The Tree of Life . . . the Branches
March 11, 2007
Ralph DiBiasio-Snyder

Acts 17:22-28, Ephesians 3:14-21

Introduction to the Scriptures:

Did you know that Oshkosh - our fair city - on the NORTH side of the river, that is, was given by its optimistic earliest settlers the lofty name of "Athens." After Athens, Greece, I presume - that great center of learning, culture, and refinement in the ancient world, in the time of St. Paul. I don't know if, had the name stuck, Oshkosh high school athletic teams would have been known and the Oshkosh Philosophers - its mascot could have been, say, Socrates. Or they more likely would have chosen the name of the Olympians - ancient Athens was the center of athletic prowess, hosting the first Olympic Games.

The Athens of St. Paul's time was the place to be if you were into philosophy, and especially religion. And Paul was certainly into religion - a brand new one, made up of the followers of Jesus, the Christ. And so Paul went to Athens. The book of Acts tells us that he spent some time there talking to Jews in the synagogues about Jesus, and to anyone who would listen in the open marketplace too, talking to various philosophical schools - specifically the Stoics and Epicureans, says Acts chapter seventeen. The writer of that account, not very graciously, says of the people of Athens that they "spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas."

Soon Paul found himself on the Areopagus - a hill in Athens where anyone who was anybody would go to lecture and dispute with one another about religion - about the gods. The first part of the reading today is Paul's introduction to the sermon he gave there in front of the greatest minds of the ancient world, telling them about Jesus.

The second reading is a prayer of St. Paul's . . . prayer for the church of Ephesus, a prayer that fits well for us today as well. Let us listen now to today's readings.

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The confirmation class this past Wednesday paid a visit to the synagogue on Algoma Boulevard, across from Read School. It was helpful to us as we learned about the Jewish faith. There in the center of the chancel, above where the Torah scrolls are stored, was a stained glass window. Its subject? The Tree of Life. The Tree of Life that stands at the center of the Garden of Eden in the creation story, that appears again at the very end of the New Testament, in the New Jerusalem, the heavenly city. The Tree of Life that shows up so many places in Jewish art, that is our Lenten Season symbol, growing week by week right here in our chancel! There it was, with the Hebrew word for "life" carved into its trunk.

Our tree has grown since last week, hasn't it. Last week we spoke first of the root system. Expansive, complex . . . growing, renewing . . .unseen but essential. The roots anchor the tree to the earth; they extract nourishment from the earth, drawing water out of the ground to feed the whole tree. In thinking about the roots in this symbol of the Tree of Life we asked of ourselves, What has been my root system? What anchors me, nourishes me, connects me both to earth and to heaven? Carol invited us in this Lenten Season to be rooted in God.

We thought too last week about the trunk of a tree. We said that it is strong, stable . . . not always graceful, not often attractive or elegant but there it is. It is the trunk of a tree that holds up the rest, the so-called "crown" of the tree - the branches, leaves, blossoms and fruit. And it is through the trunk that the rest of the tree is fed - through the trunk flow nutrients and water that have come up from the root system, out of the earth. And we thought about how the trunk of the Tree of Life could serve as a symbol in our spiritual life. We said that nourishment for our souls can get from our root system - God - in many and varied ways: from prayer and meditation, to reading and talking and listening, serving others. However it happens within each of us, this nurturing of our spirits, this feeding of our souls - we live or die spiritually by how we let life flow up within us.

This week we have added the branches to the Tree of Life - twelve of them - growing up out of the trunk, branching out quite literally from the center, reaching up and outward into the world.

It is the branches of a tree that give the tree movement. Held up by the trunk, they are more free than the trunk to sway, to respond to the breezes, to explore the world, as it were, because the trunk is supporting them. Their freedom is a function of the root and trunk system's lack of freedom. Because of the roots that anchor the tree to the ground, because of the nutrients fed upward through the trunk to them, branches can be more daring, more alive to the sun and the winds, and more individual too - different from each other.

I have always been told that there are no two snowflakes exactly alike, and by faith I believe it. I propose another theory, one equally unverifiable, that every branch of every tree is like no other in the world. They are very like each other - thicker at one end than the other, with stems and leaves. But how any one branch grows is a product of so many variables - where the tree is growing, the amount of nutrients the roots have gathered, the wind and the sun, one could go on and on. In the end each branch of a tree differs sometimes a little and sometimes a lot from all the others. They are unique, yet part of the whole, and part of one another.

With that image in mind, let us look at the sermon Paul gave nearly 2000 years ago before the leading thinkers of ancient Athens. It is quite a sermon. I can't believe that he made it up on the spot, off-the-cuff remarks by the traveling preacher. I imagine that Paul had become known in the city by his preaching at synagogues and on street corners. I can see someone important listening to him speak, and despite the strange story Paul was telling - something about a Jewish man dying and rising from the dead - he was impressed by Paul's intellect. And so an invitation is issued to Paul to come to the Areopagus to lecture.

And so Paul has prepared, crafting his sermon with care. He begins with a compliment:
"Athenians, I see how extremely religious you are in every way. For as I went through the city and looked carefully at the objects of your worship, I found among them an altar with the inscription, ?To an unknown god.'

There apparently were many religions in the city, represented by statues of various gods and goddesses. Including the one that caught Paul's eye . . . that altar that was dedicated "to an unknown god." To an unknown god. The Athenians, you see, were bright enough to know that they didn't know everything. They had heard of many gods and goddesses - they didn't pretend to know them all. They had enough humility of mind to admit that their old ways of religion just might not have covered everything that God really is - in fact they were sure that they didn't know it all. Hence the altar "to an unknown God."

