(A large dead branch is carried down the aisle and placed in a stand at the front. The first two meditations are addressed to the tree. The song, "We Meet You, O Christ," by Fred Kaan, is sung with a verse at the beginning, the end, and between each meditation.)
First Reading: Job 14:1-17
Meditation I
You're back. Shattered by winter, hoping for spring.
You don't look so good. Broken off. No hope for you.
They treated your cousin better. He was in our living room at Christmas. Oh,
we treated him nicely. Dressed him all up - lights, balls, tinsel, souvenirs.
He was resplendent! And an angel on top, hollering to the skies. All the kids
and the old folks loved him.
He was burned at the dump on New Year's Day. Some people like to chop those
green ones up and use them for mulch. But I like the fire myself.
But you. How ugly and hopeless. Not dressed up at all. Even on casual Sunday
you wouldn't fit in. You see, people like new born babies that give them a real
affection for the future. They like being warm and cozy by a fireplace - even
if it has a gas log.
Now if you were in a pot, with your roots curled up in a ball, waiting for the
sun and rain, then maybe you would be welcome here. We could plant you outside
as a symbol of our faith in the resurrection. We could talk about Easter and
Spring and dying like a seed in the ground… - I know, it doesn't really
die, but we need the symbolism and it works, at least in our hemisphere. When
your buds flowered we could rest easy in the thought that resurrection is as
natural as spring, and faith as certain as the seasons. But you - you have let
us down. You won't let us off so easy.
Yes, I can see the buds, but you and I know that nothing will come of them.
They are dead hopes. The winter and the brush crew put an end to their future.
You were in the way of a new house. You will be replaced.
I realize you were just starting to feel the surge of sap -- the sweet sticky
harbinger of spring. The squirrels were beginning to lick at the excess popping
off your sides. But now you are broken - a mute testimony to nature's hopes.
I'm sorry we have been so mean to you, so destructive, so thoughtless. But really,
we don't treat you much worse than we treat each other. It's just that you can't
talk back, not in a way we can understand. I wish we could hear you, really.
What would you tell us? You have loved us so much, in your own way. Your leaves
have shaded our summers. Your fruits and nuts have fed us. Your sap has been
such a delicious treat. The kids love you, especially when you let them up in
your arms and even build little nests in your fingers. And beneath your roots
our own dead bodies have lain in the deep sleep of death. The same soil, the
same fields and gardens, the same rocks. We are rooted in them together.
So your death is especially hard for me. I can't even live as long as you do
but I think I can decide your fate. "There is hope for a tree…but
mortals lie down and do not rise again." Job. He's not very uplifting,
is he? Kind of a dead-end guy. You wouldn't want to trade places with him, just
as I wouldn't trade places with you.
You're back, for sure, but I don't know what to make of you. I wish I could carry you on my back like a happy gardener, but I don't know where to go with you, and I don't know how I'd bring you - or me - back to life.
Second Reading: Matthew 16:24-28
Meditation II
I can't stop thinking about how badly we've treated you and all your friends
and relatives. You've been our companions from the beginning, from the jungle,
the garden, the river. I guess partly you remind me of how badly we've treated
each other - taken each other for granted, used each other like blunt instruments.
We've even hanged people in your branches - lynchings, murders, executions.
And you answer us with flowers, and wood, and fruits of all kinds.
I wish I could forget all that and take a new direction with you - and with
those other humans, too. I wish I could forget about all this death around us.
I wish I could focus more on living. I know we really have to. The weather is
changing because of what we've done to you. Our soil is going down the drain.
Our rivers …. Your rivers? …
Well, why shouldn't I think I'm the center of this universe? You know, God talks
with us! God's coming back to save us. That's why we're here. We're following
Jesus. He's ours.
He's yours? You've claimed him? He's going to carry you so you can carry
him? That doesn't make any sense. That's a crazier idea than believing you are
going to flower after all. We've pinned our hopes on Jesus, not on you! If anything,
maybe you should be carrying us, like you always have. Just because Jesus is
carrying you along, doesn't mean that we should. That's his work, not ours.
He's special. I think it's good to learn from his example, but I'm not sure
we should imitate him. Not this way.
…Picking you up. You're a hopeless dead weight. Anyway, I've got a good
suit on. You'd get it dirty. And I'd look ridiculous. I'm sticking with Jesus,
the blond one we've got in the Sunday School. I just can't see Jesus all tangled
up with you, caught in your branches, taking up such a hopeless job. He's a
gardener, really. He doesn't take on real death. I'm willing to think about
what Jesus might have to do with you, but I'll still have to think very hard
about going along with you.
Third Reading: Hebrews 12:1-2
Meditation III (To the people)
I've decided to go with the Jesus Tree. My death isn't that different from his
or hers. I wish there was a personal "it" so we could deal with this
kind of thing. With Jesus all tangled up with the trees and the trees are in
us and we in them. But I just realized that we are all tangled up with each
other in this boat of death sailing the ocean of life. Maybe it isn't a boat
of death. Maybe we don't know where and what we are. We have companions. My
friend, the dead branch. She's part of something bigger. So am I. So are we.
Jesus isn't just in the past but he's with us again, calling to us from his
tree. I guess it's time to answer.
It's not going to be as easy as spring. Nothing automatic. No assurances. But
we will have company. And we'll have to learn a new way of depending on each
other, feeding each other, respecting our differences, loving each other into
our hopes. We'll have to give up this notion that we know what live is and what
death is. We'll have to give up a lot of fixed conceptions about who we are
and what's important.
The tree didn't have a choice. We do. So it's harder for us. It's hard to realize
we have the same God, that we're part of the same creation, the same divine
hope. Let's see if we can try it. Let's see if we can go for forty days this
way. Maybe something amazingly new will happen in our lives and in this world.
It's time to get going.
Prayer of Rededication
O God of Promise, God of Grace,
You called Abraham and Sarah to a foreign land
AND GAVE THEM STRENGTH FOR THEIR JOURNEY.
You called the prophets of old to preach justice to your people,
AND LED THEM THROUGH VALLEYS OF DEATH AND DESPAIR.
You called Jesus to walk the path of your peace,
AND LED HIM FROM DEATH TO LIFE.
Now you call us to walk in his light and his way,
FILLED WITH YOUR POWER AND PEACE.
LEAD US ON, O GOD, LEAD US ON
WE HAVE DECIDED TO FOLLOW JESUS.
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