Grow Where You Are Planted -- Jeremiah 29:1, 4-9 (19th Sunday After Pentecost)

Scott Clark
Oct 11
10 min read

Photo credit: Stephen Talas, used with permission via Unsplash

To listen to the sermon, you can click here.

On a first hearing, this morning’s Jeremiah scripture may sound refreshing and full of promise.^[1] Build houses. Settle down. Make your home here. Plant gardens; tend them; eat what they produce – savor your life. Have kids, watch them grow until they themselves can marry, and then watch them have kids. Increase, don’t decrease. Live. Thrive. Multiply. And pray for the peace and prosperity of the land where you reside.

On a first read, it can sound lovely.

But this is not at all what the people want to hear. It is actually hard and heart-breaking news.^[2] You see, the people have been taken into captivity. Yet another Empire has swooped in to their tiny, beleaguered nation. This time it’s Babylon. Before this, it was Egypt and Assyria. (After this, it will be Persia, then Greece, and then Rome.) Babylonian armies have laid siege to the city, and eventually they tore down the Temple and reduced Jerusalem to rubble. Then the armies carried off the riches of the city, and the king, and all the religious and political leaders, and all the artisans and craftspeople. And there they all are – in Babylon, exiles in a strange land, longing for home.

In this letter, what the prophet Jeremiah writes to tell them is: You are not coming home. You’re not coming home any time soon. And those who are telling you otherwise... they’re lying to you. They still don’t get the magnitude of the calamity – the seriousness of what has happened here. Prophet after prophet warned you that your injustice to the vulnerable would bring about your calamity. They warned you that you were bringing your own house down upon your heads. They have proclaimed to you, “Peace, peace,” when you know that there is no peace – there is no peace without real justice. Now Jerusalem has been decimated, and you now find yourselves in exile. Things are bad, no matter what the glib, false prophets promise.

Now, there are plenty of false prophets who have been willing to tell the people what they want to hear – even if it’s not true – even if it is a lie – even if their lies keep the people from finding life in their present reality. False prophets told the people there was nothing to worry about as their house came crashing in on them. Just before this scripture, the false prophet Hananiah was trying to convince the people that it will just be a couple of years, and Babylon will fall – don’t worry, no need to DO anything. Jeremiah confronted him: “You have persuaded a nation to trust in lies, and here we are.”

So in this Scripture, Jeremiah is clear: “Don’t let those false prophets and diviners deceive you and distort your reality.” Notice how Jeremiah phrases that: “Don’t listen to the dreams that you [the people] encourage [the false prophets] to have.” There’s a cycle here – the false prophets tell lies because the people want the prophets to not say hard things – hard realities that are hard to face – hard realities that may be necessary to face. Jeremiah is clear: “God says – these false prophets are telling you lies in my name.” Stop encouraging them; stop listening.

To a people living in calamity, the prophet insists – before the prophet says anything else – the prophet insists that they must, at long last, say true things about the current situation. That’s the first step to digging themselves out of this pit. Things are bad. God is still with you, but getting out of this will take time. So build. Build houses there, in your captivity. Build houses. Plant. Live life. There. Have kids, and grand kids – marry, care for each other, grow your life. And pray for the peace of the land where you live – pray for the land of your oppressors. You’re not coming home any time soon. Grow where you are planted. Find your life there.

The prophetic texts of Scripture are all about saying true things about the world – facing the harmful things that must come to an end, so that we can change, and begin to live into the healing that God is bringing into the world even now.^[3] This scripture stands steadfastly against public lies that ignore the harm at loose in the world – against public lies that seek to lull the people into complacency and despair.

In our world, in our day, we are learning a thing or two about calamity and public lies. I’m not going to offer a litany of recent public lies (we don’t have all day). But let’s just mention one big one. And consider the harm.

A few weeks ago, the leaders of the world came to New York for the opening session of the United Nations. Our leader addressed the United Nation – and contrary to every bit of evidence and science – declared that the urgency of climate unravelling is a hoax^[4] -- the biggest existential threat of our day. He said to the leaders of the world: “The ‘climate change’ is the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world.” He said, “All of these predictions made by the United Nations and many others, often for bad reasons, were wrong. They were made by stupid people that have cost their countries fortunes and given those same countries no chance for success. If you don’t get away from this green scam, your country is going to fail.”^[5] He called the concept of carbon footprint a “hoax,” the Paris Accord a “scam,” and he railed against windmills. All while lauding “clean and beautiful coal.” Our nation’s leader said this to world leaders, many of whose nations are already threatened by rising waters, unprecedented heat waves, and super storms exacerbated by climate change.^[6] Don’t worry – nothing to see here – nothing to do here. Just keep going, and all will be well.

We know that’s all a lie. International and US climate assessments have long recognized (with broad scientific consensus) that human activity is the primary cause of global warming, primarily through greenhouse emissions.^[7] The most recent reports tell us that 2024 was the hottest year since they began keeping records – each of the last 10 years has broken the record. We have passed the 1.5 degree threshold, and are bearing down on 2 degrees. We already see extreme weather events and irreversible changes – glaciers melting, sea-level rise. And so on. We know that what the president said at the United Nations was a lie, and we know that if the world buys that lie and does nothing – we will collectively drive ourselves off the climate cliff.

Before the prophets say anything else, they insist that we say true things about the current situation. As one writer puts it, “By announcing a word from God that may sound harsh and hopeless, [the prophet – here, Jeremiah] is actually planting seeds for a hope that is reliable and a restoration that is real.”^[8] We know the danger of calamity and public lies. Say true things, and ground yourselves there, live from there. Grow where you are planted. Look for God there. Even in calamity.

