The Song of the Trees - Third Sunday in the Season of Creation
Author: Pastor Carolyn Hetrick
September 22, 2024
From the dawn of time, trees have been witnesses to creation in all its glory and despair. Genesis tells us trees saw the first sunrise, having been created before the sun and moon were placed in the sky. Every major theme in God’s story with creation involves trees, from that beginning all the way until Chapter 22 of the Book of Revelation (the last chapter of God’s word) where the city of God has a river flowing with the tree of life on both banks of the river and there is no longer a need for the sun because
God will be the light. So often we imagine the story of God and seenourselves as the big deal, and though we are an important part, the witnesses, and agents of God that serve as bookends and mileposts are the trees.
Take a moment and see if you can remember one of the many places in Scripture with a tree… Maybe it will be one of those I am going to name now.
After being created to be the first multi-purpose givers in God’s loving arrangement- providing food and seeds, and shade and shelter and a home, the trees cradle creation as God’s vision begins to flourish. It is a tree that is implicated in the decision of humans in the garden that they needed to be like God. Fruit plucked without regard to why God said to let this tree stand
in its own. It will be a tree that provides the first hasty clothes by the now scared humans. What it is like to be the part of creation to see both all of the potential and promise and all of the challenges once we know the difference between good and evil and find choosing so difficult?
It is the trees that provide wood for the ark for Noah, and a leafy branch after the flood announces Noah and the creatures can leave for land safely. It is Oak of Moreh that is the symbol for Abram to settle in the land God has given. And the oak trees at Mamre provide shade for the three visitors to Abraham to tell him Sarah will indeed bear a son. It is a tree that provides
the branch of Moses’ staff used to deliver a message to Pharoah, and to turn the bitter water in the wilderness drinkable and be the agent for parting the Red Sea in the Exodus.
A juniper tree to provides shade for Elijah when he is ready to give up as a prophet. A new shoot on the stump of a tree that is the image of God restoring the people through the family tree of Jesse. That, by the way, is the origin of family trees long before Ancestry.com.
Jesus’ earthly father is a man who works with the wood of trees. The first gifts Jesus receives from the Magi include frankincense and myrrh from the trees. The oil for anointing from Aaron to Jesus? Comes from the olive tree. Zacchaeus needs a tree to see Jesus who then calls him closer. When Jesus needs to pray before his arrest, it is among the trees in the garden. Their
presence seems silent to the quick glance, but I bet they sighed as a sign of the Spirit with him. While I hesitate to make trees seem human, let’s imagine for a moment how a tree would feel in being forced to become an instrument of death as a cross. Stripped of its identity, just like Jesus, on the darkest of days, becoming the antithesis of why it had been created. In bearing the worst humanity could dish out, new life was hard to imagine.
These witnesses of God’s presence and ours even bear the scars of our living. The rings of trees reveal when they have been cared for and when they too have been forsaken. More than 2800 years before the birth of Christ, a Great Basin Bristlecone Pine began its life in what is today Eastern California. It was well established by the time the Egyptians built the pyramids. Bestowed with an ability to thrive in an unforgiving landscape. Yet today, the location of this tree, named Methuselah, is kept secret because we humans cannot be trusted to allow it to thrive.
Around Gettysburg Battlefield, there remain 16 Witness trees that were standing in the midst of our nation’s Civil War, where if they could be said to know, they know that other trees were cut down to fashion the stocks of rifles. The mighty Amazon rainforest, which absorbs one fourth of the carbon dioxide of the whole Earth continues to be destroyed. In just five years, it could lose almost half of what it has lost in the past 20 years. In the home to 30% of the world’s creatures and where new plant and animal species are still being discovered, I imagine the trees are weeping. The air we breathe depends upon trees to take what we exhale and what our industries and cars create, and turn it into oxygen. It’s no mistake trees and plants were created before the sun and moon to set photosynthesis into motion. BEFORE creeping, crawling, flying, swimming and walking things emerged. It is not a mistake that the branches of a tree look very much like the branches of bronchi in our lungs.
I think the truest presence of trees is to sing for joy in the daily worship of the Psalms.
Walk among the trees and you can hear the breeze rustling the leaves, or the creaking of branches. We say wind in the trees describes the presence of the Holy Spirit we cannot see but can experience. While we often see trees as expendable and not in their glory, as being in the way of houses and roads and economic goals, I wonder if we have forgotten their song clapping and joy and promise for all? Listen…
Can we join their song and witness and embody care for this fabulous world we have been given?
Scripture ends with the tree in Revelation, God’s vision not yet fully seen. In the city of God, the river flows from the tree of life in these final words of hope- where the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. I want to sing that song. I think it starts as the Psalmist tells us, in the here and now, sing that new song.
It is the song of the trees, of restoring all God has made. Singing over and over again, the trees show up to be the proclaimer of things restored to their beauty and wonder. I don’t think we have to wait for a day beyond the horizon. We can sing that new song now. We can sing joy now. We can be agents of healing so desperately needed now. Because we know that the
story is already written by Christ on the tree of life. The tree that would have wept for being fashioned into a cross is joyfully the tree of new life and new possibilities. We live it imperfectly this side of the fullness of God’s creation but we are given the gift of living resurrection lives now in hope and courage nonetheless.
What stories can we embody and what songs can we sing that the trees of today and the seeds of tomorrow can witness? It is within our grasp. We come here to hear the story, to remember that there is a new song, that the world does not have to be one of devastation and distortion and mistrust. In fact, the song is grace, and love and beauty and new life. To sing a new song we will have to leave behind some of our ways and words of the past. Our Creator, our fellow creatures and the trees are waiting in
expectation that while not everyone will join us in singing this song, not everyone will believe that healing and joy are possible, we do. Let’s sing with the trees anyway.
Listen, can you hear the song? Christ is beckoning to us join in.
Sermon Text: Psalm 96:1-3, 11-13
1 O sing to the Lord a new song;
sing to the Lord, all the earth.
2 Sing to the Lord, bless his name;
tell of his salvation from day to day.
3 Declare his glory among the nations,
his marvelous works among all the peoples.
11 Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice;
let the sea roar, and all that fills it;
12 let the field exult, and everything in it.
Then shall all the trees of the forest sing for joy
13 before the Lord; for he is coming, for he is coming to judge the earth.
He will judge the world with righteousness, and the peoples with his truth.
Copyright Rev. Carolyn K. Hetrick, 2024 All rights reserved. May not be reproduced in whole or in part without written permission.
BACK