Roots
–
May our sons in their youth
be like plants full grown,
our daughters like corner pillars,
cut for the building of a palace.
May our barns be filled,
with produce of every kind;
may our sheep increase by thousands,
by tens of thousands in our fields,
and may our cattle be heavy with young.
May there be no breach in the walls, no exile,
and no cry of distress in our streets.
Happy are the people to whom such blessings fall;
happy are the people whose God is the Lord.
—
If you know me, you know I love a good plant metaphor. I love house plants and especially desert plants: cacti and succulents of all kind.
They come in endless shapes and sizes and are made to endure harsh sun and long periods of drought. This is because they store water in their bodies. Their roots suck up all the moisture around them and they hold that water in their stems and in their petals. It’s enough to carry them through months without rain.
These plants thrive in conditions that few other organisms can survive. God made them tough.
When I read this passage in Psalm 144, a prayer asking for God’s blessing on Israel, I thought of the cactus.
The psalmist is asking for the young people of Israel to be like a full-grown plant, and like a palace’s corner pillar, both symbols for durable and strong young men and women.
I recently bought a number of beautiful Cactus cuttings from a nursery here in Atlanta called Varnish & Vine. The place is like heaven for a cactus lover such as myself, and they were having a big sale. You could get a cactus cutting for $5 per foot, a huge steal! Meanwhile, the potted plants around the room were ten times that price.
My husband, browsing with me asked, “Why are the potted cacti so much more expensive than the cuttings? Does the soil really add that much value?”
But it’s not the soil that makes the plants so valuable— it’s the roots.
A cactus cutting will grow roots over time if planted and nourished properly. But it is the extensive root system that makes a plant mature and tough and able to withstand drought or winds or scorching heat.
When the Israelites were exiled to Babylon, they became uprooted, cut off from their culture and their communities and their home. Their temple was destroyed, its pillars crumbled, and the symbol and hub of their faith was no more.
Old Testament scholars believe the bulk of the Hebrew Bible was written during Exile. Stories once kept orally were written down for fear of losing them altogether.
And it was the storytelling, the reminders of God’s faithfulness through the Exodus, and the search for the promised land that kept them going in the time of Exile and preserved their culture and faith until the Israelites returned to rebuild Jerusalem years later.
It takes time and nurturing and effort to grow deep roots. When I bought my first cactus cutting, I was told to plant it in soil, but not to water it for at least a month. As the soil around it dries, the roots will grow out in search of moisture.
So it is by a little hardship that it becomes firmly planted, and as the roots of the plant stretch out and become entwined with the other cacti surrounding it, it becomes even stronger and more steadfastly planted into the earth.
Are we not the same?
We grow stronger when, in adversity, we grow together in community. The biggest threat our church faced during the pandemic of the last year and a half wasn’t the need to adapt to new worship protocols or technology. If anything, that adversity made us stronger.
No, the biggest threat was the isolation we all faced. We had to be intentional about finding new ways to stay connected. While we may have survived without meeting, we know that being together, growing together, and being intentional about it makes us thrive and creates roots that will carry us through future hardship.
We all got out of the habit of coming to church. But I pray that, if it’s a struggle for you to get up on Sunday morning, don’t give up. Don’t forget the importance of community.
A lone pillar cannot hold the weight of the structure on its own. Our roots grow stronger when we grow together.
Rev. Kelsey Lewis Vincent
Pastor for Youth & Families