Trinity 3 18

 

Ezekiel 17.22-end, Mark 4.26-34

 

Do you remember the Sycamore Gap tree, felled overnight last year in a completely baffling act of vandalism? I’d be surprised if you didn’t. It unleashed a huge wave of outrage and grief, and quite a lot of arguments about why we seemed to care more about this tree than the millions of people whose lives were destroyed by hunger and war every day.

That was a fair challenge, it seems to me, and yet, the loss of the tree, that particular tree, seemed touch a very deep nerve.

Trees are powerful like that. They figure in many different faiths and mythology. Norse myths tell of Yggdrasil, the world tree. The Buddha sat under a Bodhi tree and gained enlightenment, and of course the Bible starts with trees – the tree of life, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. What was it about the Sycamore Gap tree, though, which people found so powerful? It wasn’t an especially old tree, like those ancient yews which can often be found in churchyards, and which might be thousands of years old. It was planted, deliberately by the landowner only about 150 years ago. It wasn’t a rare tree either. The vicarage garden is full of sycamore seedlings, from the trees just beyond its boundaries, lodging themselves all over the place and putting tap roots down to Australia if I don’t spot them quickly enough. Frankly, if they want a replacement they can come and take their pick… It wasn’t even an English native tree. Sycamores were only introduced to England in Tudor times.

 

It was, it seems to me the fact that it stood alone, in that gap between the hills, strong and upright. You couldn’t miss it if you were there. It cried out to be photographed, and it was, thousands of times as well as appearing in feature films. People noticed it, proposed under it, celebrated births and mourned deaths under it. It was often described as iconic in the days after it was felled; its destruction seemed to symbolise the destruction of something far wider, and the fact that seedlings and cuttings have been grown from it a symbol of hope, and a refusal to accept that destruction. The first seedling was given to King Charles, as if those who did so were making a link between the tree and the spirit of the nation.

 

That’s something that the people of the Bible would have recognised, something which Ezekiel, in our first reading, was drawing on. He  was writing for a people in exile, a people who thought that they had lost their place in God’s heart and in his plan. They thought that the family tree of Israel, had been cut down at the roots, and was gone for ever. Not so, says Ezekiel. The kingdom of Judah, as they knew it, may have been destroyed, but God is more than capable of growing it again, he said, from the smallest of cuttings, and see it grow into a great cedar, the mightiest of trees. His vision is about restoration and hope, and it was a vision that was cherished in the centuries that followed, nurturing a belief that  Israel would eventually be recognised and honoured again, looked up to, just like a noble cedar of Lebanon would be, no matter how many foreign armies conquered it.

 

At the time of Jesus, yet another of those conquering armies had taken over Israel. Once again the nation was humiliated. That’s why Jesus’ message that a new Kingdom, the Kingdom of God , was coming was so welcome, and why many  people were so willing to acclaim him as the Messiah, the anointed one who would bring all this to pass.

 

But there is a twist in this story, a twist in the way Jesus tells his parable of the kingdom. The tree Jesus talks about isn’t a cedar of Lebanon. It isn’t even a 70 foot high sycamore. It’s a mustard tree. The precise identification is something biblical scholars argue over, but it’s probably a plant called Salvadora Persica, which is a scraggy, sprawly shrub that grows pretty well everywhere in the Middle East and right across to India. It isn’t fussy about where it grows, and will even grow in salty soil. In Israel it gets to a couple of metres tall, and left to its own devices can grow into dense thickets. It harbours plenty of wildlife, just as Jesus’ parable says, and has various medicinal and food uses, including making toothbrushes by shredding the ends of its fibrous twigs – it’s sometimes called the toothbrush tree – but there’s nothing very splendid about it. It might even turn into a bit of a nuisance if it is growing in the wrong place.

 

Jesus is very deliberately subverting the image of the noble cedar, the symbol of strength. His vision of the Kingdom of God isn’t of something outwardly impressive, all power and glory, but of a stubborn, wild, weedy, tangly shrub, which pops up wherever it wants to.

 

I can imagine a lot of scratching of heads at this. What’s the point of this kingdom if it is so – literally – weedy? If you are looking for something to symbolise your kingdom, something that will look good emblazoned on the armour, you’re not going to choose the mustard tree. And yet, this is a tree which persists. It survives. It welcomes. It provides many things, for many species – space, safety, nourishment - even toothbrushes.

 

What is Jesus telling us about God’s kingdom, God’s work, here? First, that it is God’s work, not ours. This is a tree which grows of its own accord, where it wants to. Second, this parable tells us that God can be at work in the most unlikely of places. He doesn’t need a carefully curated space. He shows up in people and in situations that may seem ordinary, or unattractive or even inconvenient to us. His kingdom doesn’t announce itself with trumpets and a golden glow of glory. Far more often it comes quietly, and is noticed only with those who have eyes to see it. Third, this parable says that the hallmark of God’s work is that it is always hospitable - it welcomes and includes. There is room in it for everyone, something it can give to everyone, if they are prepared not to turn their noses up at something so humble.

 

A faith which is focussed on tidying people up, sorting them out, controlling what they do and say and think may seem appealingly neat and controllable, but it isn’t the kind of faith Jesus came to share with us. He came to bring us life in all its fullness, life that affirms and welcomes the messy realities of life, that is less concerned about how it looks, and more concerned with making sure that everyone knows they are welcome and can belong. That “family tree”, that place of healing, and nourishment, belonging and connection truly is the greatest tree there is.  

Amen