Sermon-Like a flourishing tree

The Large Plane Trees (Road Menders at Saint-Rémy), Vincent Van Gogh, 1889

A sermon given during the Sung Eucharist at St George’s Bloomsbury on Sunday 16th February 2025, The Third Sunday before Lent (Proper 3, Year C) based on texts from Jeremiah 17.5-10, Psalm 1, 1 Corinthians 15.12-20, Luke 6.17-26

Too often perhaps, those of us who live in this part of London fail to appreciate how enriched our lives are by its glorious trees. At least twice a day I walk past, sometimes barely conscious of, The Great Plane in Brunswick Gardens which is over 200 years old, first planted when the park was laid out for the children of Thomas Coram’s Foundling Hospital. The tree is so important it now has its own tourist information board. 

As well as the impressive specimens in our parks and gardens, many of our streets are lined with beautiful trees. From time to time – usually in the heat of summer – I find myself looking up and realising what a great blessing they are – and how different my experience of life would be without them. 

The poet Amy Levy was revered by Oscar Wilde but shunned by much of society, including many in her own Jewish community. She experienced long periods of isolation and depression. Perhaps from this deficit of human relationships she appreciated especially her connection to the natural world. Her writing draws heavily on the landscape of nineteenth century London as a metaphor for the complexities of human existence. 

One of her most famous poems personifies  ‘A London Plane Tree’ as a resilient woman, steadfast amidst the harsh environment of the City; the tree’s regenerative and life giving properties so vital yet completely overlooked. 

 

The scriptures use the same literary device. The Book of Proverbs describes Lady Wisdom as a Tree of Life. Elsewhere in the Old Testament the Messiah is depicted as a righteous branch. The seventeenth century writer and gardener John Eveyln described the new life that grew from that branch as the culmination of the story of our salvation that has been deeply connected to trees from the very beginning. He wrote: 

 

“In a word, and to speak a bold and noble truth, trees and wood have twice saved the whole world; first by the ark, then by the cross; making full amends for the evil fruit of the tree in paradise, by that which was born on the tree in Golgotha.”

In fact, the book of Genesis describes two important trees. The tree of knowledge of life and death from which Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit – and, at the centre of the Garden, the Tree of Life. 

 

It is perhaps those two trees that inspired the passage from the book of Jeremiah that we read today. 

 

In which, those who place their trust in mankind and the things of this world are likened to a shrub in the desert. Alive, yes, but its growth stunted by drought, extremes of temperature and the salt-encrusted rock all around. 

 

They are compared with those who live life trusting in the Lord. These blessed – or happy -  people are likened to an evergreen tree, which never fails to bear fruit. Its roots continually nourished by a nearby stream. 

It’s a hopeful vision within a text often characterised as a depressing read - Jeremiah is known by some as the “weeping” prophet. His “Lamentations” famously set to music. 

 

The first Psalm draws on similar imagery. The blessed people are those who have sought to live righteously, not walking with sinners or joining the ranks of the mocking or scornful but dwelt in the law of the Lord – meditating on it day and night. Living a life that leads to flourishing and fulfilment for all. Such people, the psalmist says, are like a thriving tree, bearing fruit in every season, nourished by the living waters of God. 

Similar parallels have been found in literature from Ancient Egypt and even earlier civilizations. 

This primitive analogy - expressed in Jeremiah’s comparison of the two trees and the text of the first Psalm - encourages us to ponder a profound truth. What sustains the life we lead - and what sort of life can we hope for as a result?

St Paul poses the same question to members of the church in Corinth. 

He is concerned that some are doubting the bodily resurrection of Christ, teaching others that it should be understood spiritually or metaphorically. That this life is the only physical reality. A view shared by many today.

Like Jeremiah’s shrub in the desert, those who hold this view, Paul explains, place their trust in mankind and the things of this world - rather than placing their trust in God.

“If for this life only we have hoped in
Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied” he says. 

Pitied because if there is no resurrection from the dead then our faith is in vain. There is no hope of the new life that John Evelyn described as being “born on the tree in Golgotha.” The new life that made “full amends for the evil fruit of the tree in paradise.”No hope of reconciliation between God and his creation. No hope of forgiveness. No hope of salvation. 

Pitied because our faith calls us to the promise of new life beyond this reality. Those who reject this possibility, claiming to privilege the the things of this world, often end up failing to appreciate them even at face value. Walking on by. Caught up in their own selfish concerns. Such lives, in the words of the psalmist, are destined to blow around like husks of grain in the wind. 

But, Paul concludes, Christ has been raised from the dead. He is the first fruit of the resurrection life. A life promised to all who believe and trust in Him. A hope that flows from the cross, like a stream of living water, nourishing our lives in the present, enabling us to flourish like the evergreen tree by the stream.

In our gospel reading, we find a huge crowd has gathered around Jesus, drawn by his power and compassion. After healing a great multitude of the suffering, Jesus turns to the disciples and declares that those who are poor, hungry, weeping, isolated and reviled are truly blessed and will inherit the kingdom of God. Those who are rich, have enough to eat, are laughing and popular will not. 

The passage became known as the Beatitudes and, like Christ’s resurrection, has been the subject of great debate in the church. What do the Beatitudes really mean? Are they to be read metaphorically, or interpreted as a literal command?

It is true that when we are empty and at rock bottom, we may be receptive to seeing life anew - as the poet Amy Levy found a reservoir of creative force amidst the depths of depression. But this is not the only condition in which people have embraced the possibility of new life in Christ. 

In this gospel passage, the woes that immediately follow the series of blessings echo the ancient comparisons we find in our texts from Jeremiah and the first psalm. 

Texts that describe a choice that defined the relationship between God and mankind from the days of Adam and Eve until Christ’s resurrection. The choice between a life lived with trust in God and a life lived without. Both a means of existence - only one offering a life of flourishing. 

Perhaps the Beatitudes are intended to be heard in the same way? 

To remind us that placing our hope and trust in something other than God will, in fact, stunt our growth by cutting us off from the root of our faith and existence. Preventing us from flourishing as God intended. 

As we prepare to share a foretaste of the banquet that awaits us in that risen life, we are confronted once again with that ancient question:

What sustains the life we lead - and what sort of life can we hope for as a result?

Do we want a life like a shrub in the desert or like a flourishing tree by the stream? 

Our faith calls us to place our hope beyond material wealth, comfort,  personal success and popularity. Not necessarily to give up these things, but to break the destructive hold they have on us. 

Emptied of which, we may embrace the reality of the new life that grew from that tree on Golgotha - and see the true beauty of those growing now, all around us. 

Image : The Large Plane Trees (Road Menders at Saint-Rémy), Vincent Van Gogh, 1889