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Blooming Where We’re Planted

Rev. Doug Pratt — January 31, 2010

 

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By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept
      when we remembered Zion.
²There on the poplars
      we hung our harps,
³for there our captors asked us for songs,
      our tormentors demanded songs of joy;
      they said, “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!”
⁴How can we sing the songs of the LORD
      while in a foreign land?
⁵If I forget you, O Jerusalem,
      may my right hand forget its skill.
⁶May my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth
      if I do not remember you,
  if I do not consider Jerusalem
      my highest joy.
Psalm 137:1-6

Introduction
Janet’s physician husband had been, for over a decade, a general surgeon and the head of the residency program at a suburban Boston teaching hospital. He was unexpectedly contacted by the University of Arizona School of Medicine in Tucson, and through a series of interviews was hired to be a professor and the head of the department of surgery. It was his dream job, an unanticipated answer to his prayers. He immediately left New England to get started in the new position, leaving Janet to pack up and market their house and arrange for the move. Once the moving van pulled out of their driveway headed southwest, she prepared her car for the long solitary drive across the North American continent. She loaded it up with a couple suitcases, books and music on CD’s, and a beautiful plant her best friend Debbie had given her at her goodbye party. The long journey along the interstate highway gave Janet plenty of opportunity to cry through and pray through her emotions.

When she got to the new home in Tucson, everything was profoundly different. She didn’t know anyone. Her husband was working incredibly long hours. The city and its culture and the stark desert scenery around her felt totally foreign—so unlike the rolling hills and the nearby Atlantic shoreline she had loved in New England. She tried to busy herself with setting up and moving into the house. The plant from Debbie that she had carried on the front seat as her companion on the long drive was given a place on their back patio, shaded from the hot desert sun, where Janet could water it and care for it and remember her friends by it.

One morning as she sat on her patio, praying and reading her Bible, missing her former home and relationships, and feeling a bit sorry for herself, she looked over at her plant. She noticed a new bloom popping out of it, and the leaves were shiny and green. Obviously this little potted plant had adapted quite well to its relocation. And that’s when it hit Janet: God had given her that plant to teach her a lesson. Just as it was blooming in its new environment, so should she. That was an inner turning point. “Alright, Lord,” she prayed. “You brought me here. I don’t know why yet. But I’m willing to let you help me bloom in this new place.”

Coping with Change
Changes come at intervals throughout our lives. And a long-distance move or relocation can be one of the hardest and most disruptive to us. The statistics on the mobility of the American people are staggering. The numbers for 2008 indicate that nearly 45 million people in our nation alone moved their place of residence that year—for at least part of the year, if not permanently.

Many of us have moved recently to this community from somewhere else. And many of us move at least twice a year, from a northern to a southern home and then back again. Some moves are much-desired and joyfully chosen. Other moves feel forced upon us, for a wide range of reasons. Sometimes we are excited about a move; other times we dread it and struggle to adjust to it, as our friend Janet did in her move to Tucson. Think about the incredible adjustments and inner turmoil that hundreds of thousands of Haitians have been experiencing in the past few weeks, as they have left the rubble of Port-au-Prince to head to the countryside or emigrate to another country.

Even the relocations we choose and initiate bring challenges with them. When we undertake them, we make choices that will lead us towards either growth or decline. A significant move can either prove to be a loss or an opportunity for positive enhancement.

We’re thinking about the experience of moving and starting over for several reasons today. For one, Southwest Florida is a community made up primarily of people who have come from somewhere else. Secondly, in this annual Kirkin’ o’ the Tartan service, we are celebrating a nation and culture, originating in Scotland, that has spread worldwide and has had a phenomenal impact on continents and nations and peoples thousands of miles from the Scottish homeland. A third reason is that the history of God’s Word and the spread of the Christian message is all about people who were on the move. And finally, we’re talking about the experience of moving because, in many ways, the life of faith is one that takes us from one place to another—as Billy Graham describes in his final book, The Journey.

Our biblical text for today is Psalm 137. I find myself drawn again and again to the Psalms, the book that resides at the center of the Bible, because it speaks so honestly and powerfully to all the experiences and emotions of life. And sometimes the feelings expressed in the Psalms are pretty raw and unfiltered. That’s what we find here.

