LIKE A TREE
Rev. Dr. Dennis Winkleblack
Prospect United Methodist Church
Bristol, Connecticut
September 20, 2009
Psalm 1
James 3: 13-18
Mark 9: 30-37
Congregational minister Barry Johnson tells a story about Dick Stegner, one of his professors in seminary. Seems it was a few days before Christmas and Stegner had bought his little daughter a bicycle for Christmas. Naturally it was unassembled. So, being totally unhandy himself, Stegner asked a neighbor to come over and put it together for him.He watched with joy as the bike began to take shape. After a while, though, his uselessness began to embarrass him. He just felt so silly and guilty standing there while his friend did all the work.
So, he reached over and picked up the handlebars. That’s when he spotted the red hand-grips just lying in the corner of the box. He thought, “what could be easier than this? I might as well do something constructive.” So he seized the grips, squirted some epoxy glue on the handlebars and shoved them on. They looked super! He felt great pride. He had made a contribution to his daughter’s bicycle.
He says it was about 20 minutes later when the neighbor, who hadn’t observed any of Dick’s doings, said, “Dick, give me those handlebars. I’ve got to shove them through this little gooseneck before we put the grips on ‘em.”
What pain and disappointment there can be when we don’t follow directions.
This morning we’re going to think together some more about this wisdom of following directions. In our case, it’s the wisdom of following the directions of our faith that God has given from the beginning of time for our benefit and for God’s benefit as God tries to pull things together in loving harmony.
As you may have noticed, this is the theme of the very first Psalm in the Bible, the one we read responsively earlier: “Like a tree planted by streams of water, those who meditate on God’s wisdom and ways shall not be moved.” Today, in churches all around the world, this first Psalm is being read and considered. For those of you who like sermon illustrations that are visual and tangible: you can’t get better than a tree. No doubt the psalmist was thinking much the same thing. His point is there’s a steadiness, a strength, a fully aliveness of someone who lives the way God intends people to live.
So, let’s imagine a tree. Why not imagine your favorite tree. I’ve got mine. Do you have a tree in mind? Can you see it?
Okay, here we go. First, like a tree, those who have faith in the living God that Jesus revealed are steadied by a strong root system.
When I was a District Superintendent and living in Newburgh, New York, the parsonage we lived in was set on top of a hill overlooking the Hudson River and was surrounded by gigantic trees. Every time we had a strong storm Jeanne and I would worry that one of the trees might fall on the house. But then we would remind ourselves of the probably hundreds and hundreds of storms those trees have survived. Survived primarily because of an incredibly extensive root system. You could see the roots 10 feet, 20 feet away from these trees. The psalmist says one who believes and trusts in God is like that.
As a pastor for nearly 40 years now, I’ve had the privilege of knowing a lot of people. I’ve known many with shallow root systems and I’ve seen them fall. And I’ve known many with deep roots of faith, who knew how to draw their strength from God and I’ve seen them weather the most awful human situations. Believe me, roots of faith matter.
Let me tell you more about the tree in my mind when I think of a favorite tree. It was a large oak tree in the yard of my best friend, Tommy. Tommy was never afraid to climb any tree, even to the top on branches that he had no business climbing on. I, however, was too scared to sit on even the lowest, strongest branch.
But, finally, one day, shamed by my fear and goaded on by Tommy and with the help of a step-ladder, I got myself up and sat on the first limb. Then, over the days of that long summer I gradually moved higher and higher. Until finally by summer’s end we each had our own limb high up , waving in the tree tops above the mere mortals like mothers who traversed below.
Some time after Tommy moved away, that tree was hit by lightning. Everybody thought it would die. But apart from losing several branches, it produced new leaves and lived on because life was still at work in its roots.
A steady life absolutely requires a strong root system. Requires roots that are deep and dependable. This is true for trees. This is true for people. Indeed, like a tree, we, too, will flourish or fall in keeping with our roots.
A second thing roots do for a tree is to draw moisture and minerals from the soil in which it grows. In fact, one of the reasons roots stretch so far is their great need to find more and more nourishment.
You may have heard the poem by the famous poet, anonymous, titled “A Common Law of Life.” It speaks to my point very well though women please forgive the use of “man” to mean both men and women.
