Grounded
A Sermon by Brent J. Eelman
May 28, 2006
Abington Presbyterian Church

Psalm 1
¹ Happy are those
    who do not follow the advice of the wicked,
or take the path that sinners tread,
    or sit in the seat of scoffers;
² but their delight is in the law of the Lord,
    and on his law they meditate day and night.
³ They are like trees
    planted by streams of water,
which yield their fruit in its season,
    and their leaves do not wither.
In all that they do, they prosper.

⁴ The wicked are not so,
    but are like chaff that the wind drives away.
⁵ Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment,
    nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous;
⁶ for the Lord watches over the way of the righteous,
    but the way of the wicked will perish.* 

“You’re grounded.” Those were not unfamiliar words to my ears when I was growing up. As I got older grounding seemed to be my parents preferred mode of discipline. Grounded meant that I would have to spend most of my time under “house arrest” with the exception of school and my after school job. It also meant that I surrendered my car keys. This was before computers, walkmans, and digital music, and so I would spend most of the time reading and working on homework. Truthfully? It was a drag!

“You’re grounded.” That is my wish for you today: grounded. No, I don’t mean that you are sent to your room. No I am not talking about punishment. I am using another definition of grounded. I want you to be well grounded, rooted in spiritual soil that nourishes you, gives you hope and joy. Grounded.

When I was a child, I was a bit of a daydreamer and one of my teachers said to me: “Brent, it is ok to have your head in the clouds, but your feet need to be on the ground.” Grounded. She meant that my imagination and my dreaming needed to be rooted in a sense of reality. It was ok to envision a better world, to dream about wonderful things, but it was vital that I remain a realist. My feet needed to be grounded while my head was in the clouds.

Today, I want to examine Psalm 1, because I believe that it speaks about being well grounded. It compares an individual to a tree.

They are like trees
    planted by streams of water,
which yield their fruit in its season,
    and their leaves do not wither.
In all that they do, they prosper. 

This psalm, which is the preface or introduction to the collection of psalms in scripture is a wonderful prescription for life. It describes the life that we want to live, the life that we hope for. It relates the choices that we make and then challenges us to walk the right path in life. It relates to us the life that we want. There are three characteristics of the good life: 1. It is filled with joy and happiness. 2. It has meaning. Your life counts for something. 3. It leaves a legacy, or to paraphrase Yogi Berra: “It is not over when its over.”

I

The life described in Psalm 1 is a life that is filled with happiness. It begins with these words: “Happy are those…” The Hebrew term for happy, ‘ashrei carries a host of different meanings that give insight into what the psalmist meant. It can mean: “fortunate,” “rich,” “blessed,” or “prosperous,” in addition to happy. What it is speaking about is the “good life.” The good life: what is it? A month ago I was watching ESPN’s coverage of the college football draft. I remember hearing one of the commentators saying that this one particular 21 year old football player would soon be enjoying “the good life” because he was assured of making tens of millions of dollars each year. Is that the good life? Perhaps, but I doubt it. The good life is not bereft of material goods, but it is not consumed by them. The good life is one that makes the proper choices. The psalmist speaks of two different paths that we may take in life. One path it describes as the path of the sinners and the scoffers. This is the path of cynicism, but also the path of foolishness and evil. Temptation invites us to travel that path almost daily. We get all types of advice from those who are on that path, and the psalmist wrote: “Happy are those who do not follow the advice of the wicked.”

The path of the good life is a happy one. It is one that is lived in obedience to God. It has taken me a number of years to discover this. I grew up in the church and that is where I received my call to ministry… but I never associated the church with happiness and joy. It was work, it was discipline, it was service, (all admirable things.) I was wrong….(story about choir party.) The psalmist invites us to follow down God’s path and claims that it is filled with joy. The good life has a smile, but that smile comes from knowing God, following God and living out Christ’s command to love and serve.

II

The good life has meaning. In the last three or four years tens of millions of people have bought and studied the book: The Purpose Driven Life. I do not plan to do a book review, but must acknowledge that the popularity of that book reflects an emptiness that is currently part of modern human life. I would suggest that the reason there is such a dearth of meaning in humanity is because we are not grounded properly. We are not always rooted in a spiritual soil that nurtures us. The psalmist wrote: “They are like trees planted by the streams of water.” I fear that too often we are like brush attempting to survive in the desert.

Jesus, conversing with the woman at the well, spoke of “living water”. This is water that refreshes one’s life and renews it so that one will never thirst. This “living water” of which Christ spoke is the water by which the tree is planted. What flows in this water? It is the joy of discipleship. It is the love and support of friends and neighbors. It is the gentle discipline and the loving admonishment that keeps us on the right path. It is a life that is intimate with God. It is the life that seeks to know God better through study of scripture and obedience to God’s son Jesus. Are you planted by living water, or do you seek nourishment from a polluted stream? Meaning and purpose require nurture…. What nurtures you?

III

The good life wishes to leave a legacy. “they yield their fruit in their season and their leaves do not whither.” A Legacy. In a month I will celebrate my 55^th birthday and this legacy business has been on my mind quite a bit. The question that I ponder is this: “Have I made a difference that will continue when I am gone?” Age, I suspect, makes the question a bit more urgent. My wife and I updated our will a few years ago, and the question that I pondered, was what type of legacy do I wish to leave? What are the institutions that I wish to support after I am gone. But there was another thing that struck me about this process. It is called a “last will and testament.” Most of the time we just worry about the will. But what is the testament? I am sitting down and writing my testament, which will be given to my daughter and also to others. But there is another testament and that is how we live our life now. What testament is your life making right now? Is that testament a legacy that will continue? Or is it like chaff which will blow away with the first strong wind?

Grounded! All these things: happiness, meaning, and a legacy spring from the soil in which our lives are grounded. This first psalm is an invitation to the book of psalms, but it is also an invitation to a life that walks the path that God calls us to follow. It is an invitation to ground our lives in the promises of Christ. Happy are those… happy are those… who do. Are you grounded? Amen.  

*The New Revised Standard Version Bible, (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Publishers) 1989.

Abington Presbyterian Church, Abington, Pennsylvania,  www.apcusa.org