And there Paul sees his opening. He has experienced God in a new way, in the man Jesus. And so he starts to tell them. "What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by human hands . . . ." I would add that God doesn't live in shrines of the mind either: our imperfect dogmas of who God is, and how God works in the world.

But then Paul makes this great statement of faith:
"From one ancestor he made all nations to inhabit the whole earth . . . , so that they would search for God and perhaps grope for him and find him?though indeed he is not far from each one of us. For ?In him we live and move and have our being'; as even some of your own poets have said, ?For we too are his offspring.'"

"From one ancestor . . ." Paul is not the least bit concerned here about the creation vs evolution debate that plagues our day. He had not heard of either. He is making a religious point, not a scientific one, and it is this: All of humanity came from a common origin, that is, from God. This God is not far from any of us, he says. We think that he quotes here a 6^th century BC poet -- "In him - in God - we live and move and have our being." Whatever God is, God is right here, beside us, inside us, among us.

And then Paul quotes another poet - Aratus, from the 3^rd century BC - "For we too are his [God's] offspring." Children of God, all of us, says Paul. In our second reading he made a similar point when he used the phrase, "For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth takes its name."

Every family on earth - EVERY family - comes from God. Which means that every person is from God, a child of God.

The crying, desperate need in our world today is for people of every tribe and nation, clan and state, race and creed, religion and no religion to be convinced that we all are, really, children of one God. Religions and races, nations and political systems, my family and your family, these are but branches of one human family. The tragic reality of our time and really of every age has been that religion instead of instilling tolerance and trust, respect and love for others different from us has bred hatred, division, war. Our strident claims that we have found the true and only way to God, have built walls and worse, called armies forth to battle.

How we need a new vision of the world. The old way of looking at it is liken it to a forest - many trees of race, nation, faith all growing separately - competing for nutrients of the earth, the sunlight of the heavens. This old way of seeing nations and races, religions too says my tree is the best, the only worth saving, and that all trees should be just like mine.

Instead of that vision, let us embrace a new vision: instead of many trees, let us see but one tree, with many branches - branches different from one another, but also like one another, growing on the same tree. Such a vision sees humanity as one great, thriving, growing, fruitful tree. It is the Tree of Life. One tree, with roots growing deep into the soil of God's nature - "rooted and grounded in love" for God IS love. There are many channels - many means - of getting God's Spirit up and into the family of humankind - through the trunk to the branches, where each faith, each race, each nation is unique, and worthy of respect, health, resources. Each branch different, but all the same. Paul himself said it: we are all God's children.

This past Thursday Carol and I saw the Soweto Gospel Choir, from Soweto, South Africa, perform in Appleton. It was a wonderful, powerful, colorful and joyous performance of song and dance and rhythm. They sang out "gospel" - Good News - rich in faith, in songs of joyful praise of God.

They sang many songs of South African origin, of course. They also sang Amazing Grace, that hymn beloved around the world. As they sang it I could not help but think of the irony of the moment. Here was a choir of Christian people - Africans - singing a song written by a man (John Newton) who at one time made his living as a slave ship captain. In his days when he was blinded spiritually - he could not see that the slaves in the hold of his ship were children of God, part of one human family - he traded in human flesh. But when his eyes were opened, he left his past and his vocation, and lived a new life. That's what those words mean: "I once was lost, but now am found; was blind but now I see."

Here they were, these children of Africa, these children of God, these strong people of Soweto - where decades of apartheid had been inflicted on them by the white Christians who ruled them - singing of forgiveness, of hope. Their closing song was a prayer for the unity of the world - that the world might become one family.

Seeing that choir reminded me of another story, a true story about a young boy named Nkosi Johnson. Nkosi was born in 1989 in South Africa, born into poverty, and born infected with HIV/AIDS. Most babies born with AIDS do not live past their fourth birthday. That of course is happening to thousands upon thousands of children across Africa. But Nkosi was different. For some reason - it may have been his indomitable spirit, his "stout heart" [We Are All The Same, p 137] - he lived until he was twelve.

In a book called We Are All The Same, A Story of a Boy's Courage and a Mother's Love ABC news journalist Jim Wooten tells the sad and inspiring story of Nkosi's battle, and all the amazing good that he accomplished in his short life. Bright, courageous, ever smiling, with a keen sense of humor, Nkosi became a spokesperson for the battle against AIDS in Africa, especially in South Africa. He was one of these children that you see from time to time - rarely - who are much wiser than their years, much wiser than those of us who have lived much longer.

Nkosi fought for and won the right to go to school - the first child with AIDS to be allowed to do that. His fame in his own country gained international attention, and he was invited to come to the US to speak at AIDS conferences, raising awareness and raising funds for the care of AIDS sufferers.

Through his schooling and his travels working on behalf of AIDS awareness the disease continued to worsen in his own body. Not long before he died at the age of twelve, he was asked to speak before 30,000 people at an AIDS conference in South Africa.

He wrote his speech on his own, carefully crafting it no doubt as carefully as St. Paul had done before his speech at the Areopagus. He practiced it, memorized it, and delivered it under the blazing sun in a soccer stadium in South Africa. He first told of his mother's funeral - she had died of AIDS, as have so many Africans. Then he called for his government to seriously address the needs of AIDS sufferers. And then he concluded with these words:

"We are all the same. We are not different from one another. We al belong to one family. We love and we laugh, we hurt and we cry, we live and we die. Care for us and accept us. We are all human beings. We are normal. We have hands. We have feet. We can walk, we can talk - and we have needs just like everyone else. Don't be afraid of us. We are all the same."

Like branches of one human Tree of Life - families and nations, races and religions, people who are well, and people who are sick - we differ, but we are all the same. We are all part of the Tree of Life. Amen.