The tree that never had to fight
For sun and sky and air and light,
That stood out in the open plain,
And always got its share of rain,
Never became a forest king,
But lived and died a scrubby thing.
The man who never had to toil,
Who never had to win his share
Of sun and sky and light and air,
Never became a real man,
But lived and died as he began.
Good timber does not grow in ease.
The stronger wind, the tougher trees;
The farther sky, the greater length;
The more the storm, the more the strength;
By sun and cold, by rain and snows,
In tree or man good timber grows.
Where thickest stands the forest growth
We find the patriarchs of both.
And they hold converse with the stars
Whose broken branches show the scars
Of many winds and much of strife –
This is the common law of life.
To our regret, we are not stretched to find new answers by sunny, fair days, are we? No, it’s days of clouds and rain and snows and storms that compel us to find new resources to deal with them.
According to our anonymous poet, these trials of life are the opportunities to find new ways, to stretch farther, to find new, better answers and solutions. And thus increase the length and depth of our faith roots and resources.
But how specifically are we to do this? The psalmist says by meditating on God’s word. But what does that mean, meditating on God’s word?
I think it begins with just plain old thinking about God. Thinking, meditating, ruminating about God and your life and the circumstances in your life and the people in your life. Thinking and connecting the stuff of your life with God. This includes all sorts of prayer, of course.
We can do this by ourselves, of course, aided by our reading of scripture or other inspirational reading. We can do this in times of worship as we think about our lives and what God would have us do. We can do this in Bible studies of the kinds you’ve heard about.
We do this whenever something happens in our lives or in the world and we wonder, “Where is God in all this?” “What should I do now as a Christian?”
And this is how, like the tree, we come to stretch ourselves, to grow in faith and knowledge of God. And thus, we have a better chance of standing through the storms of life.
Finally, like the biblical tree that gives back to its environment every bit as much good things as it takes in, a person whose roots of faith are deep and ever deepening will give back to his or her environment.
Trees really are incredible. Trees provide food, shade, shelter, fuel, and lumber for dwellings, furniture, paper goods, and even medicine of various kinds. In addition, a mature shade tree humidifies the atmosphere around us, loosing into the air 75 to 100 gallons of water per day. A mature shade tree also supplies all the oxygen required by 10 people in one year. This same tree also removes about one quarter pound of dust particles form the air per day: it’s like a gigantic air filter. Then, too, the same tree also removes gasses from the air, especially carbon dioxide, which would otherwise smother us.
Pretty amazing. The tree is actually an excellent example of not just receiving life’s benefits, but giving back, too.
To be sure, like trees, we humans have a far greater purpose than just looking pretty!
You may know the story of Mrs. Moriah Watkins who was an African-American midwife in the middle of the 19th century living in Neosho, Missouri.
One day she spotted a young boy sitting beside her fence. It was George Washington Carver who became one of the most important scientists, inventors and educators of the 19th and early 20th century. Carver was born in slavery. As Mrs. Watkins came upon him he was homeless and wanting more than anything to go to school.
She took him in and mothered him. She was the one who first gave Carver a Bible – a leather bound volume that he kept to his dying day. She told him: "You must learn all you can, then go back out into the world and give your learning back to the people.”
And he certainly did, becoming the most famous African-American in the U.S. in the early part of the 20th century.
Mrs. Watkins certainly was to George Washington Carver as a mature shade tree. Late in his life he remembered her as “a giant shady oak tree, strong and cool and full of comfort.”
I asked you to keep in mind a favorite tree. Can you still see it?
Now, can you think of a person in your life or in your past who resembles that tree for you as one strong and dependable and cool and full of comfort? Someone who was not content to merely take in life’s benefits, but who gave of themselves generously. Someone or ones who delighted in God’s way, studied, meditated on God’s wisdom, and shared themselves in the world around them? And who, for you, made all the difference in the world?
Such persons, says the psalmist, are like trees planted by streams of water, which yield their fruit in its season, and their leaves do not wither.
Where would we be without trees? Where would you and I be without those persons whose delight was in keeping the law of the Lord, and who touched our lives with their good examples, their mentoring, their loving influence, their tree like qualities?
Can you just say thank you God right now for that person?
Now: Do you suppose there’s someone hearing this Psalm read this morning in a church near-by or far away who is thinking about you right now and giving thanks to God for you and your tree-like qualities?