The Tree of Life: Homily for the 11th Sunday of Ordinary Time

 

Ez 17:22-24

Ps 92

2 Cor 5:6-10

Mk 4:26-34

 

The Bible is many things.  It is a rule of life that both prescribes and proscribes.  It instructs how we are to treat others and how to respond to God's love.  It is a source of moral teaching.  It is a history of the world.  It is a collection of biographies.  It is, finally, an exquisite form of literature that will never be surpassed. 

 

Both the Old and New Testaments use multiple forms of literary images to transmit the rule of life, the moral instruction, the history, and the biographies in ways that make them indelible and eternal.  Today's readings define and instruct in the simultaneously simple and complex idea of faith using the image of the tree.

 

Think about trees and what they mean to us.  Trees supply shade and give us food.  They are a source of fuel and things of great beauty. The beauty part is particularly apparent during a New England autumn.  In the deserts of the Ancient Near East the tree marked places where water allowed life to flourish.  It is no accident that the tree became a symbol of life.  In the reading from Ezekiel God uses the image of a cutting from a cedar to represent the restoration of and care for His people.

 

In the Ancient Near East the cedar exceeded 125 feet in height.  It was a symbol of strength and a sign of God's creation.  It was a place of safety for the birds that took shelter in its branches.  It was a place of refreshment for those who took shelter from the heat under its branches.  It was truly a tree of life.  All from a small shoot.

 

Many of Jesus’ parables turn on the question of faith, how faith is nurtured and how it is strengthened; how it directs, or should direct, our lives.  Jesus also teaches how faith, though given freely and without cost, requires care and attention.  Nurturing our faith as Christians and living according to that faith is the path to the eternal life promised by Jesus' act of self-surrender.  Jesus tells us in both of the short gospel parables that once the seed of faith is planted, it germinates and grows. 

 

In the first parable the seed grew though the farmer could not describe how.  Indeed, he was unaware of the early stages of growth  but maintained faith that it would grow.  With time a small seed buried in the ground lead to the mature plant of ripe grain ready for harvest.

 

The mustard seed of the second parable is tiny. It is only about 1/25th of an inch in size.  When I was in high school the Protestant girls wore small necklaces with crosses or a small globe with a tiny mustard seed suspended in it while the Catholic girls wore either a crucifix or a Miraculous Medal.  Despite its diminutive size, that tiny mustard seed grows into a large bush that, while technically not a tree, can be a dwelling for birds. and a source of shade, as if it were a tree.  Indeed, a mustard tree can be three or more times taller than an adult man. 

 

Just as it takes a long time and favorable conditions, for the mustard seed to grow from 1/25th of an inch into a huge bush, so it is with faith.  As we live our faith, cultivate it, and attend to it through prayer, reflection, meditation on scripture, regular confession, and frequent reception of the Eucharist, it matures,  becomes stronger, and more resilient. It becomes more able to sustain us. It allows us to sustain those whose faith is weak, it allows us to be a shelter for those who need to rest in the branches of our faith when theirs is shaky. 

 

Paul writes in the Second Letter to the Corinthians, "We walk by faith, not by sight."  That is the faith of the farmer who plants the seed but sees nothing until it has germinated, taken root, and begun to grow.  Faith is perfectly explained in the Letter to the Hebrews as:  " . . .the realization of what is hoped for and evidence of things not seen."

 

Through the eyes of a faith we come to see the cross as the tree of all life.  Only through the eyes of faith can we see the cross as the tree through which we were granted salvation. The cedar of the first reading, the palm tree of the psalm, and the tree that grows from the tiny mustard seed, all remind us of the promise to restore the House of David.  A restoration accomplished through Jesus, in his obedience .who by hanging on the tree of life defeated death forever.