“The
Leaves of the Tree”
Revelation 22:1-7
First Presbyterian
The Reverend Thomas A. Sweet
January 27, 2008
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(Note to web
readers: I hesitate to make this
meditation available here because, more than usual, it really suffers apart from
the context in which it was preached…our annual Evensong Worship, the
sanctuary dressed in candles and branches and leaves, gorgeous anthems employing
tree and leaf imagery for the Sacred One, nighttime hymns, a concluding ritual
of leaf-taking for “the healing of the nations”…and for our healing.
Nevertheless, with that caveat, we continue our custom of offering our
sermons from First Presbyterian Church,
There is a verse in
our scripture reading tonight that for the longest time has intrigued me.
I am not sure I understand it, but the beauty of the image it offers
lodges deep in my heart. When the
Spirit of God reveals to
This verse at the
end of the Revelation suggests another one at the beginning of Genesis in which
the tree of life is located in the midst of a garden - a serene, Edenic,
pastoral setting where Adam and Eve can swoon and swirl in the cool of the
evening. But the tree of life in the
Revelation at the end of the biblical story is found in the midst of a city,
meaning, I think, that, after all is said and done, the import and intention of
the gospel is social. It is not so
much that “I Come to the Garden Alone” but that we are present “Where
Cross the
“The leaves of the
tree…”
What is it about leaves that make them such rich symbols of healing and
restoration? The leaves of the trees
are able to transmute light so as to manufacture for us oxygen to breathe.
No leaves, and the earth suffers and suffocates.
Many leaves have medicinal value. Some
leaves are used as food. Leaves give
shade on a beastly day, shelter and hiding for a whole host of species.
Even in their dying and decaying, leaves feed and recondition the soil.
And their beauty, whether dressed in autumnal colors or the varied greens
of spring and summer, saves and softens our souls.
At our house in Driftwood where we lived before moving back to town, we
had a grove of quaking aspens and whenever I became sick of heart, I took a
chair and sat by our pond and watched and delighted in those leaves that looked
in a breeze as if they were a stadium full of people applauding…me, I
fancied…or maybe it was life itself – “the trees of the field clapping
their hands” is the way Isaiah put it.
I always was amazed by the sight of those dancing, happy leaves, heartened
by it, and humanity was poured into me again and my hope was replenished.
Maybe it is because
their life cycle is played out before our eyes every year that the leaves of the
tree somehow have a precocious capacity to teach us and heal us and lead us into
peace. The leaves come to robust bud
and bloom in the morning of the year, in the warming days of spring.
They do the bulk of their life’s work in the year’s summery afternoon
before bedecking themselves in festive garb for the riot of their autumnal
evening. And then they let loose
their lives as they have known them and fall into night, into their earthly
graves of winter, before being raised from the dead as nourishment for the new
growth of the new year. Living, and
suffering a multitude of deaths large and small along the way, and being raised
from the sepulchers into which our lives sometimes get sealed, is the pattern of
our days, too.
Mary Oliver, of whom
I have deprived you now for almost two months, says it this way in a poem
entitled “In Blackwater Woods.”
In Blackwater Woods
Look, the trees
are turning
their own bodies
into pillars
of light,
are giving off the rich
fragrance of cinnamon
and fulfillment,
the long tapers
of cattails
are bursting and floating away over
the blue shoulders
of the ponds,
and every pond,
no matter what its name is, is
nameless now.
Every year
everything
I ever have learned
in my lifetime
leads back to this: the fires
and the black river of loss
whose other side
is salvation,
whose meaning
none of us will ever know.
To live in this world
you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it
against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go.
I think of it every
autumn as the leaves let go their grip and grasp of the limbs and branches to
which they have been attached and begin to freefall toward earth, dying to life
as they had known it toward whatever is to come for them.
I think of that of which I need to let go in my life…ways of doing and
thinking and believing and relating that no longer are true or helpful or
nurturing or loving. I think of that
of which the church needs to let go so that it does not constrict or constrain
us by worn out ways and whys but frees us for embracing the Spirit’s
contemporary call. I think of how
our country needs to let go its arrogance toward other countries and assume a
more enlightened role as a servant to the world.
Toward that end, I
read a story this week that carries in it the seeds of a manner by which our
nation could let go its bellicose approach to other nations in these
terror-laden days in favor of a still more excellent way.
Having spent some time in
Eventually, the
attacker went to prison for several years. Meanwhile,
Gretel, who received frequent death threats from the man during his
incarceration, could not erase the image of Zefarino’s head in her arms.
She saw it in her dreams every night for nearly a decade.
Then one night as
Gretel was walking home from the Women’s Center, she saw Zefarino’s
attacker, now released from prison, marching straight toward her, and she did a
most remarkable thing. She did not
run, but waited for him, and when he confronted her, she looked him straight in
the eyes, and before he could say anything, said, “Will you come tomorrow
to my house for lunch?”
In that instant,
Gretel lost her fear. She never
again had that terrible nightmare, and the man ceased making his threats.
Forever after, he was a peaceful part of the community, and Gretel saw
him often, no longer in her sleep, but bringing his wife and daughters to the
medical clinic. (1)
“Blessed are the
peacemakers,” Jesus said, “for they will be called children of
God.”
“The leaves of the
tree are for the healing of the nations…”
What
if every time, as a nation and as a church and as individuals, what if every
time we see the leaves of a tree we are reminded of God’s desire for peace and
of our call to be peacemakers? What
if, as we see the leaves letting go their attachment to their security, we, too,
begin more and more to let go of the pride and prejudice in us that create
enmity and harden our hearts, let go of the anger and hurt that make us want to
strike out against others, let go of an image of life revolving around us to
envision a circle of care and compassion as wide as the world?
I think that I shall never see
(even!)
A poem lovely as a tree.
A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the sweet earth’s 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 (and grows) with rain.
Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.
-Joyce
Kilmer’s poem, “Trees”
And the leaves of
God’s trees, all of them, trees of life, are for the healing of the
nations…and for all who live in them. As
with the bread and wine, God uses the most ordinary things of life, like leaves,
to remind us of the most extraordinary possibilities.
Amen.
(1) Found in a sermon
by Dorothy Granada, a Pfeffer Peace Prize winner, a
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Copyright 2008 First Presbyterian Church