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Today's scripture reading is from Psalm 119, 97-105, and 2 Timothy 3, verses 16 and 17.
A reading from the Psalms.
Oh, how I love your law! It is my meditation all the day.
Your commandment makes me wiser than my enemies, for it is ever with me.
I have more understanding than all my teachers, for your testimonies are my meditation.
I understand more than the aged, for I keep your precepts.
I hold back my feet from every evil way in order to keep your word.
I do not turn aside from your rules, for you have taught me.
How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth.
Through your precepts I get understanding, therefore I hate every false way.
Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.
The grass withers and the flowers fall.
The glory of God stands forever.
A reading from the second letter of Timothy.
All scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,
that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.
This is the word of the Lord.
Thank you, Melissa, for that scripture reading.
Good morning.
My name is Andrew.
I'm one of the pastors here and delighted to open up God's word with you this morning.
But before we do that, let's go to him in prayer.
Father, would you give us a holy anticipation for how you would speak to us through your word, your divinely inspired word that is profitable for all things.
Give us ears to hear, we pray.
Give us a hunger for your word that we might taste the sweetness of it.
Sweeter than honey and more precious than gold.
We want to hear from your word.
In Jesus' name.
Amen.
Alright, so earlier this week, I got to listen to a podcast that I saved all the way back in May.
It's from the Ezra Klein show with the New York Times Opinion.
And what caught my attention about this podcast episode was its title, Your Mind is Being Fracked.
Alright?
Your Mind is Being Fracked.
And you know, I didn't exactly know what fracking was or at least how it worked.
But at the same time, I was pretty sure that that statement was true of me and my mind.
That my mind was being fracked.
And so on this episode, Ezra has this historian of science come on.
His name is D. Graham Burnett.
And he's working on this book on attention.
And he's out at Princeton University.
They're having this conversation about attention and about how we started to pay attention to attention.
And how especially now, attention has become super valuable in this thing we call the attention economy.
Where our attention is being fracked.
Like, it's unnaturally, unhealthily, you know, being harvested and then monetized for, like, tons of money.
According to one data expert that I read this week, our attention every day is worth over $800, right?
In fact, there's a financial planner named Carl Richards.
He wrote for the New York Times.
And he would suggest that our attention is our most valuable asset.
Because unlike money, it's more like time, right?
You can't store it.
You either use it or you lose it.
But it's even more complex and valuable than time.
Because you can spend time on something or with someone.
But not necessarily pay attention to them.
And give them your valuable attention and time.
So Richards, he says that attention may very well be a human being's most valuable asset.
Because in many ways, it's the most in-demand and uniquely personal asset that we have to offer.
To give someone our attention is to give them our very selves in a very real sense.
And this is precisely why our minds, our attention is being fracked, right?
It's super valuable.
And I don't know exactly how that works in your life.
But totally, my mind gets fracked all the time.
My attention.
And this is how it happens.
Even for me, a pastor, a preacher.
This is how it goes on a normal week.
But specifically when I'm writing these sermons, all right?
So I'll be writing one of these sermons.
And then I'll be tired.
I'll get stuck.
Or, you know, I just kind of need a little dopamine hit.
A little escape.
So I, you know, in my weariness, I take a break from the deep work, right?
And I'll very often turn my attention to YouTube or Instagram or Facebook.
See if there's anything new or interesting to entertain me.
Give me something mindless that I can just kind of consume.
But I think we've all been there, right?
What happens?
Doom scrolling, right?
Rabbit trails into endless content punctuated by these annoying five-second ads and sponsored posts, right?
For me, I can go from a Steph Curry video to funny scenes from The Office to a comedian clip to a food vlogger.
And actually, one thing that's super unique to my algorithm is I like to watch chiropractic videos
where they crack people's backs really loud.
And then, like, they go home healed.
Apparently, there's a name for people like me.
I'm a crack addict, apparently.
But all this is to say, you know, Instagram and YouTube managed to capture my attention for way longer than I care to admit.
So, oftentimes, I'm like, oh, shoot, where did that 25, 45 minutes just go?
