“Cursed are those who trust in mere mortals and make mere flesh their strength, whose hearts turn away from the Lord. They shall be like a shrub in the desert, and shall not see when relief comes. They shall live in the parched places of the wilderness, in an uninhabited salt land. Blessed are those who trust in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord. They shall be like a tree planted by water, sending out its roots by the stream. It shall not fear when heat comes, and its leaves shall stay green; in the year of drought it is not anxious, and it does not cease to bear fruit.” Jeremiah 17:5-10

I hope everyone has enjoyed a lovely Lunar New Year holiday and is refreshed and ready to embrace this new year of the Tiger here at St. Paul’s. These are very strange and worrying times indeed. The Omicron variant is surging here in our beloved city, the numbers are going up every day, people are getting sick, many are worried and afraid and not sure what to do next.

Just yesterday I went out for a walk in Kennedy Town and witnessed something very strange that I had not seen here before. Many residents were lining up on the sidewalk with buckets and pots and containers of all sizes to collect water from tanks on the side of the road. Many of the restaurants and coffee shops were closed, I guess because they did not have any running water for their kitchens and bathrooms. There were workmen repairing what appeared to be a big broken pipe underground. Everyone waited patiently until the emergency tanks on sides of the road, brought in by the authorities, were refilled and brought back for the residents to get water. Scientists have always said that you can live for 21 days without food but the body can only last 3 days at most without water.

Like the current surge in Omicron cases, some things in life are far outside of our control as mere humans. Think of the people in K Town, they had no control over the loss of running water in their homes and businesses. They didn’t do something wrong which caused their water to stop running. A situation happened to them caused by something else. They had to adjust and find water.

The reading for today comes from the book of Jeremiah. He was an Old Testament prophet who was taken off into captivity during the Babylonian siege of Jerusalem many years ago. He knew about hardship and danger. He knew that in the midst of trials and tribulations it is best to put one’s trust in the power of God. Some people believe that their own intellect, physical strength, popularity, connections or some other human attribute is all that they need to succeed in life. That, in my opinion, is a fallacy. When problems in life come along, as they always do, sometimes more days than we would like them too, we have to turn to a higher authority for some help. God wants to solve our problems, sometimes though He is just waiting for us to ask. His solution might not seem to make sense but it normally is more effective than anything you and I can come up with on our own. When we pray about things God tends to put things in motion to make things happen for us, like the scripture verse says, we have to allow ourselves to be vulnerable and trust in Him and he will provide all the water we need, help us to weather the siege of Omicron and any other challenge in life that we might face. God is powerful, He is good and He cannot fail.