What Kind of Tree Is Me?      

                                         Psalm 1: 1-6

 

 

          Many years ago, when I was just a boy, my parents built the house in which Cindy and I now live. It was, and still is, a nice, cozy home. In the beginning, the land was so full of scrub brush that my mother named the place Briarfield. It really was a field full of briars, mostly blackberry bushes. The blackberries were good when they came in, but it wasn’t much of a yard. It sloped in the back once, then again, to a creek that meandered through the property. My dad got five hundred pine seedlings from the Forest Service, and he and I set them out on the land joining the creek. In the upper back yard, we planted three oak trees, and three maples were set out in the side yard. Over the years, both longleaf and loblolly pines grew to maturity. One of the three oaks survives and it is the same with the maples.

          I look today at our little wood and it has begun to show that evolution that is part of nature’s way. The birds and the wind and the storms have carved another sort of wood from the one that my dad and I started so long ago. Over time, a forest, even a tiny one like ours, evolves. Softwoods like pines and gums give way to black cherry and poplar and oak. The pines grow fast and with a taproot. They can sway forty percent in the wind. Oaks and maples spread their roots and trap moisture from all over their long reach. They grow slower but much harder. Dogwoods, my mother’s favorite, once reputed to be big and strong enough to make crosses for crucifixions in ancient Israel and Greece, now grow spindly and crooked. Legend has it that the dogwood could never grow straight after Jesus was nailed to it.          

          The Bible talks about trees. In fact, it names several dozen different trees. There is the gopher wood used to make the Ark, acacia wood to build the tabernacle of God, the cedars of Lebanon used to build Solomon’s Temple, the olive trees that bear the favorite fruit of Israel, the fig tree cursed by Jesus, the dogwood thought to have been the source of the cross, the tree of knowledge of good and evil in Genesis. Whatever the tree, each has its use, some for strength, some for fuel, some for building material, some for ships. Some, many in fact, are fruit trees and a food source.

          Trees are metaphors for life. Some people are strong, like the cedars of Lebanon. Some can take great punishment and wear, like the cypresses of Mt. Hermon. Some bear fruit, and fruit of different kinds. In Israel, there are avocados, bananas, apples, cherries, pear, pomegranate and many more that come from the native trees, more than forty in all. That fruit is edible and helps sustain life. But there are other fruits that are not so edible, like the shade of the willow and oak. They sometimes supply us with the fruit of the spirit that accompanies rest and meditation. Some people are like that as well.

          The Psalms are mostly hymns. There are psalms of joy, of ascent, of praise, of lament. Psalm 1 is none of those. Neither is it an introductory Psalm, though it is placed at the beginning of the book. Psalm 1 is an invocation, calling us to lend our ears to God’s teaching, more akin to the wisdom literature of Proverbs than to the lyrical nature of the Psalms.  In that sense, it makes for an appropriate opening to the book of Psalms.

          Blessed is the man opens Psalm 1. But then the Psalmist tells us what is not blessed, doing so in a tripartite list of ascending familiarity. First, he walks. Then he stands and lastly, having gotten comfortable in his life of selfishness, he has a seat. Who is blessed? The man who walks not, stands not, sits not. Where? In the advice of the wicked, in the way of sinners, in the seats of mockers. Blessed is the man or woman who goes the other way from these storms and droughts of life.

          What is this man like, this man who is blessed? He cannot live just by not doing. He or she must do! The Psalmist offers us suggestions. The man is like this; a tree. Well, it must be a special tree. Indeed, it is. It is a tree planted by the rivers of water. When it is time, it yields its fruit. Through all that it encounters, it does not wither, but rather it prospers. How does it do this? Think about that tree. It is planted in the right place. There is space. There is nourishment. It can put down roots that reach those rivers of water and it can prosper. The man or woman who would be blessed must follow this path if they are to find a life that prospers. We too must find our rivers of water. We are in such a place now, where roots can go down and we can be nourished without fear of walking or stopping or sitting down in an environment that will poison us and the fruit we would bear.

          Trees are like people in another way. They don’t get to what they are overnight. It takes time for a tree to grow, to gain its maturity. It takes some trees longer than others. Growth is both upward and outward. To hold its height, a tree must gain breadth. Trees of every kind must learn to weather the storms of life, the droughts that come along, the winds that buffet them, the extremes of the seasons. They must put down roots, whether those roots run deep or wide. Those roots must sustain them through all the experiences and events they will encounter. Is it not the same for us?

          What kind of tree is me? What kind of tree are you? I think that I, like the forest, am evolving. When I was young, I was more like the fruit that comes in its season and provides those around it with laughter and joy and tenderness, all fresh and new and ripe. In another season of life, I have been more like those cypress trees that just keep taking a pounding and find a way to survive. In this season of life, I think I more resemble a pine tree, tall and straight but more able to bend to the elements that never stop testing me. What kind of tree are you?