The Babylonian Exile
The context that produced Psalm 137 was a devastating experience for many of the people of Israel: a forced move or relocation, away from their homes and the beautiful rolling hills of the Holy Land to the hot and hostile foreign country of Babylon (today’s Iraq). This was definitely not a move this author had chosen. He had not purchased a retirement condo on the banks of the Euphrates River. Instead, he and many of his countrymen (the Jews) were being forcibly relocated. “Pack your suitcases,” the conquering army of Nebuchadnezzar said. “We’re taking you back with us to Babylon.” And so the best and the brightest of a whole generation found themselves in a place they didn’t choose. And at the time these words are written, they’re obviously not adjusting very well to it.

“By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept (137:1).” They looked back towards Mount Zion, the hill on which their beloved hometown of Jerusalem was set, and their hearts were broken. They wallowed in depression. Singing the old songs with the joy they once felt seemed impossible. They were determined to never adjust to this new place, to keep their minds locked onto a place—Jerusalem—that they would never see again in their lifetimes. Their plaintive grief is best summed up in verse 4: “How can we sing the songs of the Lord while in a foreign land?” And their emotions were answering: We can’t!. It’s impossible. There is no way we can bloom in this new place.

God’s Purposes
But these words are not the final chapter of their story. This is just their initial reaction. Though they thought all was lost, and concluded that God had abandoned and rejected them, and even had jumped to the assumption that the purpose of redemption would never be fulfilled, they were wrong. As we look back now, from the perspective of history, we can see that this unwanted move to Babylon is part of God’s plan. And we can see His purposes in it.

Why did God allow His people to be taken far away for a generation, before returning them to resettle and rebuild their homeland? How could any good come of that? There were several reasons for this dramatic move.

God used the Jews to be a great blessing to the pagan empire of Babylon, the superpower of its day. Read the books of Daniel and Esther in the Old Testament and you will see how godly people, following the principles of Scripture, actually became powerful and influential among the great empires of the ancient world. Like a little salt that flavors meat or a little leaven that causes a loaf to rise, they had an impact.

God used the exile of the Jews to purify them and renew them spiritually; to give them a fresh start. As individuals, we can all get into some bad habits and ruts: in our jobs, our marriages, our personal habits and our physical lifestyle. The nation of Israel had drifted into a really bad rut. They needed to be lifted out of it dramatically. It was the fresh start that this unplanned relocation triggered that led to a great reawakening—and we read that story in the books of Nehemiah and Ezra and Haggai.

God used the process of scattering the Jewish people as a future strategy for what He intended to accomplish centuries later, when His plan for the redemption of mankind was completed by the coming of His Son. The apostles were sent out on their mission to take the Good News to the whole earth, and as Peter and Paul and John and the rest traveled by divine guidance, they found scattered colonies and synagogues of Jews in nearly every city across the ancient world. That was where their proclamation began. In effect, these pockets of Jews waiting for the Messiah became the fertile Petri dishes in which Christian churches were germinated. All through the Book of Acts, the brilliance of God’s plan to first scatter the Jews, and then send the Gospel message to them, is reconfirmed.

God used the experience of His people in being relocated to help them discover that He is everywhere. The Lord of the Universe is not localized in any one place. The Jews discovered that they could talk to God in Babylon or Persia or Greece or Rome or Egypt, and He is the same God. He is, in fact, as much here in this place as anywhere. And wherever we go on earth, He is right there with us.

Imagining ourselves in the place of the writer of Psalm 137, we realize that he couldn’t see all that God was going to do. This is what can happen to any of us: our immediate situation completely obscures our perspective. When we’re down in a pit, we can’t see out of it. And that’s where faith comes in. That’s why we need to be reminded that, even though we may feel grief or loneliness, sadness or fear, the Lord is still with us—and He will never abandon us. The classic mistake of the author of our psalm is so common. When a person moves—like our friend Janet, who had to pull up her New England roots and replant them in Arizona—the common mistake is to hold on to the past and to memories, to sink into feelings of grief and loss, and let those control us. What God wants us to do, instead, is to trust Him enough that we embrace and adapt to the present—knowing that His grace is sufficient for these new challenges.

