Only God can make a tree
Jeremiah 33: 14-16
New Ark United Church of Christ, Newark, DE
December 2, 2018 – First Sunday in Advent
Family trees are complicated because we’re complicated. Earlier this week on Facebook I asked the question, “How’s your family tree?” asking folks to share whatever they wanted. Here’s a sampling of some of the comments:
From my brother: My Family tree is big, with lots of branches and a variety of Fruits. There are a few scars on the Bark but that just adds character.
My family tree has weathered a lot. We’ve lost limbs, and some branches have wandered away. Through Chosen Family, though, I have a big beautiful grafted beauty that has dozens of different kinds of fruit.
Our family tree was redefined when we adopted our three children. You know how you add branches when people come into your family? I used to think that was what was happening with our adoptions as well, that we were just adding to what we'd already established. The reality is that our tree has grown new trunks, each one of them with their own set of branches and vines, some of them sprouting their own added trunks. We no more "own" our tree than anyone can own any tree - and although that's been difficult sometimes it's also been so wonderful. It probably looks like a tangled up mess to someone from the outside, but it's something we are proud of and continue to cultivate.
It's changing with the seasons.
My tree is full of fabulous stories and strong women - women who had much more independence, property and education than their English sisters to the south. I look to my tree for inspiration and strength.
Small and struggling both to get new growth and stay alive.
Always immigrating.
Becoming more racially diverse as the generations continue.
My family tree is my family's story; it locates me in time and space, draws out my self-understanding, and gives me vision for understanding who I am.
Rooted. Though I'm recently discovering that the tree is currently full of nuts.
My family tree is a bunch of broken sticks and grafts held together by wires. It stays alive through a hybrid of vigor, acts of God, and the fact that it’s too confused to die.
Split between the righteous and the faithful.
That last one would speak to Jeremiah. When God’s word came to Jeremiah he was in a Babylonian prison. Jerusalem is uninhabitable to humans and animals, the temple is in ruins, God’s people are cut down like a tree. Jews refer to Torah as the Tree of Life and living one’s life rooted in the Torah is wisdom. In the book of Proverbs we read “It is a tree of life to all who grasp it, and whoever holds on to it is happy; its ways are ways of pleasantness, and all it paths are peace.” The leaders of the southern kingdom of Judah had been faithless, had not followed God’s law, and the tree withered because its roots had no foothold.
In the midst of loss and pain and death—Yemen, Syria, the migrant caravan, Paradise, CA, our own experiences of exile and losing heart—Jeremiah sinks deep into the imagination of his people and gives a word of fierce hope, tender forgiveness, inside-out healing, and tenacious courage. Like a tree that has dropped all its leaves and to all appearances is dead, Jeremiah cuts at a twig until he reaches the green promise of life beneath.
The days are surely coming, says Jeremiah. In the living of our lives, in the life of this world, in our life together as Church, pain and sorrow and sacrifice and the hard work of community are inevitable. But so are new life, rebirth, wholeness, justice, and righteousness when we don’t give up on them, when we wait and also act with hope. When we come to this Table, we remember another family tree, our ancestors in the faith who betrayed and deserted and denied, and who also learned and survived and courageously lived the gospel. And we remember Jesus, who didn’t give up on them, who died upon another tree and it looked as though the story was over but not quite yet.
Who are the people, what are the situations where you have just about given up hope? Where are you challenged to right a wrong, to forgive a transgression, or let go of a grudge? How are we as a church being called to be a sprig of hope, a sign of life, rooted in justice and doing what we can for righteousness? How is Jesus the righteous Branch in our lives and in our life together?
One of the last people to comment said that her family tree was like the Charlie Brown Christmas tree: like Linus said, “I never thought it was such a bad little tree. It's not bad at all, really. Maybe it just needs a little love.” Advent is the time when we learn how to live into that love, into that hope, that what appears to be failure, weakness, neglect, bad choices is not the last word. When we have hope, hope is always the last word.
Amen.
New Ark United Church of Christ, Newark, DE
December 2, 2018 – First Sunday in Advent
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| "Survivors Survive" by David Hayward |
Family trees are complicated because we’re complicated. Earlier this week on Facebook I asked the question, “How’s your family tree?” asking folks to share whatever they wanted. Here’s a sampling of some of the comments:
From my brother: My Family tree is big, with lots of branches and a variety of Fruits. There are a few scars on the Bark but that just adds character.
My family tree has weathered a lot. We’ve lost limbs, and some branches have wandered away. Through Chosen Family, though, I have a big beautiful grafted beauty that has dozens of different kinds of fruit.
Our family tree was redefined when we adopted our three children. You know how you add branches when people come into your family? I used to think that was what was happening with our adoptions as well, that we were just adding to what we'd already established. The reality is that our tree has grown new trunks, each one of them with their own set of branches and vines, some of them sprouting their own added trunks. We no more "own" our tree than anyone can own any tree - and although that's been difficult sometimes it's also been so wonderful. It probably looks like a tangled up mess to someone from the outside, but it's something we are proud of and continue to cultivate.
It's changing with the seasons.
 |
| Lake Wanaka, New Zealand |
My tree is full of fabulous stories and strong women - women who had much more independence, property and education than their English sisters to the south. I look to my tree for inspiration and strength.
Small and struggling both to get new growth and stay alive.
Always immigrating.
Becoming more racially diverse as the generations continue.
My family tree is my family's story; it locates me in time and space, draws out my self-understanding, and gives me vision for understanding who I am.
Rooted. Though I'm recently discovering that the tree is currently full of nuts.
My family tree is a bunch of broken sticks and grafts held together by wires. It stays alive through a hybrid of vigor, acts of God, and the fact that it’s too confused to die.
Split between the righteous and the faithful.
 |
| Curtain for the Ark, Tree of Life, Prov. 3: 18 |
 |
| "The Branch" by L.L. Effler |
Who are the people, what are the situations where you have just about given up hope? Where are you challenged to right a wrong, to forgive a transgression, or let go of a grudge? How are we as a church being called to be a sprig of hope, a sign of life, rooted in justice and doing what we can for righteousness? How is Jesus the righteous Branch in our lives and in our life together?
One of the last people to comment said that her family tree was like the Charlie Brown Christmas tree: like Linus said, “I never thought it was such a bad little tree. It's not bad at all, really. Maybe it just needs a little love.” Advent is the time when we learn how to live into that love, into that hope, that what appears to be failure, weakness, neglect, bad choices is not the last word. When we have hope, hope is always the last word.
Amen.
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