It's like, oh, man, my mind got fracked again.
YouTube paid a content creator, you know, X amount of dollars to capture my attention.
And I unwittingly paid for that content with my attention.
But the thing is, was it an exchange that benefited me nearly as much as, you know, the CEO of YouTube?
Did it make me a richer person, a healthier person, a wiser person, a more deeply rooted person,
the person that God made me to be?
Probably not.
Usually, usually not.
Unless I'm, like, re-watching one of Jonathan's sermons.
Then it's, like, all good, right?
In truth, in this attention economy, we're often swindled.
We're literally paying our attention to someone or something else for things of lesser value than what our attention is truly worth.
So, the question I want us to consider this morning is, what is our attention worth?
And not just what's it worth to Meta or, you know, some other big tech company,
but what's it worth to you?
And even more importantly, what's our attention worth to God?
I want us to pay attention to our attention today, all right?
Now, if you're new today, you know that we've been going through this series in the Psalms on the holy habits,
these holy habits of grace, the spiritual disciplines that Christians have been practicing for thousands of years
to help them commune with God and be formed into the deeply rooted, flourishing people that God intended them to be.
And the particular holy habit that we're going to be talking about today is the spiritual discipline of meditation.
Meditation.
Now, in case you missed the very first sermon in this series, Jonathan opened this series up from Psalm chapter 1.
And by the way, our kids and our youth are going to be memorizing Psalm chapter 1,
so we would ask that everyone participate in that.
Let's memorize Psalm 1 together.
Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the ungodly or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers,
but his delight is in the law of the Lord.
And then what does it say?
That he makes a lot of interesting observations, that he tries to memorize it, that he tries to read it every day.
No, on this law, it says he meditates day and night.
See, what the Psalms teach is that foundational to a blessed life, foundational to a rooted life,
foundational to a flourishing life full of transcendent wisdom and vibrant fruitfulness.
If you want to be like a tree planted by streams of water yielding fruit in season with leaves that do not wither,
it's not enough to just not walk in the counsel of the wicked, to not stand in the way of sinners,
to not sit in the seat of mockers.
It's not even enough to just read your Bible or study your Bible or memorize your Bible every day.
No, we will not become large, flourishing evergreens unless we meditate on the words of God.
Unless we meditate on the words of God.
But now, what does that even mean?
To meditate on the law of the Lord.
Well, if I could put it simply and put two words into your heads to help you understand what meditation is,
I'd say that meditation is about attention and maintenance.
Those are the two words I want in your head.
Attention and maintenance.
So let's start with attention.
Now, I want to briefly distinguish between Christian meditation
and what many of us understand as transcendental meditation or mindfulness practices.
And if you want a more complete discussion of that,
I would highly recommend this article in the Journal of Biblical Counseling called,
or by Joanna Jackson.
Highly recommend it.
I could send that to you if you're interested in that.
But let me just start by saying,
I'm not here to bash on the yogis out there,
or to bash on you mindfulness enthusiasts.
It is entirely fine and even appropriate to,
you know, in our fast-paced society,
take a moment to stop and breathe and slow yourself down,
take some time to collect your wits and to be present to the moment.
But what sets the Christian discipline of meditation apart from other forms of mindfulness and meditation,
what sets it apart from New Age spirituality and Buddhism and medieval mysticism,
is that in Christian meditation,
our aim is not simply to empty our minds and consciousness,
but to fill them with the words and works of God.
Christian meditation is full of content.
It's meant to be an encounter with a person,
with God,
and with His promises,
and with what He's revealed to us.
Contrary to many Eastern versions of meditation,
words aren't the problem,
an active mind isn't the problem,
our attention isn't meant to be turned completely inward,
toward our deepest, innermost, individualistic self and body,
or to some void called the present.
That's not the ultimate goal.
God is the goal of meditation.
Psalm 46,
God says to us,
Be still,
and know that I am God.
The goal is communion and conversation with God,
centered on the words that He's provided to us in the Scriptures.
Christian meditation is bringing our attention to the revealed words of God,
filling our minds and our hearts for the purpose of being with Him.
