They are planted ...

Today, a story with a moral – a story to go with Josh’s story.

Growing up in Duncan, my family and I lived in a house with two large paned windows, stretching from nearly floor to nearly ceiling, in both the front and back of the house. The front window had heavy draperies to help keep out the heat from the westerly sun in the summer. Mom liked to keep the back window open because she liked the view.

Dad, though, had eyes that were sensitive to light and wanted a little relief from the glaring sunlight. Being a thinking man, and not one given to debate, one spring day he drove to Ligon’s Nursery and chose a tree to plant in front of the window. He came home with a seedling (he was too frugal to buy a larger specimen), carefully dug a hole, and planted his little tree. About 25 feet out, in the precise center line of the window, the little tree stood in this vast expanse of grass.

Now, Dad was not given to expend too much effort or expense in landscaping; someone might think of watering the tree occasionally, but no one made a habit of it. Taking care of the yard not Dad’s job; it was the job of my younger brother Bill, and myself. We would take turns mowing. As teenagers, neither one of us was particularly fond of the job as the yard was large, sloped, and terraced. More than once Dad and Bill got into it about the yard, and when they did, Bill would do exactly what he was told: mow the whole yard. In Bill’s mind, this included the tree. Nothing higher than 2 inches was left standing. There are times when one must use precise language, and there are times when one must exercise common sense. Both parties failed.

Yet when Bill entered high school, the tree began to make progress. In those winters, though, that part of the yard looked like a snowman had lost one of his arms while somehow escaping with the other (a fugitive snowman may find this information helpful).

One spring I was laying on my bed reading when I noticed that the light coming in through the window had turned a very particular shade of green. In the same moment, I heard the swelling sound of an approaching freight train. Having grown up in Duncan, Oklahoma, two facts came to mind: (1) there is no 4:00 train that runs through Duncan; and (2) tornados often sound like trains. By the time that I got to the center of the house (moving in the general direction of the bomb shelter – which is another story altogether), I looked out the back window and saw that the entire back fence was missing. So was every leaf on Dad’s tree.

After that, college and married life took me away from Duncan and the tree much of the time. Return visits were designed to catch up with family, not to keep track of Dad’s landscaping efforts. When Ann and I went home to visit one weekend though, I looked out the rear window and was startled. There was green light filtering in through the window. The green was close to, but not exactly the same shade of green that the tornado had brought. This gentle green light was filtering through the branches of a sturdy, mature walnut tree standing outside the window. I had to see. I went outside to get a better look. There, perfectly centered on the rear window of the house was this perfectly symmetrical walnut tree. Its dark green canopy was like a huge, but perfect, umbrella shading the back window of the house. The trunk was scarred but sturdy, something like the mast of a ship. Underneath the tree was a flat roof of limbs about seven feet off the ground, just enough for Dad (6’5”) to walk beneath the tree in comfort. It was one of the most handsome trees I have ever seen.

How many lessons can this tale teach us?

It seems obvious to observe that God is patient, and given enough time, he will bring about his purpose, despite the neglect of the responsible, the sabotage of an adversary, or the interference of nature itself (why do we call those acts of God?). A corollary to this observation is to note that, if we imitate God as we ought, similar patience on our part may bring similar success to our plans. Eventually, success. When we think about how long we must be patient, I think it is important to ask: If we find a tree to be beautiful and complex, just how beautiful and complex are human beings? How long does it take to change us?

A less obvious observation is to note the resilience of life. Despite neglect, sabotage, and storm, this tree sought to become what God intended for it to become. No matter what. This was not some victim tree, puking excuses to the world for its slowness, deficiencies, and failure. This was not a sarcastic tree, spewing bitterness at every good, or different, or taller tree so as to justify its miserable history and failed purpose. This was a victorious tree, scarred by its experience, but all the more beautiful for the story that it had to tell. With trees and people, after all, the beauty of the story is not in the first, second, or third act; the truth and the power is in how the tale ends.

The righteous flourish like the palm tree,
and grow like a cedar in Lebanon.
They are planted in the house of the Lord;
they flourish in the courts of our God.
In old age they still produce fruit;
they are always green and full of sap,
showing that the Lord is upright;
he is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in him.

Psalm 92:12-15 – NRSV

Grace and peace,

Ron

Someone would scatter seed ...

Hear the words of Jesus:

"The kingdom of God is as if
someone would scatter seed on the ground,
and would sleep and rise night and day,
and the seed would sprout and grow,
he does not know how.
The earth produces of itself, first the stalk,
then the head, then the full grain in the head.
But when the grain is ripe, at once he goes in with his sickle,
because the harvest has come."

God is the just-in-time God.
He watches us sow ideas and possibilities and real seeds, too.
He encourages us to do this very thing.
The seeds take root and grow in ways that we don’t understand,
but which we marvel to watch.
Our part was only to plant the seed; it’s not like we really
did anything powerful ourselves.
God does the real, and sometimes mysterious, work.
Yet, even though we don’t understand how it happens,
when the time of need comes, the time of harvest comes.
Then we find that God has transformed the seed into a harvest
that provides just what we need.
God is the just-in-time God.

He also said,
"With what can we compare the kingdom of God,
or what parable will we use for it?
It is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the ground,
is the smallest of all the seeds on earth;
yet when it is sown it grows up
and becomes the greatest of all shrubs,
and puts forth large branches,
so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade."

Remember, when earlier this week we spoke of the cedar tree
which God would form from the sprig of an old tree?
Doesn’t this language about the mustard bush sound familiar?
Is Jesus taking an idea that is literally king-sized and making it
more the size that a real person could understand and feel
comfortable with?
Jesus compares the kingdom to something that
doesn’t seem significant to world, does it?

Does the kingdom of God seem significant to our world today?
Feminists scoff at the power structures that the word kingdom
even implies as being irrelevant now.
The rugged American individualist laughs at the need for
a community or kingdom, because doesn’t everyone know
that the existence of the individual is all that is truly significant?
Atheists ridicule the idea of God, much less that a group of people
should think that they are being gathered together as a people.

Yet this seemingly insignificant thing has a strange power,
and even attraction. Mustard adds a spice to life,
a unique scent and flavor not found elsewhere.
This bush provides sustenance, too.
The leaves of the mustard plant were used to prepare
delicious meals, even in the time of Jesus.
And in this plant, there is again the hope of peace
in the natural order: the differing birds finding a place to nest.
The kingdom brings all of these things.

With many such parables he spoke the word to them,
as they were able to hear it;
he did not speak to them except in parables,
but he explained everything in private to his disciples.

May we spend time with God’s word in meditation and prayer
so that God may reveal to us how his word can shape us
as it shaped his first disciples.

Grace and peace,

Ron

Mark 4:26-34 – NRSV