Healing Leaves
Rev Wendy McCormick
First Presbyterian Church - Granville
April 21, 2024
There was a time when the work of the church happened within the walls of buildings like this one. Many of us can remember such times. Well-trained staff and legions of volunteers led programs and ministries that strengthened the ties of Christian community, built up the faith of children and adults, glorified God in wonderful worship and music and raised and shared funds to help the poor and those in need.
Those were times when most everyone went to one church or another so there wasn’t much need to carry what we were about beyond the walls of the building.
Of course, times have changed.
And those of us who best know the old way struggle. We struggle to remember that faith is something we do when we leave here and not just something we share when we are in here. We struggle to notice the presence of God everywhere, not just when we invoke God on Sunday mornings . . .
But today we celebrate an exception that perhaps sets an example for the rest of us. A while back, a Sunday School class here at this church got to talking about climate change and the damage to the planet. Great big ginormous problem. What could they do – one small Sunday school class. They talked with the pastor. What could one church do.
From those early conversations was birthed 1500 trees, never intended to be a pet project of this congregation but a community activity. I don’t think they imagined how their idea would take off. So many relationships, connections – shoots and seedlings, so to speak – beyond the many trees that have been planted.
Extending far beyond what was envisioned and far beyond what anyone might have expected of a small group of busy volunteers. And going strong, as we will hear shortly.
For the rest of us it’s an example of what the present and the future of church and living our faith look like – it’s out there much more than it’s in here --- sharing God’s love for the world --- not by telling people what to believe, but by showing them the essence of our faith.
Why trees? As one person involved early on told me, because it’s pretty hard for anyone to be against trees. It was an easy and non-controversial place to start. So often that’s where we get stuck – where to start. Overwhelmed by the enormity of the world’s need – afraid of controversy -- where to start. 1500 Trees and all it has led to is a perfect example of “just start.” Take one step.
Some of the high school students in Advanced placement Environmental Studies were inspired to start with trees when they read the poem of 19th century teacher, poet and abolitionist, Lucy Larcom. called
“Plant a tree”
He who plants a tree
Plants a hope.
Rootlets up through fibres blindly grope;
Leaves unfold into horizons free.
So man's life must climb
From the clods of time
Unto heavens sublime.
Canst thou prophesy, thou little tree,
What the glory of thy boughs shall be?
He who plants a tree
Plants a joy;
Plants a comfort that will never cloy;
Every day a fresh reality,
Beautiful and strong,
To whose shelter throng
Creatures blithe with song.
If thou couldst but know, thou happy tree,
Of the bliss that shall Inhabit thee!
He who plants a tree, --- He plants peace.
Under its green curtains jargons cease.
Leaf and zephyr murmur soothingly;
Shadows soft with sleep
Down tired eyelids creep,
Balm of slumber deep.
Never hast thou dreamed, thou blessed tree,
Of the benediction thou shalt be.
He who plants a tree,—He plants youth;
Vigor won for centuries in sooth;
Life of time, that hints eternity!
Boughs their strength uprear;
New shoots, every year,
On old growths appear;
Thou shalt teach the ages, sturdy tree,
Youth of soul is immortality.
He who plants a tree,—He plants love,
Tents of coolness spreading out above
Wayfarers he may not live to see.
Gifts that grow are best;
Hands that bless are blest;
Plant! life does the rest!
Heaven and earth help him who plants a tree,
And his work its own reward shall be.
There is a quote that has widely been attributed to the church reformer, Martin Luther: “If I knew that tomorrow was the end of the world, I would plant an apple tree today!” The 16th century reformer probably didn’t actually say this -- any written support for him actually saying this only dates to 1944 so it is most likely apocryphal. Still, it’s consistent with Luther and with the best of Christianity.
Perhaps it makes sense that the oldest attribution of this quote is from 1944, for it in these last 75 or 80 years that the literal destruction of the world has been something we could contemplate --- the visible path to nuclear annihilation during the cold war and more recently the visible path to the death of the planet itself.