See, because in a very real sense,
God's words are His presence.
God is present to us in His words to us.
That's what the psalmist says here in verse 97,
Oh, how I love your law.
I meditate on it all day long.
Your commands are always with me.
He's not simply in love with God's law,
because, oh, these are such great rules.
These are such great truths and statements.
No, he loves them because this is the voice of God in His ears
as he reads the Scriptures.
God's voice in His head is God's presence in His heart.
When Christians take up the practice of meditation,
we are giving attention to God's Word,
giving our attention to His very presence with us through those words.
The holy habit of meditation is giving our attention to God,
particularly by giving our attention to what He's revealed about Himself and His heart.
And very practically, this starts with just reading the Bible.
Just read the Bible.
And if that is something that you're not in the habit of practicing,
we want to encourage that to you as your first step toward this holy habit of Christian meditation.
And if you want to know where to start,
look at the back of your liturgies.
We have a Bible reading plan for everyone to jump right into.
It's super simple.
But the thing is, though, don't just read it like you might read your news feed
or any other literary work.
I mean, yes, you want to understand it,
but the difference between our approach to the Bible
versus every other human work has to do with what Melissa read in 2 Timothy 3.
This is not just any literary work.
It is God-breathed.
It is from God.
We call it God's Word.
We don't need to turn off our brains when we read it,
but we definitely need to encounter it,
not just as any literary work.
We can bring our questions to it,
but we want to make sure that we encounter it the way God intended.
We come to the Scriptures not seeking to just fill our minds with mere knowledge
or as judges trying to decide whether or not we agree with this
or as researchers seeking to objectify the Scriptures
and just rationally and empirically understand it.
The Bible is not a cadaver to dissect.
Unlike, you know, Beowulf or the Odyssey or the Cat in the Hat,
we are meant to have a relationship with the Bible,
with the Scriptures, just as Jesus did.
It's the living and active Word of God
and His very voice graciously coming to be present with us.
So we don't just read it,
and we don't even just study it,
though we do both,
but we meditate upon it.
Like Jonathan said a couple weeks ago,
like a dog on a bone,
like a child with a lollipop.
We linger, right?
We linger with it.
We savor it.
Focus on the flavors.
Notice its richness in every word.
For example,
the Lord is my shepherd.
The Lord is my shepherd.
The one and only, right?
The Lord is my shepherd.
The I am.
Yahweh is my shepherd.
The Lord is my shepherd.
He's mine, and I am His.
The God of the universe says,
I can call Him my own.
The Lord is my shepherd,
my guide,
my protector,
my healer,
the one who feeds me,
the one who pursues me,
the crazy, one-of-a-kind shepherd
who lays his life down for a sheep.
What kind of shepherd does that?
This is what it is to meditate and linger upon
and savor God's Word.
It's to give it tons of attention
and to understand it deeper and deeper
and the way it connects with the rest of Scripture
and displays the heart of God
and the person of Christ.
Like, wow.
The Lord is my shepherd in Christ
who said I am the good shepherd.
And then we apply it to our lives as well
and we pray it into our heads
and into our hearts
and out into our hands
like, Lord,
help me to be so convinced
that You are my shepherd
and that in and through Christ
You will prepare a table before me
and my cup will overflow.
Convince me so much of those truths
that I might abundantly
and generously live toward others
because I so believe
that I have a good shepherd
and I shall not want.
Thank you, Jesus.
That is the practice of meditation.
To meditate on God's Word
is to let the teabag of Scripture
steep long and deep
into the water of our hearts and minds
so that our hearts and minds
turn the color of God's heart
and God's mind
and our lives carry out
the aroma of Christ.
And one way of really letting
that teabag steep
is not just through reading Scripture a lot
but memorizing it.
Hiding it in our hearts.
You know, all the people I've ever known
who seem to me the godliest,
the nearest to Christ,
the most rooted,
the most self-controlled,
unflappable,
like non-anxious presence
kinds of people,
they've all been people
who are devoted
to memorizing Scripture.
I want to tell you about
one of my seminary professors,
one of my favorite ones.
