St. Paul’s United Church Sunday, September 11^th 2011

Trees of Life – Rev. David Mundy

Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7 Isaiah 55:10-13 Rev. 22:1-5

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Earlier this year at the annual gathering of what we call Bay of Quinte Conference, the association of United Church congregations in the eastern part of Ontario our guest speaker was the moderator of our church, Mardi Tindal. For those of you who aren’t sure, the moderator is our pope, except that this is the United Church so that he or she can’t make any grand pronouncements and really doesn’t have that much authority. That’s the way we like it in the United Church. Nobody is the boss!

Moderator Tindal is passionate about caring about God’s creation, so she has made it her mission to encourage us to “have a care” as well, whenever possible. The theme at our annual conference was The Tree of Life, which is a strongly biblical theme, from the very beginning of scripture in Genesis to the end in the book called Revelation. She used tree imagery throughout her addresses.

That “tree of life” motif is a strong one even in these secular times we live in. You may have heard of a little film called Avatar which imagines another planet, invaded by earthlings, where the indigenous people called N’avi gain spiritual and physical sustenance from a great and glorious willow-like tree called the Tree of Souls which does sound a lot like the Tree of Life, doesn’t it? Of course Avatar was a very popular movie, generating the most revenue ever for a motion picture.

And this year another film called Tree of Life won the Palme D’Or at the prestigious Cannes film festival in France. It starred Brad Pitt – I only tell you this because mentioning Brad Pitt always wakes up a certain demographic in the congregation. While Tree of Life is not an overtly religious film it certainly explores the meaning of life.

Today we enter into a four week mini-season in the Christian year which is called Creation Time and as the name suggests it is an opportunity for us to explore and celebrate the goodness of God’s creation. In a time when our planet home is under assault from the sheer volume of human life and activity it is important for us to affirm that this is the world which God, Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer and Redeemer has brought into being.

"So you'll go out in joy,
you'll be led into a whole and complete life.
The mountains and hills will lead the parade,
bursting with song.
All the trees of the forest will join the procession,
exuberant with applause.
No more thistles, but giant sequoias,
no more thornbushes, but stately pines—
Monuments to me, to God,
living and lasting evidence of God." Isaiah 55:12-13

We’re not meant to take this picture of applauding trees literally, but it is wonderful imagery. The famous naturalist of the nineteenth century John Muir was a bit crazy and loved to ramble around in the wilderness in the midst of violent storms and he observed:

A few minutes ago every tree was excited, bowing to the roaring storm, waving, swirling, tossing their branches in glorious enthusiasm like worship. But though to the outer ear these trees are now silent, their songs never cease.

That sounds a lot like Isaiah doesn’t it?Trees do have deep spiritual meaning in our Judeo-Christian tradition and they are practical gifts of God which must be respected and tended. Long before there were cathedrals made of stone people gathered to worship under the shade of trees, and as one person has noted trees are cathedrals in progress, steadily growing to maturity.

Some trees are the oldest and the largest living creatures on the planet – one of those Sequoias can live more than a thousand years and there is a yew tree in Scotland that is estimated to be nine thousand years old. As mentioned, if not for the billions of trees on Earth we literally could not breathe, because of their marvelous ability to convert carbon dioxide to oxygen. We tend to think that it is the tropical rain forests which are so important but a quarter of the world’s forests are in Canada, 1.3 billion acres from Newfoundland to British Columbia to the Yukon.

Do you know that some hospitals are being built with views from patient rooms out to woods and forests because of the therapeutic value?

So why is it that we tend to take trees for granted? It was the late president of the United States, Ronald Reagan, who famously said “If you’ve seen one tree, you’ve seen them all” and unfortunately we often act as though this is true.

Rather than appreciating trees as living beings which grace our lives they become commodities which can be used and abused. It’s just strange that we cut down trees and then name streets after them. When I came to Bowmanville for my first interview for the position as minister at St. Paul’s, one of our members took me for a drive to reorient me to the area in which I grew up. We passed a housing development where construction was about to begin and it had one of those tree names which seem to be so popular. Yet off to one side of the subdivision was a huge pile of tree debris which had been bulldozed to make way for the houses.

And of course there is our rather reckless use of paper for everything. When computers came into our lives we were told that we would soon be enjoying “paperless offices.” We aren’t quite there yet, are we, and in our fast-food, convenience-first society we rely so much on paper products which are often simply not necessary, but they are made from trees.

By now some of you may be saying, “our minister is a tree hugger!” and to that I will respond with “guilty as charged.” As derogatory as that term has become, it began with a group of woman in India in the 1970's who was so determined to save trees in their region from the chainsaw that they formed human chains around them. Their actions sparked similar non-violent resistance in other areas of the country.

We must be passionate about our response to Creation, to “turn over a new leaf” if we need to so that we are not so heavenly minded that we are no earthly good. So, as Christians who “live with respect in Creation, what can we do to be respectful of the trees of the forest?

Well, we can literally plant trees as a sign of our belief that the future matters, that rather than living for the moment without regard for the generations to come we practice what the Germans call “forecaring” – practical and loving concern for those yet to come. Earlier in the year I conducted a wedding for a lovely young couple in the congregation and even though we were still in the cold of winter at their reception they gave tree saplings to their guests to be planted in the Spring. We thought this was an excellent, practical symbol of hope for their future.

We can ask ourselves how we can become activists as well as admirers. We can be more thoughtful in reducing our dependency on paper products and take a look to see whether the ones we use have recycled content or come from sustainable forestry practices. We can support governments at every level which have a program for protecting forests.

Perhaps one of the most meaningful acts of faithfulness is paying attention to the trees around us, and they are abundant in this community. We might not hug our trees, but it’s okay to admire them and maybe even to touch them once in a while. If someone asked me to describe what I imagine the tree of life looks like I would take them to Beech St., right here in Bowmanville, where there are some beautiful silver beeches, and a magnificent oak tree which is as large as any I have ever seen. That tree is three hundred years old so it is probably older than any person in this church today, although I can’t be sure!. With a thirty metre spread to its branches and an eight metre circumference at the base, it is a sight to behold.

A last thought or two today about Jesus and trees. We can remember that the night before he was crucified Jesus took refuge within the grove of olive trees which we know as the Garden of Gethsemane and while there he struggled in prayer with God over his fate. Olive trees have great longevity, so some of the trees in that grove today date back to the time of Jesus.

And then there is the cross of calvary and the hymn we often sing in Holy Week with the line which asks the question “were you there when they nailed him to the tree?” The native artist Blake Debassige created a painting called The Tree of Life with Jesus, the crucified Christ, hanging on a cross which is a tree populated with living creatures. It is in a church near Manitoulin Island, I have seen it many times, and it always reminds me that after the crucifixion there is new life, resurrection life, for all of Creation because God so loved the world that he sent his only Son.

Thank God for trees and forests, and may we be their champions and companions in our care of Creation.