Trees

“The righteous flourish like the palm tree and grow like a cedar in Lebanon. They are planted in the house of the Lord; they flourish in the courts of our God. They still bear fruit in old age; they are ever full of sap and green.” – Psalm 92:12-13

Psalm 92 is titled, “A Song for the Sabbath,” and I can think of nothing better to reflect on during a sabbath than trees. Annie Dillard wrote this:

“Concerning trees and leaves… there's a real power here. It is amazing that trees can turn gravel and bitter salts into these soft-lipped lobes, as if I were to bite down on a granite slab and start to swell, bud and flower. Every year a given tree creates absolutely from scratch ninety-nine percent of its living parts. Water lifting up tree trunks can climb one hundred and fifty feet an hour; in full summer a tree can, and does, heave a ton of water every day. A big elm in a single season might make as many as six million leaves, wholly intricate, without budging an inch; I couldn't make one. A tree stands there, accumulating deadwood, mute and rigid as an obelisk, but secretly it seethes, it splits, sucks and stretches; it heaves up tons and hurls them out in a green, fringed fling. No person taps this free power; the dynamo in the tulip tree pumps out even more tulip tree, and it runs on rain and air.”

Amazing. And we walk by these things all the time. In the ancient near east, palms and cedars meant something special: in a dry and arid climate, they were images of strength, longevity, and beauty. Their leaves were green all year round. The palm here is likely the date palm, which bore fruit that was a dietary staple, and represented the presence of life-giving oases of water (Exodus 15:27, Numbers 33:9). The cedars of Lebanon grew to be immensely large and lived for thousands of years, symbolizing royal power and wealth. They were both literally in the house of the Lord: wood from the cedars of Lebanon were imported by Solomon to build the temple (1 Kings 5). Palms were used in the décor of the temple (1 Kings 6:29), were in Ezekiel’s vision of the new temple (Ezekiel 40:16), and were used to welcome Jesus, God tabernacled on earth, to Jerusalem (John 12:13).

We have four giant redwood trees in our back yard. When I get too caught up in the dramas of daily life, I go outside and look at them. I think, these trees will be here long after we and this house are gone. Here they are, quietly but constantly flourishing, spitting out bud and pine, heaving up tons of water. The wicked are like the grass, here today and gone tomorrow, but the righteous are like a tree in God’s presence. We will last past these times and ever bear fruit. These trees live in an entirely different scale of time and matter, and in our sabbath-rest pauses, it’s good to remember that.

Non-Random Events

“But a certain man drew his bow at random and struck the king of Israel between the scale armor and the breastplate.” – 1 Kings 22:34

“The Lord will fulfill his purpose for me.” – Psalm 138:8

In this story, Micaiah the prophet tells king Ahab that he will die if he goes to battle against the Syrians at Ramoth-gilead. Ahab orders Micaiah imprisoned and goes anyway, but he disguises himself in battle. The thirty-two captains of the Syrians have been specifically instructed to target only Ahab, yet they can’t find him. But then an unnamed man happens to draw his bow, and the arrow happens to hit Ahab, and the hit happens to be at one of the few weak links in his armor, and the wound happens to gradually drain enough blood that by evening he happens to die. The phrase “at random” here actually means “in integrity or innocence”: in other words, the man who drew his bow had no actual intention of killing Ahab, or perhaps of killing anyone. And yet, all of it happened, just as God had said.

There is perhaps no clearer example that God is sovereign over seemingly random events. Nothing can stop any act or design or purpose that God intends to bring about, as we also read in Psalm 138: no scheme of man, no level of statistical improbability, no claim of precedence. This challenges me to identify and confront the assumption of self-sovereignty our culture operates in. It leads me to take God’s words and promises far less lightly. It encourages me to be bolder in prayer to a God who can make anything happen. It invites me to be more patient in my faith when I don’t see Him working in obviously sequential ways.

The fact is, we are not the masters of our fate or the captains of our soul, as atheist William Ernest Henley wrote in his famous poem. Decades later, Dorothy Day responded to that poem with one of her own. Here are both:

“Invictus” by William Ernest Henley

Out of the night that covers me,

Black as the pit from pole to pole,

I thank whatever gods may be


For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance


I have not winced nor cried aloud.

Under the bludgeonings of chance


My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears


Looms but the horror of the shade,

And yet the menace of the years

Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,

How charged with punishments the scroll,

I am the master of my fate,

I am the captain of my soul.

“Conquered” by Dorothy Day

Out of the light that dazzles me,


Bright as the sun from pole to pole,


I thank the God I know to be,


For Christ - the Conqueror of my soul.

Since His the sway of circumstance,


I would not wince nor cry aloud.


Under the rule which men call chance,


My head, with joy, is humbly bowed.

Beyond this place of sin and tears,


That Life with Him and His the Aid,


That, spite the menace of the years,


Keeps, and will keep me unafraid.

I have no fear though straight the gate:


He cleared from punishment the scroll.


Christ is the Master of my fate!


Christ is the Captain of my soul!