I TA'd for him
and I even did a one-credit thing
for him where I memorized Scripture
and he gave me a credit for it
and it was like super hard.
His name's Dr. Vern Poitras
and he has memorized more Scripture
than anyone I've ever known
and he's probably the smartest person
I've ever met too.
He's got two PhDs,
one in math from Harvard
and then he decided to do another one
in New Testament, right?
Incredibly humble guy,
very modest
and just evidently near to God.
Now, as legend has it,
at Westminster Seminary,
there was a day
when Dr. Poitras was eating his lunch
over his Bible,
just whispering over his Bible
with his lunch by himself
and another one of our professors goes,
hey, Dr. Poitras,
what you doing?
Dr. Poitras goes,
I'm just memorizing Habakkuk.
Oh, you think that's the funny part?
All right.
So, the other professor's like,
oh, why Habakkuk?
Dr. Poitras goes,
well, it was the next one.
It was the next one.
Apparently, Dr. Poitras has memorized
the entire New Testament,
the entirety of the Psalms,
the second half of Isaiah,
Ecclesiastes,
the Song of Solomon,
all the minor prophets,
Ruth,
and several other portions
of the Old Testament.
It's pretty incredible, right?
And it wasn't just for show,
it's because Dr. Poitras,
he's the one who taught me
that God's word
is God's presence.
Dr. Poitras believes
in the power and presence of God
in the scriptures,
in the word of God.
When we memorize the scriptures,
when we memorize the word of God,
this powerful personal force
that said,
let there be light
and made it so,
that power
is stored in our minds
and in our hearts
and it becomes ready
for our lips
to bring encouragement
to ourselves
when we need it
and also comfort
and blessing to others
when they need it.
And I can think of
no better example of this
than in our church
in the life of one of our elders,
Brian Lee.
I asked him earlier
if I could share
about how this worked out for him,
but, you know,
on the day Isaac,
his firstborn high school son,
passed away
almost three years ago now.
He and Sam were at the hospital
and Isaac's siblings,
Julia and Jack,
were on the way
to say their last goodbyes.
And as they were on their way over,
you know,
Brian thought to himself
as a dad,
like,
man,
what words could I possibly have
in a moment like this?
What could I possibly say
to Julia and Jack
when they arrive?
But, you know,
at the same time,
you know what came to him?
Well,
at that,
in the couple months before,
several men in our church
had been memorizing
John chapter 14 through 17.
It's Jesus' upper room discourse,
his last words to his disciples
before he goes to the cross.
So as he's thinking,
what are the words I'm gonna say?
What comes to him
are Jesus' very first words
from that discourse.
John chapter 14, verse 1,
let not your hearts be troubled.
Believe in God.
Believe also in me.
In my Father's house,
there are many rooms.
If it were not so,
would I have told you
that I go to prepare a place
for you?
And if I go
and prepare a place
for you,
I will come again
and will take you to myself
that where I am,
you may be also.
And you know
the way
to where
I am going.
And that is the power
of the word of God.
See,
holy habits
are not some weird
Christian hobbies,
just these religious practices
that Christians like to take up
so they can consider themselves
holy
and better than other people.
Now,
the holy habits
are how we give our attention
to the speaking God
who wants to be powerfully present
with us
in every circumstance.
He's the only one
who can ground
us
and empower us
as we experience
this power
in His words.
We experience this power
when we meditate
upon His powerful words,
when we give Him
and His words
our utmost attention.
We get to enjoy
His nearness
and we get to be a blessing
and a comfort
to those around us.
And see,
this is why
our attention
is so valuable,
so precious.
Our attention
is so valuable
because it shapes
the people
we are becoming.
We become
what we behold
or we become
what we are beholden to.
When we gaze upon the Lord,
we become more like Him.
And now,
this is where I want to talk
about meditation
as maintenance.
Now,
maybe the reason
you don't read the Bible
or memorize it
and certainly don't
meditate upon it
or really practice
any spiritual disciplines
at all
is because
maybe you feel like
doing so
would just be fake
and inauthentic
to your shallow
or virtually non-existent
relationship with God.
