The Lion and the Lamb

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dead of winter, hope, Isaiah, judgment, life, Peace, peaceable kingdom, prayer, presence, signs, silence, strength, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, tree, vision

Today we have one of Isaiah’s more familiar, even famous, visions. It is his powerful vision of “the day of the Lord,” describing what has come to be known as The Peaceable Kingdom. (IS 11:1-10) There are so many vivid images, some that we see on Christmas cards, some we recognize from observation of the world around us.

I believe I have spoken here of the hibiscus bush (tree?) that was moved in our yard a couple of years ago. It seemed very clear that it did not survive the transition. The surge of hope that ran through me on the day I discovered not only leaves on one of the branches but also buds seemed excessive but for me it was a clear sign that life is in some ways an inside job and occasionally we have to trust what we cannot see.

Waiting for peace in our country and world seems as futile and far away right now as the possibility of cows and bears being neighbors or babies playing by a cobra’s den. It’s clear that while waiting (patience) is important, there is more to be expected of us. How peaceable is my approach to others? Do I jump to judgment in whatever I read? Are rumors ever my “stock in trade” or do I know how to be in silence – to dwell occasionally with oppositional thought until the walls in my mind or at least in my heart are dissolved like smoke? Do I ever connect myself energetically with people in other countries around the world where people seem so strange to me? What power does the word “enemy” have in my life?

Today I look out at the tallest of trees across the yard. She stands stripped of all her fair-weather clothing and each branch – even to the tiniest of shoots – is exposed. In the “dead of winter” I know that life remains in that tree, that she is shoring up her strength to be ready for the spring when she will bloom again. Where is my willingness to be like that tree today, able to stand strong, stripped perhaps of easy answers and solutions but willing to offer my strength of honest purpose, my prayer and presence to move my world just a step closer to the realization of Isaiah’s dream?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Climbing Trees

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climbing, discipleship, Jesus, Luke, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, tree, view, Zacchaeus

When I was a child we had only one large tree in our yard and it was really big – a maple standing very close to the house. I remember it as a danger to small birds falling out of their nests. (We buried them in shoeboxes in the backyard.) There was also a concern when strong storms were predicted because if the tree was uprooted, the whole house would surely have been “collateral damage” as well. It never occurred to me that the house was probably more susceptible to destruction than the mammoth tree whose roots were very deep and whose trunk reached very high into the sky before any branching could be seen. It was not a tree to be climbed.

I was reminded this morning of that tree and the forsythia bushes in the yard that we “climbed” (read: “scrunched ourselves into to about a foot off the ground”) as the only option to the great maple. I was reading about Zacchaeus (LK 19:1-10) who was short in stature but really wanted to see Jesus so he climbed a sycamore tree. I wondered how big the tree was and how accessible. I wondered about the agility of this man who didn’t seem a likely candidate for discipleship; he was the chief tax collector, after all. Small man, big tree…he must have been seriously determined and it appears that Jesus was impressed.  The crowd who knew Zacchaeus was perhaps scornful when they saw him climbing the tree and surprised at the reaction of Jesus to it all.

My tree-climbing ability was never the best (Look what I had to work with in my youth!) but I wonder if I would have been willing to struggle up that sycamore if it meant a better view of Jesus. Perhaps I could consider flexing some inner muscles today, just in case Jesus happens to pass by.

Small Beginnings

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fertile soil, Holy Spirit, Jesus, Matthew, mustard seed, oak, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, tree, yeast

Any baker knows the importance of yeast in the process of baking most breads. That little package does wonders in the rising process. Just so, I have seen a lot of small seeds in my life but I don’t think I’ve ever encountered a mustard seed. I’m hearing it’s the smallest of all seeds (MT 13:31-35)… I have, however, watched trees on our property double in size in what seems just a few years – notably lately a large oak whose crop of acorns has just begun to appear. You know where this is going; it’s those two parables that are easier than most to understand. Jesus compares the Kingdom of Heaven to mustard seeds and yeast – small at the start but burgeoning into a huge tree or permeating a whole batch of bread as the necessary growth agent.

We could interpret these parables as giving us things to watch as they grow – just as the Kingdom of Heaven is growing in the world. But my sense is that Jesus means for his listeners to take what he says more directly. What if we, his hearers today, are the host for the change agents, providing the fertile soil for the seed of the kingdom to grow in us? What if we are the dough awaiting the yeast that we might be the ones to make possible the rising and the spread of the Kingdom here and now? Or more to the point, what if we are that seed or that yeast, having received the impulse of the Holy Spirit to use our energy for the growing and the spreading? We may not be the tree, visible to all by its spreading branches and great size. We may not be the beautiful and delicious bread from the oven giving joy to a hungry crowd. Unseen, unheard, unnoticed we may be doing the work that will advance the Kingdom which Jesus said is within us until it bursts forth to the glory of God and the benefit of the world. That is our call. And that is enough.