The Sound Of Silence

“And after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire the sound of a low whisper.” – 1 Kings 19:12

On Mount Carmel, God comes in fire. Can you imagine, a fire powerful enough to consume in a moment not only an entire full-grown cow, but all the wood, stones and water around it, even down to the dust? But on Mount Horeb, God is not in the fire. In fact, fire does come, as does the wind and the earthquake, but God is not in them, as if to make a point: He does not always come the same way twice. He does not always come in obvious, dramatic, or inescapable ways. 

After the fire, there is the sound of a “low whisper”: in Greek, this is daq, which means “beaten down until it is small, thin and fine,” and demamah, which means “calm, silence, stillness.” Literally, this says, “And after the fire, the sound of thin silence.”

Mysterious, isn’t it? How can silence have a sound? How can silence be thin and small? The key, I think, is in the contrast: the wind beat down the mountains, literally broke rocks to pieces, and the earthquake and fire have the same kind of destructive power: the silence is the opposite of that. It is itself beaten down, perhaps like how Elijah feels in his soul, wanting to die, to be broken down into dust. God whispers to Elijah exactly where he is.

And silence does have a sound, perhaps. When I’m silent, I do begin to hear certain sounds—the chirping of birds, rustling of leaves, tick of a clock—that were there all the time, but are now revealed. We are so used to living life at certain frequencies that we must learn to turn them off sometimes to listen, to hear like Elijah the voice that asks, “what are you doing here?” How curious, that God asks this twice, when of course he knows the answer: but he asks, and listens, as Elijah airs his grievances and discouragement. I hear God asking me the same thing: “What are you doing here, Esther?” And I hear in the silence an invitation to be honest with my answer in his presence.

Noticing Our Weariness

“And he asked that he might die… And he lay down and slept under a broom tree. And behold, an angel touched him and said to him, ‘Arise and eat.’ And he looked, and behold, there was at his head a cake baked on hot stones and a jar of water. And he ate and drank and lay down again.” – 1 Kings 10:4-6

Most of my life, I saw physical weariness and limitations as things to push through, things that got in the way. It is perhaps ironic that those going into the medical field so easily neglect their own health: pulling thirty-hour shifts, driving into the hospital in the middle of the night, skipping meals, living off granola bars in between rounds and endless clinics and cases in the operating room (where lunch breaks are not scheduled). Those things were expected in training, which bled straight into motherhood for me, into even less-predictable patterns of sleep deprivation. Very often I would realize I had gone through the entire day without eating a proper meal, between feeding the kids and cleaning up after them.

When Elijah is depressed to the point of wanting to die, what does God do? God brings him food. The angel says, “arise and eat.” He doesn’t say anything else to him, nothing, not one word of therapy or counsel or encouragement or rebuke. And he tells him to eat a second time, but not until Elijah has had time to lay down and sleep.

Ruth Haley Barton talks about this in her book, Invitation to Solitude and Silence. Before anything else, she says, we must deal with our physical depletion. Sometimes, the most important spiritual thing we can do is get our rest. We must surrender and listen to our exhaustion. We must linger with our awareness of fatigue. Wonder about your tiredness, she says. Notice your weariness with compassion: times of solitude and silence are not times for judging, but for noticing. Acknowledge your tiredness as a child would with a caring parent; invite God into it with a prayer.

Often the best parts of solitude retreats for me are the ones that involve taking care of my body: allowing myself to take a nap, being conscious that I am doing so at God’s invitation. Eating my meals slowly, in silence, fully present to the experience. I am learning that my physical weariness is not an obstacle that must be overcome, but an invitation to acknowledge my limits so that I can experience God’s care for me. I am learning to hear God’s voice, which calls me from the depths of woe to say simply, arise and eat. Lie down and rest.

Elijah And The Widow

“And Elijah said to her, ‘Do not fear; go and do as you have said. But first make me a little cake of it and bring it to me, and afterward make something for yourself and your son…’ … And she went and did as Elijah said. And she and he and her household ate for many days.” – 1 Kings 17:13, 15

It’s a bit strange that the widow God commanded to feed Elijah is one who had no food left. If I were Elijah, my first thought would be that perhaps I had got the wrong widow. The one gathering sticks for her last meal would not be the likeliest option. This widow was at the end of her rope, in a place of suffering, facing death. And the words Elijah says to her are curious. 

He does not tell her to go and see that her flour and oil are overflowing, and then to start feeling better. He tells her first not to fear, before possessing anything other than the word of God. He doesn’t tell her to make sure there’s enough flour and oil, and then to start making cakes. He says, just go and start doing it. He doesn’t tell her to first make one for her son, then herself, then Elijah (the order I would prefer in her place). He says, first make one for me, then for yourselves: the first cake she makes is an offering, a gift. The one that she labors in greatest faith over, and makes while feeling most hungry, is one she gives away. He doesn’t tell her exactly how many cakes will miraculously be provided, or for how long. She simply has to set aside her fear and live every day reaching into the jars.