And if that's you this morning,
one thing I want you to hear
is that even if you don't feel
like you have a relationship
with God
or aren't sure
if you could have
a relationship with God,
He wants you to know
that He has a relationship
with you
and He would love
to have more
of your attention.
Even if you don't
consider yourself
a Christian
this morning,
you're invited
into this practice
of meditation,
of drawing your attention
to this God
you're not even sure
that you can believe in.
See,
in this psalm,
meditation isn't just
something for super Christians.
I know it can seem
that way
with all the enthusiasm
that Melissa read
Psalm verse 97,
but actually,
if you follow this psalm
from verse 97 onward,
you can find
a sequence,
a progression,
a transforming effect
that's happening
in the heart and mind
and in the hands
of the psalmist
as he practices meditation.
So first,
what you see
in verses 97 and 99
is like the sustained meditation.
It's like the more
the psalmist meditates,
the more he experiences
the presence of God
and the wisdom of God.
In verse 98
and then in verse 99,
the more surprising insight
he discovers about life,
insight that his teachers
could never even offer him.
And then with that,
his life is changed.
He finds himself
gladly obeying
because of the wisdom
and insight
that he's discovered
in the law of the Lord.
Verse 100,
I have more understanding
than the elders
for I obey your precepts.
And not only is it
his life that's changed
for the better,
but his heart
and his desires
are changed as well.
He wants to obey.
Verse 101,
I have kept my feet
from every evil path
so that I might obey your word.
He even wants to be
in the presence of God.
He doesn't want to depart
from God in his words,
but sees himself
as having been
personally taught
and guided by God.
Verse 102,
I have not departed
from your laws
for you yourself
have taught me.
This sequence
that began with meditation
leads to further delight
in God's words.
Verse 103,
how sweet are your words
to my taste,
sweeter than honey
in my mouth.
In this sequence,
he grows in love
with God
and with what God says.
And he grows in hatred
toward the things
that lead away
from this amazing God.
God.
Verse 104,
I gain understanding
from your precepts,
therefore I hate
every wrong path.
And I point out
this sequence to you
to indicate that meditation
is a holy habit
that helps us maintain
and develop
and nurture
a proper and rightful
relationship with God.
When we practice
Christian meditation
of the scriptures,
we are tending
to our relationship
with God.
We are nurturing
our communion
with God
and we are growing
in it like a gardener
ever tending to
and developing
his garden.
Meditation isn't
something we graduate
from.
It's a daily habit
God calls us into
that continually
shapes us
and makes us more
like the one
we are beholding.
Blessed is the man
whose delight
is in the law
of the Lord
and on his law
he meditates
day and night
and he is like a tree
ever growing
and reaching
toward heaven
on high.
Meditation
is the practice
of maintenance
that guides
and preserves
the process
of who we are
becoming.
This is why
in his book
that I referenced
a couple weeks ago
The Common Rule
pick it up
if you haven't
already
just in early
he commends
a rule of life
in which we
modern western people
start our days
with scriptures
before phone.
Scripture before phone
is one of his
common rule of life
principles.
He writes this
who am I
and who am I
becoming
these are the
questions
our morning
routines
are inevitably
asking and
answering for us
but no words
except the words
of scripture
can bear the weight
of a response
to these questions.
The story of scripture
is clear.
We do not know
who we are
apart from the God
who made us
and we do not know
who we are becoming
apart from the God
who is renewing us.
Early would remind us
that we are made
in the image of God
meaning that we are
all like mirrors.
That's what it means
to be a human
to be a mirror
created to reflect
everything about God.
We are our truest selves
when we are reflecting
the image of this God
who is way bigger than us
but the problem
is sin, right?
When we chose
to give our attention
to other less worthy
things
the image of God
was broken.
It was broken.
We became like
broken shards of glass
broken human beings
who have forgotten
who we are
and what we were made
for.
So the only solution
is for us
to redirect
our attention
to give our attention
to our creator
once again
and to maintain
our daily rhythm
and habit
of turning ourselves
toward him
that we might reflect him
as the best version
of ourselves.
