“TREE OF LIFE”
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Harvest Festival Sermon |
Rev 22.2
“And the leaves of the tree were for the
healing of the nations”
Today
many people from this county are in London for the Liberty and Livelihood
March. As the newly arrived townie
from the urban North I don’t want to speak much about that today – beyond
saying this.
Scripture
says that humanity is called to responsible stewardship of the planet. And on harvest Sunday of all Sundays we
should be valuing our countryside, giving thanks for our farmers, and seeking
to support the countryside.
Scripture
does not prohibit the eating of meat, although some Christians are
vegetarians. But Scripture is clear
that killing and bloodshed should be done in sorrow not anger – and there is no
place for the gratuitous enjoyment of violence and bloodshed.
I
think that covers foxes as well as humans.
I suspect that gives us a theological handle
on the very diverse Countryside Coalition Liberty and Livelihood agenda.
Liberty
and Livelihood is not just a British issue.
Indeed the threat to liberty and livelihood in this country pales into
insignificance compared with other parts of the world.
Lets begin with a quote from an inhabitant of Borneo describing the
destruction of his forest homeland:
“The forest is our livelihood. We have lived here before any of you outsiders came. We fished in clean rivers and hunted in the jungle. We made our sago meat and ate fruit trees. Our life was not easy but we lived in content. Now the logging companies turn rivers into muddy streams and the jungle into devastation. The fish cannot survive in dirty rivers and wild animals will not live in devastated forests. You took advantage of our trusting nature and cheated us into unfair deals. By your doing, you … threaten our very lives. “
How far we have travelled from the Garden of Eden to the devastated
Jungles of Borneo and the Amazon.
It
was Ghandi who, when asked what he thought of Western Civilization, said he
thought that it would be a very good idea.
In
so many ways and places our so-called civilized world turns out to be anything
but civilized. So often we have chopped
down the tree of life and replaced it with what – mud, slurry and concrete,
greed and wanton destruction in town and country alike – a world in which the twin towers are
destroyed, the farmers of Afghanistan have no crops and we offer them bombs,
half the world has not enough to eat, children and teenagers are murdered and
this week just at the end of this very street a young person sat on a bridge
deciding whether to jump, wondering whether life in our world was worth living
or not.
What
word of hope do we have to offer the dwellers of the jungles of Borneo, the
mourners of New York, the farmers of Afghanistan or the youthful victims of
modern British society and their families?
Just
12 months ago the American Ambassador spoke at the Sept 11 Memorial Service at
St Pauls Cathedral.
He read from the Book of Isaiah - words originally spoken to exiles in
Babylon about return from exile:
·
The ruined city will be rebuilt.
·
From the ashes will come garlands of flowers
·
As flowers bloom in a garden, so justice will bloom once again in our
city.
Flowers from the ruins – a message for the
exiles in Babylon 2500 years ago, offered to the victims of Sept 11 in our
day. God’s promise to
a blighted and sinful world.
In
1941 a large swathe of inner city Plymouth was razed to the ground in one
horrendous night of bombing. One of the
buildings destroyed was St Andrews Church.
Years later a photo was taken of the still ruined building – but there
in the rubble of what had been the nave, there was the
miracle – an apple tree pushing through the rubble and in blossom. It was that photo which inspired hymn writer
Fred Kaan to write a hymn for Plymouth, which ended
with the lines “the tree springs to life and our hope is restored”.
And
as we look round this Church we see the symbols of God’s promise – his promise
of garlands of flowers from ashes, and the tree of life in the ruins of so
called civilization.
You
may know the mediaeval legend which tells of Adam desperately sick, dying. Adam sends his youngest son Seth back to
the gates of Paradise to beg the oil of mercy to heal him. But Seth finds the gates of Eden remain
locked and he has to return empty handed.
He comes home and finds that Adam is dead. He buries his father and plants over the
grave a withered branch of a tree. He
does not know that the branch is from the tree of life which grew in
paradise. And the tree strikes root
and grows and blossoms and bears fruit.
