into it and crushed the driver side. The car operated, but the door didn\u2019t, so I had to crawl into the driver seat from the right. I had insurance, but I didn\u2019t have the money for the deductible. So I stopped having lunch for a summer to save that up. It was hard, but eventually I got there and fixed the car. Some years later, my dad and I were talking about hard times; he was a depression kid who had lots of stories. I told him my story. Now, my dad had a rule he had announced for years when I was young: once you get married, and you\u2019re on your own, don\u2019t come back looking for help. I\u2019d taken him at his word. When I told the story, he was upset. \u201cI would never have had you go hungry,\u201d he said; \u201cWhy didn\u2019t you tell me?\u201d I reminded him about his rule and I saw something I recognize now, as a father myself, and mumbled, \u201cI never meant you to go hungry.\u201d That moment changed our relationship. My father was one of those guys whose first adult experience was as a soldier in World War II; he was focused on work, he frequently told us the family was like the army, mom was the sergeant, he was the officer. But after that moment, he began to be more interested in my life, less directive; less about rules, more about caring. That summer of hunger turned out to be a blessing because it drew us together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">No one seeks poverty, no one seeks hunger, no one seeks grief, yet there are moments that can come from these occasions that do bless our lives. A penny isn\u2019t much. It\u2019s so little that they are going away, but as Annie Dillard says, if finding a penny will make your day, you are in for a lot of good days because the world is strewn with pennies. There\u2019s a depression era song, \u201cPennies from heaven\u201d. The song says,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Every time it rains, it rains pennies from heaven<br \/>Don&#8217;t you know each cloud contains pennies from heaven?<br \/>You&#8217;ll find your fortune&#8217;s fallin&#8217; all over the town<br \/>Be sure that your umbrella is upside down<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The facts of spiritual life are that God has sprinkled life with blessings\u2014if we are looking for them. Looking for them means trusting God, not human institutions and persons. Looking for blessings means being alive to God in every occasion. If we live this way, the light of God\u2019s presence becomes clearer and clearer. And we become indeed, like trees planted by the water, strong and secure, growing in God\u2019s way. Amen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A Sermon for the Locust Grove United Church of Christ of York, PA by Rev. James Eaton, Interim Pastor \u00a92025 Sixth Sunday After Epiphany\/C \u2022 February 16, 2025 Jeremiah 17:5-10 * Luke 6:17-26 We shall not, We shall not be moved,We shall not, We shall not be moved.Just like a tree that\u2019s planted by the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[7,3,32],"tags":[387,313,98],"class_list":["post-1663","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-epiphany","category-sermon","category-year-c","tag-beatitudes","tag-blessing","tag-hope"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1663","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1663"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1663\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1667,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1663\/revisions\/1667"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1663"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1663"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1663"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}