He continues to write
we become
what or who we reflect
which is to say
we become
what we pay attention to.
We can't become
ourselves
by ourselves
the way we discover
ourselves
is by staring
at someone else.
When we turn
our eyes
toward Jesus
only there
do we finally see
the kind of person
we were made
to be like.
We are children
of the king
perfectly loved
not because
that's just who we are
but because that's
who he is making us into.
Our most true
sense of identity
is found
only in the story
only in the scriptures
which tell of
who we are becoming
and the story
is found
in the words
of the Bible.
We can become
ourselves
only by gazing
on that story.
Every morning
there are other stories
competing for our identity.
The common rule habit
of scripture before phone
is intended
to cultivate
the habit
of resisting
those stories
and embracing
the true story.
So the holy habits
particularly
this holy habit
of meditation
is what keeps us
rooted.
rooted in God
and rooted
in God's story.
The holy habits
are practices
given to us
by God
in order that
we might give him
our utmost attention
and maintain
a regular rhythm
of communing
with him
hearing his voice
and enjoying
his presence.
Now I want to say
one last thing
about maintenance.
You know I think
for a lot of us
we hesitate
to take up
these holy habits
because it's hard
for us to believe
that they're worth
our time.
Right?
Honestly.
Doesn't meditation
feel more like
a privilege
than a priority?
Doesn't it feel
more costly
to not finish
the laundry
or the dishes
or to meet
our work deadlines
than to miss
our daily time
of meditation
in the word of God?
It doesn't seem
costly to skip
meditation, right?
Does it really
form me
that much better
when I
spend time
meditating
on the words
of scripture?
I think if we're
all honest
with ourselves
spending time
with God
and in his word
can seem
like a drag
and unfruitful
and worst of all
unproductive,
right?
And even when we
try to meditate
on the scriptures
we don't always
feel like a tree
being nourished
by a fresh river,
right?
Maybe we feel
like we're still
waiting for that season
we're supposedly
supposed to bear fruit
but it hasn't
come yet.
Maybe the idea
of meditating
on the Bible
seems even contrary
to our vision
of what it means
to be a fruitful
and healthy tree.
If that describes
you just like
it often describes
me, the question
for us I think
is what if
our vision
of a flourishing
fruitful tree
is wrong,
is off?
Last week
one of our members
Jonathan Chang
you might know
him as the
Jonathan of
Jonathan and
Carlene
he suggested
that I check
out this
local Oakland
atheist artist
and author
her name is
Jenny Odell
and he said
he thought
there would
be a lot
of overlap
between what
Jonathan and
I have been
preaching
and the last
two books
that she's written
so I listened
this week
on Audible
to her
New York Times
bestseller
it's titled
How to Do
Nothing
Resisting the
Attention Economy
and I was super
thankful for the
recommendation
thank you
Jonathan
now first
you might think
that this would
just be another
book you know
critiquing the
attention economy
warning us
about the dangers
of it
another book
about maybe
self-care
and how to
fight
you know
the hustle
culture
but what made
Jenny's book
stand out to me
was that she
wasn't simply
offering the same
critique or
life advice
that you'd find
in all these
other books
she's not
anti-technology
and she's
actually quite
annoyed at how
self-care and
mindfulness have
become
commercialized
and most
importantly
she is also
very critical
of the way
self-care and
Sabbath have been
promoted for
the sake of
more productivity
and more
optimization
for Jenny
O'Dell her
commendation to
us to do
nothing more
is not for the
sake of making
us more efficient
and productive
and optimized
but actually
she commends
to us to do
nothing as an
act of resistance
against a culture
that's all about
shallow attention
and just hooked on
continually churning
out new product
after new product
she writes
beyond self-care
the practice
of doing nothing
has something
broader to offer
us an antidote
to the rhetoric
of growth
she says
look around
everywhere else
