Good Morning Friends,
We all have an interest in our heritage and legacy. We can even get our DNA tested to discover our genealogy, but what is more important is our spiritual DNA and discovering our voice in the family of God. Well suppose that every time you opened your mouth you said something which were the words of God. Well, you might get quiet, for that is what happened to Ezekiel. In the New Testament we see another example of our God shutting up the mouth of Zacharias. Many of you are familiar with the Christmas story as reported by Luke in chapter 1 and the lineage of Jesus in Matthew 1. And what is interesting is that the two events and passages are explained through a metaphor…no this is not about Father’s Day, which is next Sunday, but Community Day reflected in a stump and a seed of thought and the growing and gowning of God’s creation. So as a spiritual arborist but also one who appreciates the Word made flesh, I wonder, Has the Church Lost The Roots Of Its Voice?
Scripture: Thus says the Lord God: I myself will take a sprig from the lofty top of a cedar; I will set it out. I will break off a tender one from the topmost of its young twigs; I myself will plant it on a high and lofty mountain. On the mountain height of Israel I will plant it, in order that it may produce boughs and bear fruit, and become a noble cedar. Under it every kind of bird will live; in the shade of its branches will nest winged creatures of every kind. All the trees of the field shall know that I am the Lord. I bring low the high tree, I make high the low tree; I dry up the green tree and make the dry tree flourish. I the Lord have spoken; I will accomplish it.
Ezekiel 17:22-24 (NRSV)
So we are always confident; even though we know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord— for we walk by faith, not by sight. Yes, we do have confidence, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord. So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him. For all of us must appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each may receive recompense for what has been done in the body, whether good or evil.
2 Corinthians 5:6-10 (NRSV)
He also said, “The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground, and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how. The earth produces of itself, first the stalk, then the head, then the full grain in the head. But when the grain is ripe, at once he goes in with his sickle, because the harvest has come.” He also said, “With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable will we use for it? It is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth; yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes the greatest of all shrubs, and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.” With many such parables he spoke the word to them, as they were able to hear it; he did not speak to them except in parables, but he explained everything in private to his disciples.
Mark 4:26-34 (NRSV)
So all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations; and from David to the deportation to Babylon, fourteen generations; and from the deportation to Babylon to the Messiah, fourteen generations.
Matthew 1:17 (NRSV)
A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots.
Isaiah 11:1 (NRSV)
Message: The image of a tree runs throughout the Bible’s storyline. We see it in the garden, a burning bush, Johan had his tree and so too Zacchaeus. The overarching image is of Christ on a cross but also the establish a kingdom that would grow and become a shelter for all people from all nations that would come to Him. For better or worse all sorts of people, good and bad are part of the journey. Maybe that is the way God planned it. There was a time when Israel claimed, through pride, that she was a living tree, and a flourishing nation, but discovered that she fell short. In the book of Revelation, Jesus points out that we Christians should also not be so smug. We are more a weed of a bush like the mustard plant. Here God takes the smallest faith and for those who trust miraculously increases it into a Tree of Blessings for all. This is the image of the emergence and growth of God’s Kingdom here on earth. Thankfully, God specializes in small beginnings! But we all want to come from good stock. We all want that famous person in our lineage. And when talking about our genealogies we are going to highlight those people. We want the strong, powerful, rich, and famous people in your genealogy. But the reality is that we all have the good, bad, and ugly as well as the beautiful in our family tree. Sure, we might want to hide them but that is not what Matthew does in Jesus’ genealogy. It is very interesting who makes it into the genealogy. It does not go out of its way to hide all the messy people. In it are some women of questionable character and a lot of bad people and even three women who were not even Jewish. Still when we look at our family tree, as manifested in the places we worship, I wonder if we are trying to find a good person in the pulpit to make us look better. In Isaiah 11:1 it says it this way… A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots. You see after Isaiah penned this verse and before Jesus’ genealogy was recorded in Matthew there 400 years of wondering and waiting. And some people in the pulpit give me this kind of feeling. Amazingly the promise of Isaiah is that from the mess of the Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David, and all the others, comes life. Life in the form of a baby. Jesus. From the hopeless situation came hope. And that promise is still true for us today in the image of the kingdom and a mustard plant and the graphed stock of a vine designed to produce fruit.
And So, even in the pews we are to be humble for the image is of the church filled with the very birds who eat the seeds of faith as well as the songbirds and doves who spread the Word of God. If we are not mindful that God is in charge, our grapes might well be sour, and the silence of our words never connect with the purposes of God.
Pray we too have branches and roots connected to the rod of Jesse and Jesus. Pray we stand firm. Pray what God plants is us though small grows and becomes a huge blessing to others. Pray we sow to the Spirit and reap to eternal life. Pray we grow branches and bear fruit. Pray we be careful what we say and especially what we promise. Pray God take our broken heritage and show how good and powerful Jesus really is. Pray we have a voice for God. Pray we plant the right seeds with words that bring forth peace.
Blessings,
John Lawson
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