And so it lives on, until one day long after, it is cut down and its
wood is used for an execution, used to make a cross. And one day, over the place where Adam’s
skull lay buried, at Golgotha, that tree is used as a gallows whereon there
hangs the Son of God who is to us and all humanity the oil of mercy.
Adam
of course stands for the whole human race.
Once again in our time Adam is desperately sick, some would say near to
death. He lacks the oil of mercy to
cool and heal his cruel wounds and fevers.
Here
is the word of hope – from the ruins of our life and our society, from death,
destruction and despair, grows the tree of life which is God’s gift and which
brings healing to the nations.
There
is an old parable from Hong Kong, which is really about Jesus. It goes like this. Bamboo was a great much loved plant which
grew tall and true in the garden. One
day the master of the garden cut down Bamboo.
He hacked off his branches and stripped off his leaves. He split him down the middle and took out his
heart. Then lifting him gently, he
carried him to where there was a spring of fresh sparkling water amidst the dry
fields. Then, putting
one end of broken bamboo in the spring and the other into the water channel in
his field, the master laid down gently his beloved bamboo. And the spring sang welcome, and the clear
sparkling water ran joyously down the channel of Bamboo’s torn body into the
waiting fields. The rice was planted,
and the days went by, and the shoots grew and the harvest came. And on that day was Bamboo, once so
glorious in stately beauty , yet more glorious in his
brokenness and humility. For in his
beauty was life abundant, but in his brokenness he became a channel of abundant
life to his master’s world.
The
tree of life is God’s gift to us – he gives his self that we might share his
life.
And so to our scripture for today – the Scripture suggested by
Christian Aid for Harvest Festival this year:
John
the Divine in a cave on Patmos fleeing from the might and barbaric so called
civilization of Rome, has a vision of God’s promise -
the vision of the City of God. And
through the city flows the river of life, and on the
banks of the river stands the tree of life, with fruit for each month of the
year and with leaves for the healing of the nations.
I
am now getting to know you and learning already not only of your joys but also
of your sorrows. So I say: If this is
a hard week for you – if life seems hard, if you mourn or grieve or despair –
·
remember the apple tree in the bombed Plymouth Church,
·
remember the tree of life growing from the grave of the old Adam,
·
remember Isaiah in Babylon promising garlands for ashes –
·
remember the bamboo broken that life might come to the fields
·
remember the tree of life by the river of the City of God.
·
See every symbol of life and new birth in this harvest display -
and
know that God’s promises are ever sure.
BUT
- we are called by God not only to receive God’s promises but also to share
them, not only to give thanks for the tree of life but to tend and propagate
it, to sow seed and plant seedlings.
Here
today we have symbols – symbols of the fruits of creation, the riches of the
harvest, the fruits of the field – and for them we
give thanks. We also have at the front
of the Church another symbol – a bare tree with dead leaves – symbol of the
needs of the world.
And
this is our challenge today –
·
To transform this dead tree into the tree of life
·
To transform this symbol of despair into a symbol of hope
·
To transform this symbol of barrenness into a symbol of fruitfulness.
In
a few minutes time we are going to peg Christian Aid envelopes onto this
tree. The money we give today will
literally go to plant trees – trees in the war torn deserts of Afghanistan –
but more than this, we will be symbolising our hope for a broken world – and
our trust in God for the future of humanity.
When you come forward, we’ll ask you to place your gift for the work of this Church in the bowl on this side of the Church and place your Christian Aid envelope on the tree – and we’ll make sure there are people there to help.
And
as you bring your gifts, as you stand before the cross, the tree on which
Christ died and which became his throne of glory – please, make this a moment
of dedication in which you say –
Lord you have promised life and life in all its
fullness to our broken world.
Here is my offering –
take it that it may in some
small way be used by you
as a sign and token of your
coming Kingdom –
And
may the fruit which we place on the barren tree this day be a sign of that
great and mighty blossoming which one day we will know as we walk by the
riverside in the City of God.