When we were young, many of us learned a little poem to help us understand both the beauty of poetry, and its frequent subject, the wonder of nature:
Trees
Joyce Kilmer
I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.
A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the earth’s sweet flowing breast;
A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;
A tree that may in Summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;
Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.
Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.
A tree, for Kilmer, is both substance and symbol of God’s power. Yes, only God can make this beautiful, powerful, worshipful form of life. And in both Kilmer’s poem and the pages of scripture, the tree stands as a symbol of God’s greater, broader, and deeper powers.
Yet there are powers opposed to the power of God. There are those powers that oppress God’s people, sometimes even from within those who claim to be the people of God. Have you ever been at a place where you couldn’t speak freely? You might not be in chains, or behind locked bars, but somehow you were at a place where you couldn’t say exactly what you meant? A place where saying what you meant might have immediate and personal consequences? That’s where Ezekiel finds himself.
Once again Israel has compromised itself. Instead of trusting in the power of God, the people of God have become attracted to the power of politics, the false security of military might, and the smooth efficiency of commerce. Babylon. Yet Israel has forgotten that their God is the God who raises nations up to the heights, and lowers them into the dust. It is as if the nations were so many trees in the woods. So Ezekiel speaks of the nations as trees:
Thus says the Lord God:
I myself will take a sprig
from the lofty top of a cedar;
I will set it out.
I will break off a tender one
from the topmost of its young twigs;
I myself will plant it
on a high and lofty mountain.
On the mountain height of Israel
I will plant it,
in order that it may produce boughs and bear fruit,
and become a noble cedar.
Under it every kind of bird will live;
in the shade of its branches will nest
winged creatures of every kind.
All the trees of the field shall know
that I am the LORD.
I bring low the high tree,
I make high the low tree;
I dry up the green tree
and make the dry tree flourish.
I the LORD have spoken;
I will accomplish it.
From this older cedar tree, one no longer useful, one dwarfed by its neighboring trees, God will take a sprig. This tree is from the root of Jesse, the kings of David, and after it has had enough years to bear new branches, God is going to take one of those distant branches to grow the tree of all trees. Jesus. Jesus and his kingdom.
In the limbs of this tree, Jesus restores life as he created it back in the tranquility of Eden: all kinds of birds live together in peace. His is a house of prayer and peace. The other trees, the other nations, belong to God. God will raise them up and lower them as it pleases Godself. But all in good time, all in God’s time, will God do these things. Tree work is slow work.
Peace and patience,
Ron
Ezekiel 17:22-24 – NRSV