Those who wrote the apocalyptic visions in the Bible about an imagined end time didn’t have actual scientific evidence of how it could happen as we do. So I don’t think they gave so much literal attention to how it might happen like some modern readers of the Bible do.
For them, it was not so much a blueprint or a road map as it was about affirming and reaffirming the qualities of God, the hopes and dreams of God, trusting that God is in charge, that the same God who has loved creation from the very beginning loves it into its next iteration – the new creation. The thing that sometimes gets lost in the biblical discussions of all this is that the writers of the Bible expected the new creation to be here. Not in some faraway galaxy. For them, final things would be characterized by the complete rebirth and restoration of this creation here on this earth.
According to the prophet Isaiah, God says, “I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind. . . . I am about to create Jerusalem as a joy, and its people as a delight.” It’s a beautiful vision in which people who have long suffered can imagine that what God wants for them is harmony, plenty, creation restored, people at peace, even and especially in Jerusalem – for them, the center of it all.
And John of Patmos, a leader in the persecuted early church, who wrote Revelation, shared a vision of God making all things right, not only liberating people suffering for their faith, but liberating and restoring creation itself. In the final chapter of the Bible he writes of this new creation:
“On either side of the river [of the water of life] is the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, producing its fruit each month; and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.”
. . . the leaves of the trees are for the healing of the nations . . .
That phrase gives me chills. There’s nothing to preach, really. It’s just beautiful as it is. The leaves of the trees are for the healing of the nations.
It’s a vision from long, long ago, but as I learn more about trees and about pollination, as I hear about reforestation projects around the world, as I understand how the destruction – and hopefully the regeneration – of the rain forests is tied to economics and politics, it feels in some ways literally true – that the leaves of the trees are for the healing of the nations.
Because that verse touches me so deeply, sometimes it comes to mind when I see a beautiful tree, when I see the leaves gently moving even though wind is not detectable. The leaves of the trees are for the healing of the nations.
The contemporary theologian Brian McLaren confesses his need to immerse in nature and suggests we all need such deep immersion to break our reality dominated by human word and language. Like me, McLaren makes his living swith words and language. Yet he has come to realize the necessity of experiencing the wordless language of the natural world. “If we take our bodies outdoors and into the natural world,” McLaren writes, “if we go far enough and return often enough and stay long enough, we can let our inner beings realign with the original language and architecture of creation.” He goes on to quote fellow contemporary theologian Diana Butler Bass: “we can get off the theological elevators that take us up, up, and away, into the abstract sky, and descend from our heads into our hearts our bodies and our bare feet, thus becoming more grounded.”
It’s not just a matter of taking a walk to get some fresh air and appreciate a lovely day. We are so shaped and dominated by words and intellect, that we bring our words with us. “As we walk through a prairie or forest,” McLaren says, “our language chatters on, naming, categorizing and judging everything we see . . . . instead, we need to enter the natural world mindfully, reverently, as silently as we can, waiting for the beauty, intricacy, and wonder of what is outside us to overwhelm and hush the barrage of words chattering inside our heads.”
When we invite natural reality to reshape us, McLaren says, we are allowing God’s original Word – capital W - the language of the universe itself – to outspeak our human words.
Such humility and reverence in nature can reshape our lives, our faith, our world.
Perhaps that reshaping will open us to know the heart of God as we never have before. Perhaps we will feel the true groundedness of our created being and our oneness with the creator and all of creation. Perhaps that will move us to plant trees, or to advocate for pollinators; to consider where our food comes from or how many people our system of food production leaves impoverished; to break our addiction to throwing things away, realizing there is no “away” . . .
Perhaps our reconnection with our creator God, with the pulse and rhythm of the universe will pull us beyond these walls like that small group of people who decided to start planting trees and see what happens. Perhaps.
Perhaps we will number ourselves among the generations of the faithful who confess if I knew the world would end tomorrow, I would plant a tree.