in the organic
health
biological
ecological
world
when we see
things that grow
unchecked
we consider those
things as
cancerous
right
or as parasitic
yet we inhabit
a culture
that privileges
novelty and growth
over the cyclical
and the regenerative
our very idea
of productivity
is premised
on the idea
of producing
something new
whereas we do
not tend to see
maintenance
and care
as productive
in the same way
and this has really
stuck with me
this idea that
care and maintenance
should be valued
just as much
if not more
than novelty
and mere production
completing new tasks
making more new products
downloading more new
information
consuming more
new content
more and more
I think the picture
of the tree
in Psalm 1
the blessed person
who meditates
on the law
of the Lord
day and night
and who is like
a tree
planted by
a river
I don't think
it's a picture
of someone
who is
making it
their primary
their number one
priority
to produce more
no fruit
is just a natural
byproduct
of health
I think Psalm 1
is a picture
of a tree
that's simply
focused
on being a healthy
tree
on deepening
its roots
into the river
maintaining
its relationship
with that stream
and the fruit
doesn't come
immediately
or even
all the time
right
no the promise
is just that
it eventually
comes
in season
perhaps
even in a season
a long way off
and yet
in God's
perfect timing
and my question
for us
is what if
that's the kind
of tree
God wants us
to be
as we devote
ourselves
to meditation
upon his words
with seemingly
little to show
for it sometimes
what if
for a time
we are called
to be rejected
trees
seen by
everybody else
as unproductive
and unfruitful
and ugly
and useless
because we're not
rooted in workaholism
and in anxious
hustling
but because we're
rooted in Christ
in her book
Jenny points
to this 500 year old
tree in Oakland
it's called
old survivor
it's the last
remaining
old growth
tree
it's the only
pre gold rush
tree that the
loggers didn't
cut down
because one
it was too
hard to get
to
it was on
a steep
little hill
it was a lot
shorter than
the other
redwoods
so they're
like we don't
really need
to get that
one
and also
it had
like a
strange
twisted shape
that made
it less
attractive
and less
valuable
for timber
and yet
there it
stands today
as the only
one left
it's the
old
survivor
precisely
because
it was just
being a tree
and yet deemed
useless
by the
industrial
impulse
toward
productivity
and to me
this is a
picture of
the narrow
way of
Jesus
where the
stone
the builders
rejected
has become
the chief
cornerstone
and for us
who have
eyes to see
it is
marvelous
in our
eyes
right
for the
word of the
cross
is folly
to those
who are
perishing
but to
those
of us
who are
being
saved
it is
what
it's
the
power
of
God
and this
power
is for
us
if we
will
meditate
upon his
words
and believe
him
when he
says
man shall
not live
by bread
alone
but by
every word
that comes
from the
mouth
of God
and has
he not
shown us
the power
and truth
of these
words
in his
living
and in
his dying
and in
his living
again
in every
circumstance
in joy
and in
sorrow
he was
always
meditating
upon the
words
of his
father
day
and
night
this
is the
God
we are
called
to give
our
attention
to
this
is the
kind
of
God
who
is
worthy
of
our
utmost
attention
he
is
the
vine
of
life
who
invites
us
to
abide
in
him
as
his
life
giving
words
abide
in
us
so
let's
be
that
kind
of
people
let's
be
those
kinds
of
trees
better
yet
let's
be
a
garden
here
in
the
east
bay
for
the
glory
of
God
and
for
the
good
of
our
neighbors
let's
pray
Lord
make us
like
that
kind
of
a
tree
would
you
save
us
from
superficial
understandings
of
productivity
and
usefulness
and
worth
and
value
would
you
give
us
the
mind
and
eyes
of
Christ
and
would
you
do
that
in
us
as
we
meditate
upon
your
word
would
you
shape
our
minds
and
shape
our
hearts
and
shape
our
lives
after
the
pattern
of
Jesus
he
is
the
ultimate
tree
of
someone
even
though
he
was
one
who
died
and
was
cursed
upon
a
tree
he
rose
again
to
show
us
that
we
can
trust
in
your
word
we
can
love
your
word
we
can
dedicate
ourselves
to
it
and
even
though
we
may
die
we
will
rise
again
just
like
our
savior
in
him
we
pray
amen