I’ve started reading this amazing book by Diana Butler Bass titled Grounded: Finding God in the World (A Spiritual Revolution).^[9] Diana Butler Bass is a historian who observes and has written a number of books on religion and contemporary spirituality – how folks are living out religion – or spirituality – or none of the above – today. I’ve mentioned her work, and I’m pretty sure Joanne did so before me.

Right at the start of the book, Bass points to a traditional, religious worldview that has seen a three-tiered universe.^[10] There’s heaven, with a distant God, up there. There’s something called hell, where folks have long feared they might go when they die. And there’s here, in the middle, where we live and cry out for God to come down from the heights and fix things, and where we do what we can to avoid the terrors of ending up down-there. Too much of religion has kept that distancing world view in place for far too long.

But, Bass notes, the terrors of the 20^th century and now, we have found, haven’t been down there – they’re right here. And she notices a shift. When folks ask that essential question, “Where is God?” instead of looking up there, a growing number of folks are looking for God right here – looking for God in the midst of the suffering: Where is God loving, comforting, healing, even in the midst of calamity?^[11] That, actually, is a turn (or return) toward another deep (though not dominant) tradition of Christian spirituality – Christian mysticism –Celtic Christianity – Christian spiritualities that looks for an experience of God in the midst of us – that listen right here for the heartbeat of God.

The prophets insist that we say true things about the existing situation, what’s real right here, right now – so that with clear eyes and open hearts – we might find God – we might experience God – here. Paul Tillich encouraged us to abandon all that “height” imagery about God “up there,” and explore the “depth” of our experience of God – dig down roots – think of God as the “ground of being.”^[12] Feminist theologians like Sallie McFague suggest we think of the earth itself, all creation, as the very “body of God.”^[13]

There is good news in this Scripture. God is here. God is there. God is near. Even in calamity. In Babylon. In your pain. Grow where you are planted. Dig down roots there. Draw deeply on your ground of being. Live. And thrive. “Grow where you are planted” is not what the people wanted to hear. But it is what they needed to hear... to live.

As Jared Alcántara points out, this is far from passive acceptance. Our culture tells us that the response to calamity and threat is either “fight or flight.” In this text, it is “dwell there and plant there.” Alcántara sees this as a radical, counter-cultural strategy of nonviolent resistance – to engage calamity with meaningful life – praying for every bit of the world around you – even the good of the city where you are captive – so that all might live and thrive.^[14]Song-Mi Suzie Park sees Jeremiah’s letter as “simple instructions... for resisting despair, dismay, depression, and numbness.”^[15]

Quite a while ago, we decided here that we would say true things about climate unravelling, and, even as we grieved, we would take that reality as our starting point – our ground for thinking of how we shall live in the midst of things. Last year, we gave good thought to Brian McLaren’s possible scenarios of what happens (1) if the world wakes up in time to make things less bad; (2) if the world wakes up so late that folks survive in a radically changed world; or (3) if the world does nothing.^[16]

We realized that individual action alone is not enough. That nations must change. And so Barbara and Royce and others have led us (and encouraged other congregations) to work with the Environmental Voter Project – with thousands of postcards to encourage voters who want the world to survive and thrive.

For the increasing numbers of people on the move, we know the necessity of providing safe shelter and refuge.

In our present calamities, we remain engaged with our partners and neighbors in Marin City to have hard conversations – like last night’s Come to the Table – where we work to unmask and dismantle the entrenched systems of racism.

There’s a Community Fridge just over there – where folks bring the food they can, so that other folks can take the food they need.

Just after worship today, you can walk over to Duncan Hall and make posters for next week’s No Kings rally as we will speak out with millions across this country.

And, you can talk with our Deacons – and connect with all the ways that they lead our life of mutual care and tender mercy – meals when folks are ailing, rides when folks need to get to the doctor, Safeway cards for those who show up at the church needing help, comfort to our families in times of grieving and loss.

All this is about (1) seeing the world as it is, (2) saying true things (even when those things are hard to say and hear), and (3) then growing where we are planted. God is near, even when it feels like the world is crashing down. This is a steady path of nonviolent direct action to heal and set free this hurting world. This is a steady, life-giving, Spirit-empowered way of resisting the powers and resisting the despair and dismay of our day.

The Scripture reading stops where it does this morning, and leaves us with those hurting exiles in Babylon, aching in the calamity of their day. And it gives us a moment to take it all in, in the calamity of ours. Grow where you are planted. Find your life there.

And then, as Jeremiah continues, beyond what we read today, this is what comes next: This is what God says [Jeremiah writes]: When your time in Babylon is completed, I will come to you, and fulfill my gracious promise, and bring you back home. For I know the plans I have for you, declares God, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then, you will call upon me and come and pray, and I will listen. You will seek me, and find me. I will be found with you. I will gather you from all the lost places, and I will bring you home.

This is what God is always doing – even in calamity – even now –

God is always loving us into liberation, love, and life.

^[1] For background on this text and the Book of Jeremiah, see Patrick D. Miller, “The Book of Jeremiah,” New Interpreters’ Bible Commentary, vol. vi (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 2001), pp.788-796; Jared E. Alcántara, Commentary in Connections, Year C, vol. 3 (Louisville, KY; Westminster John Knox Press, 2018); Song-Mi Suzie Park, Commentary in Connections, Year C, vol. 3(Louisville, KY; Westminster John Knox Press, 2018); Wil Gafney, Commentary on Working Preacher at https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-28-3/commentary-on-jeremiah-291-4-7 .