Creekside Church Sermon of November 4, 2001 "The Tree of Life" Revelation 22:1-5	Rev. David Bibbee
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One of these years I will go to California and travel to a unique place. Not Sunset Boulevard or Beverly Hills or Hollywood or Palm Springs. I will go to see the giants-not the San Francisco Giants, but the giants north of San Fran in the Sequoia National Forest. The trees which stand as sentinels there are the oldest living things on earth. They reach so high into the sky that they create their own clouds. The sequoias and redwoods were once the dominant trees. The fossil records suggest that the sequoias and redwoods provided shade for dinosaurs. The trees that now grow in the High Sierras are nearly 3,000 years old and tower 300 feet high. The only thing as amazing as their age and size is the fact that these giant trees grow from a single seed so small that it takes nearly 6,000 of them to make an ounce.

I recall Fredrick Buechner's account of seeing the redwoods for the first time. He was part of a group that included several boisterous children, but as they entered the forest no one had to tell them to simmer down. The children silenced themselves; a hush fell over everyone. No one said a word. The awe of the sight robbed them of all speech. reflectin upon the moment Buechner wrote:

The redwoods made you realize that all your life you had been mistaken. Oaks and ashes, maples and chestnuts and elms you had seen for as long as you could remember, but never until this moment had you so much as dreamed of what a TREE really was.

We know a tree when we see one. They are living things which draw water and nutrients from the ground through a root system that pushes those nutrients through miles of capillaries to the trunk and branches and into the leaves that form an oxygen-producing canopy over the forest floor. We know about trees. They provide shelter from the sun, lumber for shelter and fuel for fire. Trees make life possible. And now we will turn our attention to a tree that not only makes life possible. It makes it a certainty.

Last Sunday Pastor Eis got us all wet as he spoke of the river from which comes the water of life. Today we return to Revelation 22 and float down that stream that flows from the throne of God. The river of life transports us to the tree of life. The image at first seems confusing. John says that on either side of the river was the tree of life. How could a tree be on both shores? In Ezekiel 47: 12 we find the same imagery. There it says, "On the banks of the river there grew all kinds of trees." The solitary tree in Revelation stands for many trees. But there is nothing ordinary about it.

It bears twelve varieties of fruit that are harvested each month, and its leaves have the power to heal the nations.

This is not the only tree of life mentioned in the Bible. At the beginning of Genesis there is a tree of life. Now it appears at the close of Revelation. The Bible begins with a tree in the garden and ends with a tree in the center of a city. In Genesis, partaking of the tree was strictly prohibited. In Revelation, everyone can eat its fruit. There is no need to worry about snakes. Everything that Adam and Eve lost in Eden is given back in the New Jerusalem, the city of God where nothing is cursed.

It's quite a tree! It's a symbolic promise of things to come…a tree of life with fruit always in season, with leaves that heal broken people in a broken world. It's a promise of things to come. We have waited a very long time now. And it's not here yet. What is the point of promises that are hidden behind a curtain of an unknown future? God's final victory and triumph of Jesus' love have not fully come. But we can receive installments. The life that comes from the tree planted in God's city is available. Life is available.

Here we face an irony about ourselves. Important things which make for a first rate life, we postpone. We put off what matters most. There are things that can't be put off…we have got to get groceries, prepare meals, pay the bills, mow the lawn, take out the trash. But put all these things together and they don't make much of a life. But there are things which do add up to a good life. Intentionally deepening relationships with your family. Paying attention to the needs of others and responding with acts of caring. Learning to pray and growing in your relationship with God. Following Jesus to the point of doing things which you would be a fool to try without him. At the moment these things may not seem very important. But add them together and you have a quality life. But we postpone it. "We'll get around to it next week…next year… perhaps."

Would you be upset if I said the church is no different? We show up as we should each Sunday trusting that whatever happens in worship it will be predictable and pleasant. We do what's necessary to keep things functioning. We pay the church bills and mow the church lawn. Should someone suggest that we heal the sick, feed the hungry, make disciples, teach Jesus' commandments and invite others to meet Jesus and become a part of his church? Should we be asked to make changes that are necessary to speak to this self-absorbed society, we say, "We'll appoint a committee to explore the suggestion and report back in a year."

