Ours was a good trip, but once again I was reminded of John Steinbeck who wrote, "You never take a trip - a trip takes you."  We pulled our forty year-old Airstream over 2,000 miles, and all went well until the trip home.  First we missed the Hatch-Deming cutoff and that added an extra 90 miles.  The delay brought us into the Santa Fe area at dark, just when it started to snow.  But even with the snow and 15 degree weather, it would not have been too bad if our heater had not stopped working about midnight.  After a very cold night's rest we finished the trip but with all our trailer's water pipes frozen.  One of my confirmation students asked why we didn't just check into a motel and I told him not to ask questions like that!

          This trip taught us many things about RV living - the politics of who gets what parking place and which parks are friendliest and which are exclusive.  Did you know some RV parks won't take trailers more than ten years old?  There are the permanent RVers, who have no home but their trailer, modern gypsies, always on the move.  The night before returning someone said to me, "It's cold in Colorado.  If you were smart, you'd call in sick and stay another week."  I told him, "If I don't go back where it's cold, I'll start to get dumb."  Well, the look he gave me was an open door to explain a pet theory of mine - that cold weather makes a person smarter.

          It's true, you know.  You see, it takes no intelligence to live in warm climates where the main decision a man might make all day is what pair of shorts to wear on the golf course.  People in warm country have little that gets in their way, so warm temperatures can make them lazy, kinda dumb.  But in cold country, you have to use your brain more, like choosing the right clothes to wear, how to drive the icy roads, when to shift to four-wheel drive, when and how to shovel snow and how to walk on icy sidewalks.  People in warm climates have too much time on their hands, so they end up making pottery or telling their secrets in support groups.  Up here we don't have time for that - it snowed again last night!  That's why a noted sociologist has said that whenever someone from the north moves down south, the average IQ goes up in both places!  (Reader please note - these two paragraphs are humor, not to be taken seriously.)

          It's good to be back where we belong.  We might go south again, but not without a new heater.  And we'll avoid that uppity RV park in Casa Grande.  But the cold nights make us feel right at home.  We love the desert in winter, but it surely has a lot of wasteland.  There's little farmland anywhere and a thousand acres can barely support a dozen cows.  The winds on alkali flats whip up dust devils that choke the air even on cold days.

          But most noticeable are the bushes.  Cactuses are fascinating but they're usually surrounded by worthless bushes.  Their tangled branches trap the trash and the blowing dirt settles around them, creating bumps and mounds.  The bushes are everywhere in those wastelands, with few trees except the few hardy Palo Verde.  One can't help but wonder how anything can live in such a dry and parched land with no streams or lakes.

          In today's text, Jeremiah likens unbelievers to bushes in the wasteland, stubby little trees of the desert.  The Hebrew word for "bush" is the same as for the word "destitute".  It's the bush like the desert tumbleweed that has little usefulness when alive and then rolls around and gets all tangled up when dead.

          Jeremiah says, "Cursed is the one who trusts in man, who depends on flesh for his strength and whose heart turns away from the LORD.  He will be like a bush in the wastelands; he will not see prosperity when it comes.  He will dwell in the parched places of the desert, in a salt land where no one lives."

          Modern society wouldn't agree with this.  It holds in high regard the person who depends on his own flesh for strength, the person who can hold his own in hard times.  People are often lauded for personal achievements, as well they should be.  But more often than not such a person turns away from the Lord.  When we glory in the strength within us, it's tempting to think we can go it alone, that we don't need God to help us.  Jeremiah says the person who depends on self and not on God is no better than a tumbling tumbleweed.

          He says it plainly, "Cursed is the one who trusts in man," who finds no need for God.  True strength acknowledges the need for God.  It's not a sign of weakness to trust God, but a sign of strength.  It's foolishness to think God is old fashioned and unnecessary, that He has no place in public life.  No matter what our abilities may be, trusting in God is necessary.  Otherwise we're just tumbleweeds rolling in the wasteland, thinking we're going somewhere, but just taking up space.