A Nation on the Move
We celebrate the heritage and example of the nation of the Scots on this Sunday each year not primarily because we like bagpipe music, nor because we enjoy the colors of the tartans, nor because it’s fun to see men wearing skirts. Those are really incidental. The real point we want to remember and celebrate and teach to subsequent generations is the way in which God’s faithfulness is shown through those who trust in Him. That’s why the Scottish heritage has had such a profound effect on the world. There were several waves of large-scale outward migrations from Scotland and the Scottish settlements of the northern half of Ireland. Some of the Scots chose to leave their beloved homelands to start a new life for themselves and their families. Others felt great pressures to leave, as in the periods known as the “Highland Clearances” in the 17th and 18th centuries, when English armies drove out many of the clans. Scots in large numbers moved across the waves to the New World of America and Canada, to southern Africa, and to Australia and New Zealand. The impact they had is well-documented in an outstanding book by historian Arthur Herman entitled How the Scots Invented the Modern World—and those of you who enjoy history might find it as fascinating and eye-opening as I did.

Why were the Scots so singularly effective in moving from one place to another and making such a difference? It is clear that they “bloomed where they were planted.” They took their values, their courage, their determination and work ethic, and their faith, wherever they went. Though they took with them and cherished their love of their homeland, and their bagpipes and music, and their clans and tartans, they chose to not pine for their homeland in hopeless resignation and despair. They believed that their future could be as good as, or better than, their past—with God’s help.

And I personally believe that this is the key to why the Scots could “bloom” so beautifully: because they were, as much as any nation the world has seen, a People of the Book. They were steeped in the Scriptures. All Scottish children were taught to read, so that they could know this Book. The worship services of the Presbyterian and Reformed faith were built around the reading and proclamation of the Word of God. And they were a people of the whole book, not just the Old Testament. They understood how Jesus transformed and completed the plan of God, and the role He intended for them to carry out. Though in portions of the Old Testament it appears as if God is “circling the wagons” and pulling everything in towards Jerusalem, once the Cross and the Resurrection had been accomplished the direction moved dramatically and irreversibly outward.

Listen to these, the final words of Jesus in Matthew 28: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them ... and teaching them … And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” They’re not told to come back home to Jerusalem and stay there. Nor are they to weep and pine and complain, as the writer of Psalm 137, “How can we sing the LORD’s song in a foreign land?” No, Jesus has put His song within us and has sent us out to sing it clearly and forcefully everywhere. And the Scots, informed by their New Testaments, went forward without fear. Because they had the final promise of their Lord to cling to and claim: “I am with you always.” Wherever they went, the same God met them there and strengthened and sustained them.

Principles to Remember
As I close, I want us to think about what these truths mean to us. While some of us have been living where we are for awhile and feel settled and comfortable, others of us know very well right now what it feels like to go through the disruptions and dislocations of a move. And some of us are moving frequently: ripping up the roots in one place and trying to replant them in another. Even when we choose a relocation and look forward to it, there are still adjustments. There are the practical ones: how do I find a doctor, a car repairman, a dry cleaner, or a pizza parlor to replace what I left behind? And there are emotional adjustments as well: feeling lonely, feeling cut off from people and places we miss, feeling disoriented.

When those times of change come, remember these two principles from Scripture. First: the Lord has guaranteed—has pledged His name and His honor on the assurance—that He will always be with us. So we can turn to Him, read His Word, and pray to Him anytime and anywhere. And the second principle: people adapt to change better when they’re connected to others in relationships than when they try to do it by themselves. If you’re new to this community, you need a church. If this isn’t the right one for you, don’t quit looking till you find one and get involved in it. The Jews of the ancient world, when God scattered them, bonded together in fellowships called synagogues. The churches of the New Testament were built on the same model. You can be a Christian without being part of a church—but you can’t be as effective and strong all by yourself as you can with others.

Conclusion
Some of us here are going through situations that are new and challenging to us—even if our street address hasn’t changed for a long time. A change comes when a doctor diagnoses a disease or condition that limits or alters our lifestyle. Profound change can come when a family member dies, when a child moves away from home, when we lose a job, and when a time of volunteer service comes to an end. Change can, without a doubt, be very hard to adjust to—whether we’re young or old or in-between.

But changes in life and our situation also bring opportunities to learn in a new way the basic lessons from God’s Word. When all around us changes, we can choose to trust in God. When we find ourselves in a new place, we can choose to “bloom where we’re planted.”