Good morning. It is a pleasure and honor to speak with you this morning. I would like to thank you and John for this opportunity, partially because it gives me an opportunity to wear this fabulous robe and stole but more because it allowed me to sit down with a scripture passage that I've probably read tens of times, but which had never quite struck me as vividly as it did this time, our passage this morning from Jeremiah. I say I have probably read this passage numerous times, but I don't know. When I read it this time, it was as if I was reading it for the first time. The imagery of the two trees almost leapt off the page as I was reading it.
Two trees
Close your eyes for a moment and visualize the scenes as I reread some of that imagery to you.
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.
Compared to those who trust in 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.
Two trees in two environments that couldn't possibly be more different. One a dry, prickly bush hanging onto the edge of survival. The other, a lush, green tree whose life overflows with delicious fruit. One that is lucky if a few drops of rain touch its parched roots. The other that is constantly nourished by a cool, rushing stream. One living in an arid, desolate desert where death lies all around. The other, living in the Garden of Eden where life is abundant.
I am particularly struck by the extremes with which these two trees are described. It's not enough that the shrub is having to eke out an existence in a desert. When the rare rains do come, the shrub is not relieved of its thirst. The brief respite is merely a tease, a reminder of what the shrub can't have. And as if that's not enough, the writer rubs salt into the poor shrub's wounds, literally. The shrub lives in an uninhabited salt land. As anybody who has a lawn can attest, salt, which seeps into our yards from the winter roads, is not good for plants. The shrub is in a hot desert, without water, planted in salty soil. Man, this guy's got it rough!
The other tree is described in extremes as well. This is a tree that is “planted by water.” The text doesn't describe what type of water it is – a lake, a pond – but I like to think of it as a crisp, clean, babbling stream running down a gentle slope from a mountain spring that bubbles up from some deep underground source. The very picture of refreshment – you know, like you see in all of the bottled water ads. A tree in this location wouldn't need much of a root system, but again Jeremiah is painting an extreme picture. The tree sends out its roots to secure as much sustenance as possible from its rich surroundings. It is so bathed in nourishment, that it has nothing to fear or be anxious about when heat and drought come – its leaves remain a deep green and it continues to bear luscious, juicy fruit. This tree is living a dream life.
What really strikes me about these two trees, however, is what separates them. The two trees are not separated by geography. They're not separated by different resources. They aren't even necessarily different trees. The thing that separates the two trees is faith.
These two trees are analogies; metaphorical comparisons of a life of faith and a life without faith. Jeremiah is really describing one tree with two different outlooks on life! The tree without faith sees life as a bleak, depressing existence, one without support, a life that brings no relief from fear and anxiety. The tree that sees life through the lens of faith, however, sees the same existence as a place of no anxiety, no fear, a place of endless possibility in which it may bear much fruit. It all depends on how you look at it. With God, things look different.
Seeing with God's eyes
You see, God sees things differently. All you have to do is reread our Gospel passage from Luke today to realize that. Blessed are the poor? Blessed are the hungry? I see homeless people on the streets of Boston every day. Most of us would be hard pressed to say they look blessed. They look worn. They look lost. Hanging onto a bleak existence.
God sees differently. God looks into the eyes of a haggard, old, schizophrenic drunk and sees a beloved child. It is our calling to begin to see others and our environment with God's eyes, to see them in their absolute best light and then act accordingly. And to do this we need faith. Faith gives us new eyes. It's God's LASIK.
Today's science lesson - LASIK or Laser-Assisted In Situ Keratomileusis (I think. I sure know why they shortened it to LASIK!) is a surgical procedure that many people choose to undergo to correct their vision. During LASIK, a knife is used to cut a flap in the cornea. The flap is folded back and a laser shears off a layer of the cornea. The flap is replaced and viola! no more glasses.