          On Saturday evening of our trip we were privileged to see the "Sons of the Pioneers", a cowboy singing group now seventy years old.  It was started by Roy Rogers, Bob Nolan and Tim Spencer in 1934, and one of the beloved songs Bob Nolan wrote is "Tumbling Tumbleweeds."  That song begins, "See them tumbling down, pledging their love to the ground. Lonely but free I'll be found, drifting along with the tumbling tumbleweeds."  Pretty song, but a poor philosophy of life.  The words seem romantic, but they're the words of a drifter, someone with nothing to hold him down.  Such a person rolls at the mercy the wayward and restless winds.

          Contrast that with the clear message of the Gospel in today's text:  "But blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, whose confidence is in him.  He will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream.  It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green.  It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit."

          When you trust in Jesus, you have roots that will hold you firm, that will help you grow.  Roots are necessary for life.  They tap into the water and nourishment beneath and hold the tree upright and strong.  A person always on the move gets little done, which is why I'm not sure I'd want to live out of a trailer like some do.  Whatever we do and wherever we go, we need a place to call home.  A church congregation is our spiritual home.  Trusting in God gives us roots to make us strong, roots that keep us from blowing away when the gale winds of trouble come.

          These words of Jeremiah are similar to the words of Psalm 1.  "[The believer] is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither.  Whatever he does prospers.  Not so the wicked!  They are like chaff that the wind blows away.  Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous.  For the Lord watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish."  Bushes in the wasteland will not last, but trees will.  So long as they have water and food, trees will keep growing.

          Sometime in the early 18th century, an acorn was dropped by a bird or a Native American on the treeless plains of what later became the boundary between North and South Dakota.  That acorn fell into good soil and sprouted because its roots found water from a small natural spring nearby.  As the oak tree grew tall and powerful, the Indians came to regard it as sacred and laid their dead to rest in its shade or on its strong branches.  Animals and birds used it as shelter and native grasses and flowers found shade in the summer.

          In about 1910, when the tree was about 200 years old, a family of immigrants built a homestead in its shade near the tiny prairie town of Forbes, North Dakota.  By that time the great oak was nearly a hundred feet tall, its trunk was 8' in diameter, its girth so large four large men could barely reach around it.  This mighty creation of God was visible from the tiny settlement five miles away.  In the spring of 1915, the family sold their homestead to a single man and moved on.  Later that autumn one of the townsmen looked to the west, hoping as usual to see the mighty oak tree, but saw it no more.

          Where had it gone?  The terrible truth was soon made known - It had been cut down!  Anticipating a hard winter the new owner had cut down that magnificent tree for firewood!  The townspeople were outraged.  What kind of a man would do such a thing?  The man was driven from his home and nearly lynched.  Years later the townspeople would remove the stump of that great tree and bring it to town and place it in the city park, a monument to the greatness of nature and the foolishness of one man.

          Yes, people do foolish things, but nothing is more foolish than depending on yourself only.  We all need God and His Son Jesus Christ.  He gave Himself on the cross so we could have someone to depend on besides ourselves.  Jesus is the true Savior of the world who died once and for all, the living Lord who rose again for us and for our sins.  He lives with His Father in heaven, and now calls to Himself all who trust Him for life.

          It's our choice - to trust God or trust ourselves.  Trust ourselves and be a tumbleweed rolling around, doing nothing useful.  Or we can trust God and be strong in the Lord.  St. Paul once wrote, "Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power.  Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes." (Ephesians 6:10-11)   We find our strength in God.

          People may do foolish things, but we are forgiven when we trust in Jesus Christ.  Nothing we can ever do is unforgivable, except unbelief.  To be forgiven requires faith.  By the power and grace of God, even the weakest tumbleweed can become a strong tree in the wasteland.  God give us grace to trust Him always, amen.

Copyright © 2004 by Pastor Bob Tasler.  All rights reserved.