I really like to know my odds of success before starting a venture. Much of my anxiety is related to concerns about outcome or perception. But that is not how God works. No matter how ridiculous the widow looks, going into her house to host someone when she barely has anything left, she is to go. No matter how unlikely the odds, she is to make the cakes. And as she walks back, as she scoops out the flour and pours out the oil and kneads and bakes, she is to leave aside her fear. I don’t know what that was like for her, but we are told that she went and did as Elijah said. And the thing that was to be her last act before death, becomes the beginning of new life. Later, when her son truly does die, she sees him raised back to life and says, “Now I know that you are a man of God, and that the word of the Lord in your mouth is truth.” There is something we experience about the presence of God, about the truth and power of his word in our lives, that only happens when we live in that space, when we reach into the jars every day not knowing what will happen, but believing without fear that the word of God is with us. 

Two Offers To A Prophet

“And he said, ‘I may not return with you… for it was said to me by the word of the Lord…’ And he said to him, ‘I also am a prophet as you are, and an angel spoke to me by the word of the Lord, saying, ‘Bring him back with you into your house that he may eat bread and drink water.’ But he lied to him.” – 1 Kings 13:16-18

How was it that this prophet from Judah refused the invitation of a king, but gave in to one from an old man living in the city? Both offers are almost verbatim the same; one could even say King Jeroboam’s was more persuasively worded, for he offered both refreshment and a reward. Not to mention the fact that the king’s food would have likely been better than the simple fare the old man had to offer. 

But when the Judean prophet was before the king, he was still in the midst of the spiritually intense, climactic encounter for which he had journeyed to Bethel. He had intercepted the king at a favored altar, cried out terrible words of judgment, endured the threat of arrest, seen God’s judgment on the king’s hand and restored that hand through his words. His guard was up; God’s words were running high in his mind; he was in battle mode. It was easy to see King Jeroboam for the evil person he had become.

But when the Judean prophet was before the Bethel prophet, he was already on the road home. He had stopped to sit under a tree. He was probably physically hungrier by that time, likely spiritually and emotionally exhausted or lonely. And the man who made this offer was one of his own; his lie all too believable. It was a terrible lie, really; one can’t help feeling he ought to have been the one lying dead between a lion and a donkey. But that isn’t the point. God wants us to see that obedience is just as important in the daily grind of the journey as it is in public moments of crisis. That people are not infallible, that prophets and the word of man are not infallible. That the plausibility of holiness can be more dangerous than the explicitness of evil. That temptation from unexpected sources can be harder to handle. That pride or unguardedness can easily follow spiritual victories.

Jesus came not only as priest and king, but as prophet. He too was sent for a specific mission. He too spoke bold words that threatened existing power structures. He too resisted offers of reward from one who was evil. He too healed a shriveled hand. But he never veered from obedience. He spoke not one word that was untrue. He was himself the very word of God, God come to dwell with us, to invite us to his table, so we truly can stop and eat and drink. We can do so because he rode to his death in our place, the Lion of Judah, sitting on a donkey.

Building A House

“But it was Solomon who built a house for him. Yet the Most High does not dwell in houses made by hands.” – Acts 7:49-50

One truly unique thing about the Bay Area is that there is always construction going on. And we’re talking construction on every level: of corporate offices, housing complexes, private homes, accessory dwelling units. I suppose that’s what happens when a building is worth far less than the land it stands on: makes more sense to redo the building than buy another one somewhere else. 

We’ve seen houses as a theme in all of our readings lately, and it’s interesting to piece these together. In 1 Kings, we read about the construction of Solomon’s temple, in nearly-painful detail that harkens back to descriptions of the tabernacle in Exodus, except this time everything is built on a larger scale, with additions like a porch and side room, and with remarkable opulence. But perhaps most striking of all, whereas in Exodus God was at the center of the story—God initiates, instructs every detail, empowers the workmen with skill—the center of this narrative is Solomon, and two Canaanites from Tyre. Solomon does ask God to inhabit his temple, with an offering that matched it in lavishness: the sacrifice of 142,000 oxen and sheep, for which the bronze altar before God was too small (no kidding). And God does respond: “My eyes and my heart will be there for all time” (1 Kings 9:3).

But unbelievably, this remarkable temple would be destroyed in just a few hundred years. In Acts, we read Stephen’s sermon, which pivots on this story: despite the temple Solomon built, he says, God does not dwell in these things we build. The temple was not an end unto itself, but a sign pointing to Christ, and not only Christ but the Holy Spirit, the God who would dwell in the temple of our bodies for all time. 

We so often build the things in our lives as an end unto themselves. We spend lifetimes constructing impressive careers, children, bodies, possessions, without realizing that those things won’t last, missing the purpose for which they exist. Solomon himself wrote about this in one of the songs of ascents we read: “Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain… it is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil; for he gives to his beloved sleep” (Psalm 127). One sign of vain labor, interestingly, is anxious toil that keeps us from rest. There is an interesting dynamic here—we labor, yet we realize that God is the one who builds; as David said last Sunday, we choose to abide in Christ, yet he is the one who promises to abide in us—but one sign that we’re in the right place is that we can let go of our labors at the end of the day, and sleep. My eyes and my heart will be with you for all time, God says, and it is a promise that rings like a lullaby.