Strange Tree

Within the wedding liturgy there comes a time for sharing signs of unity, typically a candle. I thought I’d seen just about every variant imaginable: wedding sand, a wedding cross, literally tying knot. Once I witnessed a powerlifting preacher bend a horseshoe into a heart by hand. I even had a couple who wanted to throw up old crockery and shoot it like skeet, using the shards to produce a mosaic. But for this week’s wedding, the couple chose as their sign of unity a live tree to be nourished and watered and planted after the service in their yard. A preacher could hardly ask for a more fertile image.

Homily:

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

I grew up in Pennsylvania, where the trees seem to go on forever, and their gifts appear without number.

Amazing things, really. We do take them for granted. Trees provide us with shade and shelter, a respite from the sun and a bulwark against the winds. They offer us fresh, clean air and fruit in abundance. They provide fuel for our fires and beams for our homes. Walnuts and chestnuts and apples and pears. Jewish tradition honors trees as the kings of all plants. Celts revere the oak, Germans the Christmas evergreen, and Slavs tell the story of how God gave to them the birch as the protector of their people.

You’ll find everywhere that the tree is a symbol of life, a microcosm for the entire universe. Their roots plunge down to the underworld, their branches stretch up to the heavens, and here on earth their strong, stout trunks provide stability in an all-too-often unstable world.

Little wonder, then, that trees are one of the most evocative images in the Bible. In the Beginning, when the harmony of Creation stood as yet unmarred by the brokenness of sin, it was a tree in the center of God’s Garden that provided Adam and Eve with eternal life. And only another tree, bearing the bitter sweetness of forbidden fruit, could tempt them away from it. During the time of the Patriarchs and Prophets, God spoke of His people Israel as a tree planted beside clear waters, lovingly tended, protected, and pruned by our Creator. The Kingdom of God, said Jesus, is like a tiny seed that grows up to become a mighty tree, sheltering the creatures of the world within its branches.

And then of course there came the strangest tree of all, bearing the strangest fruit: the Holy Cross, with the Crucified God stretched out upon its arms. How weird a thing is Christian faith, that this wicked tree, this cursed tree, should be revealed in truth as the very Tree of Life returned to us once more. The same tree by which we flourished in the Garden of Eden, the Garden of God’s eternal loving presence, pours out for us now from its pierced fruit the waters of Baptism and the Blood of the Eucharist. The wounded side of Christ becomes the womb from which all of us, and all of God’s good Creation, are reborn, made new, made alive once again!

We betrayed our God by a tree. And by hanging upon a tree has He saved us all.

Mike and Maureen, today you have chosen, as a symbol of your love, as a symbol of your wedded life together, a tree. What could be holier? You will plant it in good, clean earth, as you have planted a home together. It will grow steadily thicker and stronger, as will the bond that you share. In due season it will bear its fruit and provide you with shelter, just as you and your sons together shelter each other in love in this wondrous, difficult, and adventurous world. When this tree is wounded, you will see it heal. When blighted, you will see it recover. And should it fall, you will see new shoots sprout up from the root.

My prayer for you is that when you look out from the windows of your home, when you play in the yard with your children, that you will see this tree and remember that through it you and yours are bonded to the Cross of Christ—not a Cross of blood sacrifice but a Cross of abundant life, of self-giving outpouring love, rooted in the world, reaching up to Heaven, glorifying God in every season. This is where Christ dwells, among us, within us, in and around and through us, in our everyday lives, our everyday struggles, the pain and joy and hope we share.

There will be fresh new buds in the spring, lush green growth in the summer, a dazzling brilliance of color come autumn—that second spring, with every leaf a flower—and, yes, the cold hard bite of winter. Growth and strength and hardship and loss. But then comes spring once again, that glorious Easter Resurrection. Always the Resurrection.

Christ is with you in your wounds. Christ is with you in your healing. Christ is with you in the struggles of marriage, the pains of parenthood. Christ is with you in the joys of your children, the warm and comforting love between spouses. Christ is with you in this tree. And through you and yours, I promise, He will continue to bear marvelous fruit.

In the Name of the Father and of the +Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.