Scott, Louise, Andrea, Kendra, Stacey, Anna, Karen, Jeff, Dustyn, Miriam, Brian, Marijke, Angela, and Tammy.

That’s at least a few of them. The list is too long to share in two minutes. And when I say they are my “roots,” I don’t mean that they are just part of my past…I mean they connect me to life; they connect me to Christ. Sometimes without even realizing it.

They are the people who have helped me ask difficult questions and make critical decisions. They have listened. They have spoken words of truth. They have sat in the silences. And most importantly, when I forget how I got here or who I am, they remember for me. Sometimes they tell me the story. Sometimes they just wait beside me until my memory returns.

That is what I think the women of Bethlehem did for Naomi. They are mentioned so briefly, but they are critical to her life! Surely they were there when she married Elimelech. And they wiped her brow while she labored with Mahlon and Chilion. So even when she returns from Moab in Ruth, chapter 1, without her husband and her two sons, they recognize her and call her by name. And at the end of the story, when Naomi holds her newborn grandson in her arms, it is the women of Bethlehem who remind her that God has always been with her, that God brought this new life into the world, and that God is the one who deserves all glory and praise. We don’t know their names, but we cannot deny their value. They kept Naomi rooted.

Do your roots have names? Are they people? Or maybe places? What or who connects you with Christ, with the source of life?

And who might name you as one of their roots?

Sylvia: I think of family, I think of home, especially my home growing up. I think of Korean food. What about spiritually, what do you think about when you think “spiritually rooted?”

Lynn: A lot of things, like when God says, “Out of the mouth your heart will flow.” I feel like there is this nature between the things that are rooted in our hearts becoming alive, or coming into being, in our words, and in our actions, and in our beings. But we have to constantly kind of do our due diligence in saying, “seek my heart, search my heart, oh God; see if there are any wicked ways in me.” Because these things that are unseen—they have a way of coming forth and kind of coming into light, right? That things that are rooted in us, whether it’s bitterness, or love, or insecurities, or fears.

I think of, like, the image of God that’s really the Imago Dei, that’s rooted in all of us. Our shared humanity, and how within that, we find an essence of who God is, and what God is.

Sylvia: So where are we going?

[scene change]

Lynn: What do you think it means to be rooted?

Person 1: To be down to earth. And to be, like, humbled, I guess.

Person 2: Somebody who’s down to earth, somebody who’s level-headed.

Person 3: I would say, probably, to be grounded, know what you want, know what you want to do.

Person 4: Very, like, in the same…kind of stuck in the same motions, that kind of thing.

Person 5: Well, when you root a phone, we unlock it so that we can activate service. You could use it internationally, you could use it with different carriers, such as T-Mobile or Staten Island.

Person 6: For me, I think it’s more like, you have a good way of living in life. And you’re able to, like, go about your daily life fine, you know?

Person 7: To feel involved in your community. To feel like the things you do, both good and bad, have an effect. So that if you’re doing bad things, the people around you, the things around you, can let you know.

[scene change]

Sylvia: So, Lynn, what did you think of those responses back there? I really liked that one T-Mobile guy’s answer about how for him, rooting means just to root your phone. Kind of erasing everything on your phone and putting in something new.

Lynn: But it’s kind of like, let’s uproot everything that is not the true root. Don’t you think it was interesting that a lot of people had just about the same thing to say? Everybody kind of repeated that it was about being grounded. Trees came up a lot. Going back to, like, the Mother Nature kind of idea.

For me, that just tells me that there is this truth that hums in the collective human consciousness. Like we just all know this. We don’t have to say, “God,” but we just all know this. We’re all kind of trying to be—When we say “rooted,” we’re trying to be the best versions of ourselves, the most, truest, forms of ourselves. And I think we become the best versions, the truest forms of ourselves, when we root—just like our phones, right?—we kind of uproot everything that is not essential and not what God had in mind. And I think the truth is that we’re the truest versions of ourselves when we reflect God the best. When we reflect that Imago Dei best.

Greetings. I wonder if you would consider with me, for just a moment, Psalm 1.

Blessed. And this word, blessed, this first word that appears to us, is not blessing as we would perceive it in our current context. For to be blessed is not just to receive or to have abundantly as it might be assumed if someone were to say, “Well I’ve been blessed today,” or “How are you doing?” “I’m blessed.”

But to be blessed is truly to be in right relationship with God. To be experiencing the ultimate shalom, that says that I am where I need to be with God, and God is in God’s proper place in me.

So, blessed…in [the] right relationship,

is the one who does not stand in the way of sinners,
or sit in the seat of those who scorn.
But her delight is in the law of the Lord.
And in this law she meditates, day and night.
And she will be like a tree.
Planted. Rooted.
By rivers of water.
Which brings forth fruit in its season.

How easy it is for us, beloved, to focus on fruit-bearing! To look like love. To talk like peace. To act like patience. But the one whose delight is in the law of God, in the Word of God, in the commands, in the ways, in the gesture of God—these are the blessed ones. The ones who are in right relationship. And they bear fruit in their season because their roots are connected to the source: the river, the ever-flowing fountain, which is Jesus Christ, our beloved one, the Word made flesh.

And so, beloved, in this Lenten season, while we desire in our hearts and souls to bear fruit that will last, according to the command of Jesus to his disciples in the Gospel of John; and while we desire to bear fruit of love, joy, and peace, and all of these other fruits of the Spirit; may we long for the greater gift that promises to bear fruit in us that will last. And that is to be rooted in the word of God, [in] such a way that generations not yet born might look upon us and declare, “These women—they are the blessed ones, in right relationship with God!” For the glory of God. Amen.