          In the eleventh verse of the very first chapter of the Bible, God says this: "Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees on the earth bearing fruit after their kind with seed in them"; and it was so. Do you know what God was doing? He was creating; that’s for sure. But what? It seems to me that though mankind came somewhat later, the template was there to see. We are here to bear fruit after our kind. We are here as planters. We put out the seeds, just like I did with my Dad those many years ago. God will bring the harvest. What is our kind? We are made in the image of God. That is our kind.

          In the gospel of Matthew, Jesus is walking through the Lake District, the region of Galilee, teaching and healing and proclaiming the gospel. He gives a long discourse on many subjects over chapters 5-7, starting with the Sermon on the Mount. Near the end of this, his first of five discourses in Matthew, Jesus talks about trees and their fruit. Listen to the words of our Lord:

               ¹⁵ “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in

sheep's clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. 

¹⁶ You will recognize them by their fruits. Are

grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs

from thistles? ¹⁷ So, every healthy tree bears

good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. 

¹⁸ A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a

diseased tree bear good fruit. ¹⁹ Every tree that

does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown

into the fire.                           Matthew 7 15-1

 

          The Psalmist warns of the ungodly and uses healthy trees to symbolize the prosperity that comes from righteousness. Jesus, in the beginning of his ministry, draws from a similar analogy to warn of poor root systems and the disease of a poison witness. If you don’t get healthy and stay healthy, you become diseased. In the same way that disease prevents a tree from bearing fruit, so will disease of the spirit of a man cause him or her not only not to bear fruit, but to be cut down.

          What kind of tree are you? Where are your roots growing? Where is your delight? If it is in God’s teaching, you are healthy. And God will bring the harvest.

Abba

                     Luke 15: 20-23, Galatians 3: 29-4: 7

 

 

          Behind my house, the AC unit sits on a concrete slab. If you look closely at that slab, you will see handprints, the handprints of my children. If you were to look on the inside of the door to my old law office, you would find copies of little hands and pictures of my children when they were very young.  Same thing on our refrigerator. These places are a chronology of love moments and remembrances in my life as a father.

                    My children are grown now. They come home to visit when they can. They call or skype or email. Every time they contact me, I have to concentrate on letting them be who they are. You see, for me, they are not just who they are…they are also who they were. It may be a 35 year old on the phone, but for me, he is also 25 and 15 and even 5. In some mysterious way, I see each child over the continuum of time. No matter how deep the voice or how experienced they come across, I see them as toddlers and children and adolescents even as they talk to me as adults. I find myself littered with all that history, even in the middle of a current conversation.

          I think God sees us that way. In the gospel of Luke, the prodigal son returns home, having squandered his inheritance on loose living. He looks a wreck. But when his father sees him, even from afar, he doesn’t wait for the explanations or the apologies. He calls for the best clothing and a ring and shoes and orders not a meal, but a feast! For the loving father looks up that road and sees not a problem or a beggar, but his son. His eyes may identify the change in appearance, but the eyes of his heart see someone different, and he cries out in love and acceptance. That’s the way God sees us. He looks beyond the sin to see that bond between him and us. He sees us as he made us and as we can be, not just as who we are. God sees not only the imperfection of what stands before him, but also the perfection of his creation; he sees his children.

          My favorite word in the English language is Daddy. When my son grew up, he shortened it to Dad. Curiously, all three daughters still say Daddy. I love to hear it. It’s a term of endearment, of love. It’s who I am to them. Paul talked about this same feeling with the people of the Galatian church. He reminded them that God sent his only son Jesus to redeem us, so that we could be adopted as God’s own children. Adoption then and adoption now carry the same identifying marks. Once you are adopted, you are part of the family. It doesn’t matter where you came from, what your roots are. God sees us as sons and daughters.

Thanks to Jesus, that’s the relationship available to us with God. We who believe now stand beside Jesus himself as the family of God, his adopted sons and daughters. God loves us so much that, in the words of Paul, he “sent us the Spirit of his Son into our hearts.” That’s right! Believe it. The Spirit of God’s Son lives within our hearts.

          When you think about your relationship with your father, or your relationship with your child or children, that’s not so hard to believe, is it? Don’t we fathers send our spirit into our children every way we can, every day we can? Don’t we sons and daughters carry the seeds of our fathers’ love wherever we go?

          It’s the same with Jesus. God sent his Spirit into us. It goes with us, advises us, cares for us. We are adopted. We are family! We are full heirs to our Father’s kingdom. Paul thought it so loving, so endearing, that he compared the relationship to the sweetness one feels when calling out to Daddy, for that is what “Abba” means in Aramaic. Abba. It is a term of endearment, so sweet, so informal…intimate, like family is.