I attended a hospice conference last week at Notre Dame. The speaker said, "We are lost in inessentials." "When people know they are dying, everything which isn't real is stripped away." It marks the start of their spiritual transformation. They see what matters. They do not put it off. I don't want to presume how it is with you, but I know that I spend a lot of time "thinking" about doing the important stuff. So much so that before long I think I have actually done it. It's a stall tactic. Pondering overrules performance. I lack the important things in a vault of good intentions. Fortunately, death is not the only thing that can break this cycle. "Beside the crystal river that flows from the throne of God stands the tree of life."

H.A. Williams was a priest in London. His autobiography, Someday I'll Find You paints a portrait of a man who was confident in his understandings of God, the Bible, and theology. Then came the collapse. He suffered a breakdown and all his confident thinking disappeared in a pile of rubble. It took years of patience, prayer, and therapy to make him not as he was, but a new person. His perceptions changed. He said, "The gospel seemed more and more about realities that were present and inward, not incidents that were past and external. The fact that such a thing happened in the Bible seemed irrelevant compared to the way I was experiencing it now in myself and the world."

While he was in a crowded cafeteria in Waterloo Station, he sat drinking a spot of tea and watching others consume theirs. He was then overcome by a vision. It was as if everyone was taking communion together and Christ's body was being shared among them. He said:

"I had the immediate certainty of some ultimate reconciliation in which everybody was caught up because they were all filled and alive with God's homely but surpassing glory."

Something happens when we allow the tree of life to establish roots within us. We don't postpone appointments with God. We will see what is essential and what is not and we will act upon it. The title of William's book implied a journey. Someday I Will Find You. It's a journey we all can take. It's a journey our church must take. We tune our ears to the echo of St. Paul who said, "Forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on in the upward call of God in Christ Jesus."

Established on the river of life is the tree of life which produces sweet fruit all year long. What sort of fruit is it which matures on the limb of our lives? It doesn't say. Oranges contain vitamin C. Bananas have potassium. An apple away keeps the doctor away…if you have good aim and a strong arm. Perhaps the produce of the tree of life can be found at the fruit counter of Galatians 5: 22. There you will find love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. "Fruits of the spirit" they are called. Fruits which keep producing.

Through seasons of heat and drought, through blessed times and tough times, through terrorist attacks, a precarious war, the fear of Anthrax. Through a shaken economy and the fear that violence and chaos is winning; through everything the tree still stands…it still produces the spiritual fruits which sustain us and heal us from anything that would break us.

The visions of Revelation are not designed to paralyze us with fear. They are given to give us hope. Regardless of what happens, regardless how dark the days ahead may be, we remain confident of the outcome because "the kingdoms of this world shall become the kingdoms of our Lord and his Christ and he shall reign forever." Standing in the heart of the city of God will be the tree. In the weeks and months ahead, you will see a tree on bulletins, newsletters, pamphlets, posters, and banners. It will be the symbol of our church's vision of ministry. This vision comes from Revelation 22 and serves as a visual reminder of the ministry to which we are called in this crucial time of change for our church. The tree of life will keep before us our need to be rooted in God, growing in Jesus, and bearing fruit in the spirit.

Kathleen Norris lives on the barren plains of the western Dakotas where trees are few and far between. She says that on the plains, trees are message-bearers. A lone tree causes her to reflect upon what is essential. The lone tree helps her distinguish between her true wants and needs and surprises her with how little is enough. The lone tree with all the vast space around its bare branches is all the more a presence-the presence of God which is finally all that really matters.

To call someone a "tree hugger" is intended as a slam. It's the name for an environmentalist gone overboard who puts the preservation of nature before human need. If you haven't hugged a tree lately, I suggest you do it. To hug that tree gives us what matters most of all, the tree that feeds us, heals us, the tree of life that is God's love.

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