Faith is God's LASIK, shearing away the layers on our eyes that prevent us from seeing as God does. Shearing away the years of experience that teach us that nothing changes – poor people, politicians, our spouses. Shearing away the prejudices that filter every experience through a lens of us/good and them/bad. Shearing away the fear that clouds our vision of the possibilities and blessings of this life. Going back to the shrub in the desert, we are told that it does “not see when relief comes.” The relief is there. It just can't see it. The fears and prejudices that lay upon its eyes keep it from seeing and taking advantage of a good thing. I think we all know people like that (I'm talking about you and me).
There are those among us who have undergone God's LASIK and were able to see their surroundings with God's eyes. Last week, John told us the story of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German pastor who had nothing personally to fear from the Third Reich but could see with God's eyes. He saw the hurt and pain around him and, despite knowing the very real consequences of standing up to Hitler, did so. He ended up paying for it with his life but as I picture him spending the last days of his life in a prison cell in Flossenbürg, I can't help but see him beside a refreshing cool, mountain stream.
Seeing our spouses with God's eyes
As I was thinking about seeing with God's eyes and yesterday's celebration of Valentine's Day, a day dedicated to love, I realized that there are some real-world applications of God's LASIK in our personal relationships. You see, sometimes when I look at Merrie, I see a nagging, pain in the . . . I mean, I see a dry desert. Other times, I see a beautiful stream that nourishes me, my family and so many others. What changes? Did Merrie change? No, my perception of her changed. It's all in how I look at her.
In the movie “ Sweet Home Alabama ,” Melanie Carmichael has to leave NYC where she has been living for ten years to return to her hometown of Greenville , Alabama to convince her husband to give her a divorce so that she may marry someone else. She and Jake had gotten married right out of high school but soon after their wedding, Melanie realized that Jake was not going anywhere in life and that if she stayed with him, neither would she. The main theme of the movie is what Melanie learns about herself as she navigates the old places and relationships of her youth. A subplot of this theme is that Melanie is unwilling to see Jake as anything other than the goofball, ne'er-do-well she remembers from high school. In reality, he has grown up and become a successful artist and businessman. As the audience, we get to watch as Melanie slowly has the layers of experience and fear stripped from her eyes until the moment she realizes how wrong she has been about Jake.
In people's lives together, layers of past experiences, good and bad, begin to build on their eyes, making it difficult to see the other for who they really are. To complicate matters, below those layers are layers associated with every previous relationship we have had stretching back to our childhood and relationships with our parents or guardians. We're trying to see the other clearly through these films and it is next to impossible. Instead we see their image with hazy edges, strange lighting and fearful uncertainty.
It doesn't have to be that way. We can commit to seeing differently. We can commit to not allowing those layers to get in our way. But it is a choice.
Our silent meditation today is a quote from Sir John Lubbock, a renowned scientist and politician from the latter half of the 19 th century. “What we see depends mainly on what we look for.” One of the pitfalls scientists must avoid is the tendency to become so fixated on proving a predicted result that they end up not being able to see and comprehend the real situation. In fact, people have been known to be so certain about what they should see that they unintentionally reshape their reality to make it so.
Percival Lowell, a brilliant astronomer living at the turn of the 20 th century, devoutly believed that Mars was inhabited by an intelligent civilization that had built a complex network of canals that crisscrossed the Martian landscape to carry water to dry, arid parts of the planet. As he gazed through his telescope he saw canals. He wrote and taught about the canals. He was able to create detailed maps of those canals. But few other reputable astronomers saw the canals that he saw. His belief was so strong, however, that despite a lack of corroborating evidence from his colleagues, he maintained his belief in intelligent life on Mars.
History is littered with beliefs and theories that were held firmly by people who, in their own minds, had overwhelming proof in support of those theories, but which were ultimately proven to be incorrect. What we are looking for oftentimes dictates our reality, for good or bad.
In our reading from Jeremiah, the trees are viewing the same landscape but one sees a desert while the other sees a mountain stream. For each, what they see becomes their reality.
