The Tree of Life: Spiritually Rooted and Growing
Lent, 2007
March 4, 2007
Ralph and Carol DiBiasio-Snyder

Years ago in Milwaukee I was attending my first interfaith event. It was held at a large synagogue. When I entered the sanctuary I was overwhelmed by the beauty of a huge stained glass window. Stretched out along one long wall of glass was a vibrant image of the Tree of Life. Deep and varied shades of green leaves pulsed with life. A substantial brown trunk centered the image. Roots wove complicated patterns across the bottom. I learned wonderful things at that interfaith event, but that astounding Tree of Life made the most lasting impression on me.

The Tree of Life image springs from the first pages of Scripture and appears just a few more place in the Bible after that. Let's return to the Garden of Eden and reacquaint ourselves with this Tree.

The Tree of Life is one of two main trees in the Garden of Eden. It bestows immortality on those who eat from it; eat of it and you will live forever. The other, perhaps more familiar tree, is the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil . . .
The tree of the forbidden fruit;
The tree that gets Adam and Eve kicked out of the garden
and unable to eat from the Tree of Life.

This Tree of Life is sacred - has an almost magical feel to it - eat of it and you will live forever!

This Tree of Life image is found again in the book of Proverbs where it is equated with "Wisdom." Similar sacred trees appear in other world religions - in Egypt, India, Sumaria, Babylon, Assyria - and in folklore and mythology.

Rooted in the ground and reaching up to the sky, the Tree of Life stands as a connection between earth and heaven.

With its seasonal transformation it is a rich metaphor also for resurrection. It is connected to the Cross of Christ which is the embodiment of the Tree of Life in another form.

Finally, as if it functions as "bookends," the Tree of Life reappears in the very last verses of Revelation, the very last verses of the entire Bible.

In the writer's vision of the New Jerusalem, the Heavenly City, the river of the water of life flows from the throne of God . . . Listen to the description of the Tree of Life:

I am especially moved by that last phrase: "and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations."

Sacred, vital, fruitful, growing, healing, life-giving - the Tree of Life - connecting earth and heaven, a graceful and poetic reminder that in the beginning and in the end our lives are rooted, fed, and grow by our connection to the Source of all Life - God.

We begin our exploration of the connections between our spiritual life and this image of the Tree of Life, as you would expect, with the roots.

Roots - the first bit of growth that emerges from the seed. Roots - the anchor for the tree, the source of nutrients, the most vital organ in a tree. When the roots fail to work properly, the tree will eventually decline, and die.

What is your life rooted in? What anchors your life and keeps you upright when the storms of life press against you? What feeds you? What is your life rooted in: Friends? Family? Hobbies? Social activism? Your career?

Any or all of these might be a part of your root system. Today I'd like to look at the idea that our strongest base comes when we are rooted in God . . . connected to the very source of life without which we spiritually decline and die.

I see the tree image in two verses from the letter to the Colossians. Notice how it seems to catch the image of roots, trunk, branches, and fruit.

I'd like to invite you to repeat this scripture and think about your own spiritual growth like a tree.

I learned a lot about roots preparing for our Lenten theme, and I think the ideas are rich with metaphors for our spiritual life. As I describe the roots, consider the parallels to your spiritual life, rooted in God. I've already mentioned that roots anchor the tree. They are a huge, unseen, absolutely vital part of the tree. The root's width is two to three times the height of the tree.

Roots range from twelve inches in diameter that anchor the tree to tiny, hair-like ones only .008 inches in diameter that absorb the water and nutrients from the soil.

Roots are not static. Some die; new ones appear. Absorption depends on the continued growth of new roots.

Our spiritual life - our connection to God - must like the roots of a tree be dynamic. Perhaps one thing nurtures your connection to God for a time, but as you grow spiritually, you find new and richer ways of feeding on God, sending out new roots.

I was fascinated to learn that the roots are also a food storage system. Over the winter, food is stored to be available for the energy needed for growth in the spring.

If we continually gather nutrients in the summer times of our lives - the bright and beautiful times - if we nourish our connection to God, then when the dark and cold and difficult times come in the winter, there will be a storehouse of nourishment ready to sustain us and feed us and give us life and growth.