How long does it take for you to love your child? For me, it was love at first sight not once, but four times. I always marveled that my heart could grow to accommodate more children. I first thought that I would have to reclaim a little bit of my heart for each child, but that’s not the way it works. Your heart just grows. There is no limit. It grows to surround each child we are given. But even that is nothing compared to God. He loved us before we were ever even a thought in the minds of our earthly fathers. If I can love my four children the instant I lay eyes on them, if their mother could love them even before they were born, if their stepmother could love them as deeply as if they came from her own womb…How much more can our Heavenly Father love us…all of us!

          Yes, it is wonderful being a father. We have been given that gift, that privilege, by God as part of the relational revelation that teaches us about the kingdom of God and how it is between us and our heavenly Father. We are fathers, mothers, sons, daughters. Each relationship carries with it a very personal stamp, a footprint that teaches us about love and life and family. It also teaches us about God.

          I was privileged to hear one of those stories just the other day. Recently my home church had a Youth Sunday much like ours. One of the messages was given by a high school senior. His father suffers from early onset Alzheimer’s disease. He has had to grow up from a young age without his father being there in the way you and I have taken for granted. There was no fatherly advice, no sitting in the stands at his events, no handing over a set of car keys. All that was lost to my young friend through no fault of anyone, but lost it was. So he talked about growing up in the church, about finding role models among those men at the edges of his life. He talked about his mother, who has also suffered through this living loss. And then, he talked about his Heavenly Father. He talked about the relationship that had developed, about how it started when his earthly father could still lead him, but continued long after that could no longer happen. He ended his message with this thought: I know that my Heavenly Father hears me, even though my earthly father doesn’t know my name. There is much wisdom in that thought, a wisdom far beyond the tender years of that young man. And he is dead right.    

Perhaps the greatest feeling of all is the knowledge that we too, at every age, are still defined by God as his children. We who believe are invited to come close, to let down our defenses, to call him Abba…daddy.  He is there. He is always there. And he is our Father, today, tomorrow…and forever. Happy Father’s day, Daddy!

 

Let us pray.        

6/19/16,  rev. 6/18/17

                                                   Diabolos      

                                         1 Peter 4: 12-14,  5: 6-11

 

         

          Do you know him? He was probably at your wedding, though you didn’t invite him. He never misses funerals.  He’s in foxholes and classrooms, bedrooms and kitchens, seats of government and government housing. He was with Jesus in the desert and at Caesarea-Philippi where Jesus named Simon the Rock. He really gets around. Chances are you have never been formerly introduced, but I’m betting that you know him. There are probably times in your past, and maybe even today, when you know him more than you mean to.

          He goes by many names. Satan is a popular one. It means adversary. That’s his nature. He’s an adversary. He’s an enemy of God. Another is the devil. That means false accuser or slanderer, which is what he attempted to do to Job’s character. The Jews referred to him in the book of Matthew as Beelzebul, a false god. He has also been called tempter (1 Thess. 3), wicked one (Matt. 13), and accuser (Rev. 12).

          Are you beginning to recall him? Remember, I didn’t ask if you like him or if you would call him a friend. I just asked if you know him. He has titles too. Jesus himself called him the ruler of this world (John 12). Peter called him the god of this world (2 Cor. 4) and also the prince of the power of the air (Eph. 2).  These titles refer to his authority in this world, and they make it clear that he has plenty.

          The Bible also speaks of him metaphorically. In a parable where different kinds of soil are used to explain how the word of God is sown, Jesus compares Satan to the birds that snatch the seed off hardened ground (Matt. 13). In the parable of the sower, Satan is sowing weeds among a crop of wheat (Matt. 13). Animals are also used to describe his character. He is a wolf in John 10, a great dragon and a serpent in Revelation 12, and a roaring lion in 1 Peter 5, our text for today. So he has names. He has titles—and he has power, lots of it.

          This character is all over the Bible. We see him in Genesis 3, right after God has finished creation. There he is referred to as a serpent, “more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord had made.” Now this is some interesting information. In Luke’s gospel, we are told that he is a spiritual being who led an uprising against God and subsequently was cast out of heaven. But here, we are told in the first pages of the Bible that the serpent, another name for Satan, was craftier than any other beast. The translation seems to say that in some way if not all ways, Satan was indeed a beast. The stories are not inconsistent. They are descriptive of Satan. This is one formidable character.

          The passage in 1 Peter 4 is a tough pill to swallow. Here’s a 21^st century paraphrase. Don’t be surprised at fiery trials. They will come. They are sent to test your mettle. Don’t think of it as strange, because it isn’t. And if you are sharing suffering in the name of Christ, that’s a good thing. Be happy in it. If you get insulted doing Christ’s work, you’re blessed. That means the Spirit of God and his glory rest on you.    

