Epiphany 6 / Year C
Suzanne Simard had
a mystery on her hands. Working for a
logging company in British Columbia, her job was to inspect the health of
saplings planted on timbered land.
Consistently she found they were not doing well at all. Many died and all lagged in growth compared
to volunteer shoots arising naturally out of the ground. Eventually she came to discern how the
company’s method of planting – digging a hole down into clay, putting a sapling
into it, and filling is with soil – was in fact not working. The idea was to allow the hole to collect
water which, in theory, should sustain the sapling and help it to grow by avoiding
“competition” with other trees and plant life.
It actually served to isolate the sapling from the richness of the
forest’s soil, in which various organisms were working in harmony to share for
the benefit of all.
Over time Simard
discovered forests are not just a collection of individual trees, but diverse,
complicated, and interdependent circles of life. The forest’s soil, which includes fallen
leaves and decomposing materials, allows for vast interconnections between
trees through fungi and all other manner of stuff. They actually create a network and a
community which allows for communication between trees; fostering vitality and
alleviating vulnerabilities. Remarkably,
“Mother Trees” (as Simard calls them) tend to their offshoots. They can distinguish between trees they
produced and trees they didn’t.
Everything in the forest floor contributes something something else
needs and receives something something else produces.
Fungi, Simard
discovered, attach to tree roots in order form a beneficial relationship. The tree provides sugar (which it creates
through the process of photosynthesis) and the fungi provides nutrients (which
it takes from the soil). The fungi fan
out throughout the forest and attach to the roots of other trees, creating
something known as the “mycorrhizae network.”
This system allows trees to communicate with and support each other. For example, an evergreen tree will send
sugar to nearby trees during the time they are leafless. The process reverses when a leafy canopy
prevents sunlight from reaching the branches of the firs.
The reason the
logging company’s reforestation method was not working, Simard concluded, was
because it thought of trees as isolated entities rather than seeing a forest as
interdependent community networked together for the mutual benefit of all.
The magnificent biblical
Psalter begins with a breathtaking image: those who delight in God’s way and do
good are like trees planted by streams of water. Their roots are deep enough and broad enough
to touch the sustaining resources necessary for a happy and productive
life. It is not difficult to image how
the psalmist happened upon this metaphor.
Much of the Holy Land is a dry and arid landscape – little more than
rocks and dusty dirt. Trees and plants
attempting to make a go of it barely eke out a living. But ribbons of green run throughout the
region. These are places were steams
(some seasonal and other sustained) allow for plant life to flourish.
So the psalmist looks
at this and ponders what is necessary to sustain human life as a stream supports
a tree? His or her answer is a life
centered in God. In our lives we need a
sense of rootedness deep enough and broad enough to be connected with God. Only this will weather us through harsh and
barren times.
The prophet
Jeremiah picks up on the image of a tree planted by water but applies it in a
slightly different way. Whereas the
psalmist focuses on virtue (goodness verses wickedness), Jeremiah’s hones in on
something else. Those who trust in
mortals are like trees in the wilderness.
In the day of trial, counting only on their relationships, they will be
disappointed. Those who trust in God
will have all they need to endure whatever might come their way.
I know something of
what Jeremiah is saying. People in our
lives will let us down. And we will disappoint
people who count on us. Hence, the
reason we soon will engage collectively in the General Confession. But I wonder what Jeremiah might say if he
knew of the work of Suzanne Simard. I
think I know what she might say to him.
Our world is complex and interconnected.
None of us can make it on our own.
Yes, the tree needs the water, just as we need God. But the tree also needs other plant life if
it is going to flourish and be fruitful.
We, like the trees, need one another.
We need to trust in mere mortals.
I can’t remember if
I have told you before about the time I was on a leadership team which led a
large group of teenagers on a weeklong bike trip taking us around Lake Erie,
into Canada, and eventually ending up at Niagara Falls. Halfway through the week we had to send home one
young man. I won’t bore you with the details,
but essentially he kept doing what he wanted to do with no regard for how it
affected the health and safety of the group.
Not everyone on the
trip agreed with the decision. The night
after we sent him home, I addressed the young people and invited them to ponder
where we were and what we had accomplished so far. We were spending the night in a remote church
somewhere in Canada. “How many of you
could be here on your own? Would your
parents ever let you get on your bike, ride a ferry across Lake Erie, enter a
foreign country, and settle down here for the night by yourself? Could you have accomplished what you have
accomplished so far on your own? We are
here tonight because we have come together.
We could not be here without each other.
And we could not be here if we did not put the good of the group ahead
of our individual preferences.”
Yes, the righteous
are like a tree planted by a river, drawing from God all things necessary for a
good life. But we are also like Suzanne
Simard’s trees, an interconnected forest supporting and benefiting from one
another.
In my sermon a few
weeks ago I said we will be focusing on gratitude during Lent. I said gratitude is an awareness of how other
people contribute to our lives and how without those contributions our lives
would be impoverished. I hope my musing of the image of a tree from
today’s readings will help you to see in it this essential truth.
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