The same goes for relationships. If I look at someone through the lenses of my past that have taught me not to trust people, I am going to view their actions as suspect, no matter how well-intentioned they may be. If I look at my wife through lenses of past girlfriends and relationships, then past hurts and expectations can cause new hurts today.
Richard Stuart is a psychologist who focuses on helping couples see each other with new eyes. He encourages couples to begin engaging in more loving behaviors toward each other, even when, or especially when they are not necessarily feeling loving. He has husbands and wives write down a list of positive, specific ways their partners can please them. For example, someone might write, “I would like you to rub my feet while we watch TV” or “I would like you to bring me coffee in bed on Saturday mornings.” The husbands and wives are supposed to do several of the things on their partner's lists each day and see what happens.
Harville Hendrix, author of Getting the Love You Want , describes putting this concept into practice with one of his therapy couples and their surprise at the results:
“Well, the day after our appointment, I found myself driving around town in a black mood,” Dennis volunteered. “I can't even remember what made me feel so down. Anyway, I decided that it was as good a time as any to do what you asked, so I stopped off at a variety store and bought Harriet some flowers. That was one of the requests on her list. So I gritted my teeth and picked out some daisies, because I remembered she always liked daisies. The clerk asked me if I wanted a note card and I said, ‘Why not?' I remember saying to myself, ‘We're paying Dr. Hendrix a lot of money to make things better, so I'd better do this all the way.' When I came home, I signed the card ‘I love you.' . . . The thing that surprised me, Harville, was that, as I handed Harriet the flowers, I really did care for her.”
Just as when we act as if nothing has changed, we create that reality, when we act as if something is different, we create that reality. If we choose to see things differently, they become different.
Courage to change
But choosing to see things differently is not easy. It requires change and change is difficult. It's scary. Even positive change like we're talking about. Our fear of change is the basis behind the old joke, “How many psychologists does it take to change a light bulb? Only one but the light bulb has to want to change.”
It is very easy for me to stand here and blithely tell you to strip away the layers of past experiences and prejudices to reveal the world as God would have you see it. It is more difficult for you to put it into practice.
I was not raised in a family that necessarily taught me to trust that those closest to me had my best interests at heart. Over the years, I learned to protect myself by playing my cards close to the chest. In retrospect, I think I have approached many of the important relationships in my life from the perspective of playing a game of chess, always analyzing others' moves for their true motives and how those moves affect my next few moves. As such, there have been times when I missed out on authentic care and compassion from Merrie and others, because I didn't trust what I was experiencing from them.
It has taken a real act of God to help me begin to strip away the layers of past experience and begin trusting the gifts I am given. I mean, if I trust people, I open myself up to being taken advantage of and hurt! Those layers on my eyes may get in the way sometimes but there is a reason they are there – they protect us. They are shields that are sometimes hard-earned. Remove those layers? Thanks but no thanks.
And that's where we return to our scripture passage from Jeremiah. What differentiates the two trees' views of life? Faith. Faith is what gives us the courage to see differently. Faith is what gives us the courage to open ourselves up. Faith is what gives me the courage to trust others.
If we rely only on ourselves and our abilities, it is going to be very difficult, if not impossible, to remove our lenses and see reality. In the words of Jeremiah, it's a curse to rely only on ourselves.
Faith is what gives us the courage to pull up our roots from the hard, baked desert floor and transplant ourselves beside a cool stream. And as Dennis and Harriet learned, sometimes, just choosing to see the desert as a stream is enough to make it begin to be so.
Conclusion
So in honor of Valentine's Day, let us ask God to help us strip away the layers that keep us from seeing people and our surroundings clearly. And more, let us commit to acting as if we are seeing clearly, even if we aren't yet. Let us choose to act out of love when our present environment may not seem to warrant it. Let us choose to act out of trust in a God who is guiding our lives and the lives of those around us.
With God's help we can do it. With God's help we can see as God does. With God's help we can experience the cool, refreshing waters of a life of faith and love. Amen.