          Well, the compliments are nice, but the trials can be really tough. Sometimes people die, to us prematurely, for no apparent reason but bad luck. Sometimes our dreams come crashing down upon us and there seems to be no relief from toil and frustration and grief. Those are some of the times we need to cling to the promises of Scripture. Jesus said in John 15: “If the world hates you, keep in mind it hated me first.” When he spoke those words, he was hours from his crucifixion. Do you really think he wanted that! Do you really think he wanted to go to the cross? He went willingly, but not because he wanted to. He just loved us way more than we hated him. Sometimes that kind of commitment is what is required of a Christian, to love through the hate, to care through the indifference.

         Satan knows that and he knows how to use that to his advantage. When we are in doubt, when we are in despair, in grief, at the edge of our endurance, that is where we most often will find Satan. Wouldn’t it be nice if he would just introduce himself? Say something like Hi. My name is Diabolos. That’s the Greek word (διάβολος) for Satan in Hebrew. It means slanderer and accuser. I’m the biggest, baddest, most untrustworthy piece of garbage you will ever meet and I am here to separate you from God, ruin your life and claim you as my prey, my food.

          But he doesn’t do that, does he? He lies. He lies all the time. Here’s the way Jesus described him in John 8: “He was a murderer from the beginning, and has nothing to do with the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.”  When you want to dig in to Scripture, he might suggest to you that it’s time to eat. When you think about visiting that neighbor who is in such need, he sees to it you get a phone call.  When you feel like raising your hand in praise in a worship service, he is there to remind you that you shouldn’t call attention to yourself. He is the master of distraction, diversion and deception.

          Wouldn’t it be nice if Satan would present like Hitler or Mussolini or Stalin? But he doesn’t. He presents like a next door neighbor or a lonely co-worker…or even a fellow session member. In his famous book The Screwtape Letters, author/theologian C. S. Lewis  offers a fictional, but highly relevant dialogue between a high ranking official in the army of Satan and one of the many soldiers in that army. Lewis offers these pearls to help us understand the insipid character of the devil. Screwtape, one of Satan’s leaders, says this:

It does not matter how small the sins are

provided that their cumulative effect is to edge

the man away from the Light and out into

the Nothing. Murder is no better than cards if

cards can do the trick. Indeed the safest road to

Hell is the gradual one--the gentle slope, soft

underfoot, without sudden turnings, without

milestones, without signposts,...

and this:

A moderated religion is as good for us as no

religion at all—and more amusing.

 

          How do we deal with this incredible power, this incessant, unrelenting march of this roaring lion, always seeking to devour us? How can we handle this cunning beast?

          The first thing we need to do is acknowledge his reality. Yes, we are selfish all by ourselves. Yes, we can sin and sin mightily with no help whatsoever from anyone. But there is evil in the world. There is evil in the world and it is powerful. How strong is evil? No one in all of history except Christ himself has overcome it. Evil will not be completely overcome until Christ comes again.  The gospels and Jesus himself attest to his reality. Shirley Guthrie says that “some of the worst injustice and suffering in the world is the result of ‘good’ people simply refusing to acknowledge that evil exists and therefore doing nothing about it.” Acknowledge his reality.

          Secondly, we need to discern his presence.  He is subtle, but he is not invisible. He can be seen in the way we handle our selfishness, our temptations. He can be heard in our responses to situations. He can be felt, sometimes as simply as when the hair on the back of your neck rises, or you get a sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach, and you realize that something is not right. Discern his presence.

          Third, we need to resist his advances.  Peter reminds us of this. He tells us to resist him, firm in our faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by Christians throughout the world. We are not alone. All believers are tempted by evil. We should expect that. The question is whether we will be prepared when those moments come at us. As believers, we know that we have choices. We can do something about the evil, about Satan, by working for God’s kingdom. Resist his advances.

            We can’t resist Satan by ourselves. We just don’t have the firepower or the staying power. But when we invoke the power of Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit that resides within us, Satan doesn’t stand a chance. Satan cannot challenge Jesus. Every time Jesus tells Satan to leave, he leaves. The Scriptures are full of examples, from casting out demons to dismissing Satan himself.

          Diabolos. He is real. He is powerful. He is capable of great evil and he is personal enough to attack each of us one by one. Until Christ comes again, this battle between good and evil will not cease. We need to understand that to be a Christian is to be called not only to grace, but for now; we also must recognize that suffering is part of that calling.

          Christians the world over share in this mission. And we have tools. We can acknowledge Satan’s reality. We can discern his presence. And we can, with God’s help, resist everything he has in his bag of tricks. We can, in the words of Peter, cast all our anxieties on God, because he cares for us. When we do, says Peter, “the God of all grace…will himself restore, confirm, strengthen and establish you.”  Satan has no weapon to combat a humble Christian obedient to the Spirit of God.