Finally, I learned that the production and maintenance of the roots require much energy from the tree. Roots don't just happen. Our connection to God requires intention, energy, and effort. It doesn't "just happen."

And so let us pray that we might be intentional about being "rooted in God." Let us join in this prayer written by Nikki Waldhart:

Lord, may our roots grow
Strong and deep;
As a tree is sustained
By its roots into the earth,
So let us be sustained through you.
Let our roots not only be
Source of nourishment,
But also support us
And keep us planted firmly,
Not to be uprooted
When the winds of trials
Come our way,
But to hold fast to your strength
In our time of need.
Amen.

Part Three: Reflecting on the Trunk

Out of the roots, the part that we don't see, comes the trunk of the tree. The "trunk" is really the main stem of the tree - the first, and largest stem out of which grow all of the other stems, or "branches." Did you know that the trunk grows only outward - it gets thicker each year - but not upward? What appears to be upward growth of a trunk - getting taller and taller - is really, they tell me, the branches at the top of the trunk getting thicker, and in time becoming part of the trunk itself.

If you drive down Menominee Drive you can see a number of wonderful, great, large trees that grace the landscape. You can see all kinds of trees there, of course. But the ones that always catch my eye are the great oaks - full, tall, their "crowns" reaching for the heavens, perfectly shaped. Their beauty changes from season to season: the new-green of spring, matured into summer green; to orange-red-brown of fall; the glittering silver of deep of winter, painted with the frost of daybreak.

Some of you remember the ancient old oak that stood behind the Paine Art Center - over 300 years old when it at last succumbed to the winds of a storm. Perhaps you went over the next day to stand beside the fallen beauty, and wonder about its age, and all that it saw in its long - much longer than any of us - lifetime. Such great, old trees are a marvel to behold.

It is typically the crown of a tree - the branches and leaves, blossoms and fruit - that we see and remark about, that make our hearts rejoice. Not so much the trunk. We know it's there, surely. And up close we may admire its unique kind beauty - the texture of its bark, its obvious strength, its immovability.

But if it is deep and dazzling color you want, or graceful shape, or majestic movement in the wind, you look to limbs, branches, leaves.

But how do those limbs, branches, leaves, blossoms and fruits live and thrive? What holds them up through wind and storm? How do they get their nourishment gathered and stored in the intricate root system? Through the trunk, of course. The trunk is the indispensable channel through which flows life.

Carol invited us earlier to think about what has been and continues to be our root system - our connection to God. Whatever your roots, the next question is, How can that nourishment better flow upward, through the trunk of this Tree of Life, into the branches, the limbs, leaves, and blossoms, and ultimately produce fruit in my life?

My answer will be different from yours, and yours will be different from the person beside you. Or the same. Some of us are nourished by reading - Scripture, or classic works of devotion, or contemporary works on the life of the Spirit. You may be one who likes not only to read, but to then talk about it with others - you may be in a book group through which your soul is fed.

Others are nourished by music - listening to it, or performing music. Or by nature - the sight of a silent, perfectly still lake at sunset, a loon calling in the distance, fills you up to overflowing. Or by running through that nature . . . Physical exercise can be a means for some of us to spiritual health, as the nutrients in our roots travel up into our souls. Or prayer . . . some of us have a rich prayer and meditation life that feeds us. Or serving others: service may be the means by which you feel the presence of God, and are rejuvenated in soul.

Just as roots don't "just happen," and our connection to God requires intention, energy, and effort, so too does getting the nutrients of the soil up and into our daily life takes intention, energy, and effort. "Disciplines," is the old word for what spiritual people do to nurture their souls: disciplines of prayer, and meditation, reading and study, serving others, being in community - these are all means - "disciplines" - of spiritual growth.

Those are only a few of the spiritual disciplines people have used. And we are about now to participate in what has been for most Christians who have gone before us, and for millions of Christians today, the surest means of grace, of growth, of nurturing one's inner being, of getting the food in our roots up and into our living. And that, of course, is here before us, in the Lord's Supper . . . .