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.