Psalm 1 Meditation for Fellowship Potluck Scott Hoezee

If you were to look back at the Church Calendar section of our weekly bulletin about 5-6 weeks ago and then compared it to what that Calendar looked like in today's bulletin, you would immediately notice a great contrast. Several times this past summer the only event listed for an entire week was a softball game or two. Had it not been for those games, there were some weeks when our calendar of events would have skipped directly from one Sunday to the next with no meetings, no events, no programs scheduled. But no more! Since Labor Day came and went, I would imagine that a great many of you have said something to the effect, "Well, here we go! Time to hit the ground running! Fall is now in full swing!"

We're busier now than we were only a few weeks ago. The church is busy. We have lots to do, lots of programs to run, lot of ministries to carry out. Indeed, we should be busy as a congregation. If our calendar remained as empty all year as it did during July, we'd have cause to wonder about this church. In carrying out our Lord's Great Commission of bringing the gospel in word and deed to the world, we surely have plenty to do.

But it makes us busy, and let's all admit that there are times when that extra trip or two over to Calvin Church each week merely adds to an already hectic pace of life. So as we open this new church season--and as tonight we are asking you to consider signing up for still more activities--how can we frame all this in a Christian context?

I think Psalm 1 can help. If you were paying attention when I read that a moment ago, you maybe noticed that this psalm makes a contrast between movement and stillness. The righteous, for the most part, are described as rather quiet, still. They do not walk in the way of sinners but they meditate. They are not a frenzy of sinful activity but have roots that sink down into the soil of God's Word. The wicked, by contrast, are on the move. They are walking and running and mocking and scoffing. But in the end they move in another way, too: they get blown away. They have no roots, and so when the wind blows, they fly away and disappear. Meanwhile, the righteous stand firm because their roots go deep.

But that hardly means the righteous are inactive. Clearly they are supposed to bear fruit. Verse 3 says that the Lord will prosper what the righteous do. So the contrast between the bad and the good in Psalm 1 is not the difference between being busy and being totally immobile but rather the difference between being busy for selfish gain and being busy for God's glory. The righteous don't run with sinners but that hardly makes the righteous a bunch of couch potatoes!

Apparently the real difference are those roots. The righteous are like trees rooted by a stream or a river, and thus assured of always having enough moisture to draw up into limbs and branches so as to produce wonderful fruit. The roots provide stability and purpose. The roots in God's Word mean that the busy activities of the righteous are not finally just a booming, buzzing confusion. Those efforts are not scattershot, random, or just busyness for the sake of busyness.

Some people are like that. They seem to have a core restlessness to them. They don't have patience to sit and read a book but are always on the move. It doesn't matter what it is they do so long as they have something to occupy their time. But it appears that all that hectic activity doesn't lead anywhere. It just passes the time, fills in otherwise boring days, gets them out of the house.

But if we are rooted in the nutrient-rich soil of God's Word, then we possess the paradoxical combination of being both still like a tree and people on the move in ministry. We have walking roots. We are well-anchored sprinters. These are rather quirky images. But the point is that the activities we engage in all stem from the same source and are all aimed at the same goal. The work we do and the programs we run and the ministries we offer as a congregation all stem from the gospel and our desire to show forth the hope and love and joy of that gospel to as many people and in as many ways as we can. And the aim of all those activities is not just to give ourselves something to do but the aim is God's greater glory and the increase of God's kingdom.

Lots of things keep us moving in life. Some of those motivations are fine and good. But here at Calvin Church the many opportunities that we have to serve are rooted in one gospel and aimed at one goal. When in life we feel like we are running just as fast as we can but still getting nowhere, discouragement can quickly follow. But when we know why we are running and where we are headed, that sense of rootedness in the midst of motion can make all the difference to us.

But this evening is not just about the whys and wherefores of what we do but about being stewards of the time and talent we have. Being a good steward of your time and talent does not mean that you will have no commitments beyond the church. Stewardship is about management, and management is about balance. Severing all your ties to the outside world so you could do nothing but volunteer for this church would not represent balance. But then neither does the opposite scenario of finding it all-but impossible to find even one way by which to contribute directly to God's kingdom through work in Christ's Church.

September has a way of simply foisting a great many things onto us. It always seems to sneak up on us, and so we suddenly find ourselves rather mindlessly filling in the calendar with this school function, that business meeting, this church activity, that family get-together. Sometimes we seem to be dancing to someone else's tune and there's not a blessed thing we can do about it.

But tonight let me challenge myself and all of us to stop and assess where we are. Do we feel rooted in God's Word? Can we sense that there is work in our lives that has that kind of depth, that kind of purpose? Do we know that in some good way we are contributing to the life of this church? Or is it the case that we're on a treadmill, running fast, sweating hard, but going nowhere? Are we so busy with rootless pursuits that we frankly are forced to say "No" every single time kingdom work beckons? When the winds blow, will we and the work of our hands be able to stand firm or will it all disappear like chaff in a gale? These are not easy questions to answer, and there is no one-size-fits-all answer that covers everyone. We all have different gifts, different lives, but the one thing we should all have in common are those roots sunk into the soil of the gospel. A good question for us to face is whether we can see in our busy lives the kind of fruit you would expect to see growing from trees whose roots tap down into the vast ocean of God's grace. Amen.