Bearing Fruit in Barren Times

Something good is happening. We are remembering and reclaiming the wellspring of our faith.

The last few weeks has been shocking in literally unimaginable and uncountable ways as we look to the state of America and how Christianity has been co-opted, confused and corroded as nationalism. Not even a month into the presidency and many of the minorities within America are being exiled, from trans folk, refugees and immigrants to women and people of colour in jobs that, in their eyes, ‘should’ be reserved for white men. We have been witnessing the inverse of the gospel come to life where the prosperous and the powerful are blessed and where injustice is slowly and steadily eroding into the status quo, a status quo we in Australia are not immune from ourselves.

But something I didn’t expect is happening at the same time: a reclamation of the Gospel where the pronouncement of today’s beatitudes are being doubled-down on.

Many of us I would imagine watched or read the snippet of the sermon that Rev Mariann Edgar Budde preached to the new president the day after his inauguration. A sermon, at the heart of the whole Gospel, in both Luke’s account and littered throughout the Book of Jeremiah, where the concern was about those who were exiled and on the edges of society. Accounts that condemned and cursed the rich and the powerful. And this week, you may have read the letter Pope Francis wrote to American bishops as he criticised the president’s policy of mass deportations, or rather, a mass exile, urging Catholics to reject anti-immigrant narratives. The Pope also managed to slight the vice-president by criticising his narrow and conditional view of love with the unconditional and expansive view that Jesus actually lived, died and rose again for, without exception and for everyone. But it’s not just Christians in high-ranking positions who are reclaiming the Gospel in the public sphere, its everyday folk. Perhaps it’s unique to my own social media algorithms – no doubt it is – but even non-Christians in my own life are beginning to preach the Gospel where those who are oppressed are the ones who receive God’s blessing. A Gospel that pronounces how salvation is bound up with the liberation of the whole creation. And, like a stream, it is slowly and surely trickling back into the public sphere in spite and perhaps because of this co-opted, confused and corrupt Christianity.

And this is wild.

In the developed world where secularization has been on the rise and people have been shy and subtle about their faith, wondering what the point of it is and what difference it makes (something I’ve been prone to wonder), we are reminded about the radical message of the Gospel. A Gospel where the poor, the hungry and the grieving are blessed.

In other words, we are remembering and reclaiming the wellspring of our faith.

For this is what our Jeremiah reading was on about in not a dissimilar context from our own.

Our reading today comes to us when God’s people had turned their backs on God’s covenant, a law of love written on their hearts. They were worshipping idols and mere mortals, putting their faith on the political and power structures of their day. If this were bad enough, they were now exiled from their homeland living in Egypt on the edges of society. And Jeremiah was not immune. Along with the rest of the Israelites, he lost his home when the holy city was conquered and destroyed by the Babylonians. He was forced to flee for his life. And, perhaps the worst part of it all, was that he saw it coming.

Despite his words of truth and reality, nothing changed the result of what happened to his homeland or his people. And it was from this state of despair where he preaches a hard truth: that this time of drought and desert, of hunger and homelessness, exile and emptiness was the new normal. Welcome. The wicked had won. They were not going to see the kind of salvation and sustenance they wanted to in the world around them within their lifetimes. And so, rather than offering false hope or softening the truth, he proclaims not only the way of survival but of life abundant – that is, a reality that could not be touched by mere mortals, politics or corrupt power. He doubles down on his prophecy, he stands like a tree planted in foreign and dry land and invites the people to dig deep with him, to look beneath the surface, to stretch out their roots and remember the law of love written on their hearts despite and even because of the despair that surrounded them. Not in defiance of reality, but because of it. Not to escape suffering, but to find the only source that can sustain them in suffering. And he preaches a message of repentance, remembrance and reclamation: 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. But 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.

Two plants. Two choices. Two paths of the heart. Same desert. Same drought. One thrives. One withers. The difference? Those who trust the Lord or, a better translation, those who devote their whole selves, their eating, their breathing, their thirsting and their yearning in God and God alone will bear fruit and flourish – the tree planted by water.

For Jeremiah, he perceived and prophesied the path to wholeness particularly in such tumultuous and barren times was not only to speak against the structures and systems upholding idolatry and faithlessness – other prophets were already doing this work thank you very much – but key to Jeremiah’s call was to, at the same time, preach and prophesy a repentance, a remembrance and reclamation of God’s law of love written on their hearts, just below the surface – the stream of abundance. To drink from this wellspring.

In our modern world where we are littered with choice, Jeremiah only offers two: a blessed life or a cursed one. And so the question put to us is whether we will wither in the desert, or be like trees planted by water?

Because we find ourselves at a crossroads much like Jeremiah’s people. We see the same injustice, the same temptation to trust in power, in prosperity, in those who hoard control at the expense of the vulnerable. This has always been true across our human history – not much has changed. We may not be as callous and overt as the American presidency I hope, but we still trust mere mortals and the fleeting and parched ways of the world in our own ways, when we place our trust at the whims of the market, when we worship our church buildings and bank funds or when we rely on our own strength and self-sufficiency. But Jeremiah’s call remains: Will we be a shrub in the desert, or a tree planted by water?

Because the truth is, something good is happening.

Last week I went to the ‘Protect Trans Youth’ rally in the city with another minister. It was the first time I ever wore clerical attire and it was one of the most humbling experiences I’ve ever had. It was powerful to stand on the edges of this rally to be a sign of Christ’s love and acceptance, to walk alongside trans people in solidarity and support.

But it was when we had a conversation with a young trans person that I nearly broke down, overwhelmed by the connection. Clearly, they were shocked there were Christians in the world that didn’t condemn them but, more than this, showed up for them and showed love towards them. They asked about our church, where they could find us and, at the end of the conversation, with tears welling up in both of our eyes, said “Thank you… just thank you for being here.”

I share this with you not to stroke my own ego but to reveal the power of love that our Gospel holds when we drink from it and become vessels for it to be poured into the world, no matter how imperfectly. We may not see the potency of it, we may not have strangers come up to us and thank us, but slowly and surely like a trickling stream, it’s beginning to be reclaimed in the public again — not as a tool of exclusion, but as the radical, boundless love of God for the oppressed, the exiled, and the weary.

And in these moments of turbulence and change, we are invited to root ourselves not in fear, but in the deep wellspring of faith. To stretch out our roots, to drink deeply from the love of God, to stand firm against the wills and the whims of the world and to challenge the idols and the mere mortals of power and privilege masquerading as faith. Because this is not just a survival strategy; it is a salvation that is wrapped up in the liberation of all creation.

The tree planted by water does not wait for perfect conditions to bear fruit — it bears fruit, perhaps especially, in the drought, in despair, and in exile. And this is our calling. To reclaim a faith that is not about power, but about radical, world-upending love. Not about fear, but about justice. Not about scarcity, but about the abundant, life-giving waters of God’s kingdom not in a world far away and up above, but a wellspring that is here, that is already flowing just beneath what our eyes can see.

So will you drink deeply and be part of God’s renewal in this time and place? Because this is how we could live this one, wild and precious life: Rooted, nourished, and bearing fruit for a world that is parched and longing for a Gospel that saves.