Succession

Wilderness Voice

Second Sunday of Advent, December 4, 2022, Andy Kennaly

Isaiah 11:1-10      Romans 15:4-13  Matthew 3:1-12

Today I’m going to read an Advent devotional I’ve been working on. This was one those weeks where I burned through my work hours and still didn’t have a sermon. I caught the last daylight on Thursday and headed to Pine Street Woods. This writing is based on an experience there. Here is a photo of a birch tree that I noticed up on the hill in the meadow.

Today I’ll share what I wrote, and when I’m done I’ll sit down and we’ll have a time of silence for a minute or so, then we’ll sing the song of response, just verse one, one time through. To set the stage we’ve already read a couple of passages, one from the Hebrew Scriptures and one from the New Testament Epistles, or letters. Let’s continue to listen for the Word of God as I now read from the Gospel according to Matthew 3:1-12.

Succession

On Pine Street Hill not far from my house there are trails. A ten-minute drive puts me at a great place of opportunity with all seasons. Hiking boots, mountain bikes, cross country skis, and snowshoes all find use at this year-round local recreation hub. At the center of it all lay a meadow, open for the expansive view and dotted with only a few young seedling trees.

As a meadow surrounded by forest, eventually it could fill in with trees. This is gradual but steady, and follows a patient order called “succession.” Succession has stages, from early to late; each features certain favoritism toward tree species.

Early succession invites sun soakers, like leafy trees that soak up the summer rays then shed in the fall. The dead leaves give nutrients and structure to the soil’s organic life. Later stages are more shade-tolerant varieties, like evergreens which develop the deep, dark woods and old growth.

Although I’ve seen this meadow countless times on warmer days, this visit I was now on cross country skis. Winter has its own character and the low light at day’s end at the conclusion of gray sky’s snowy storm brought my attention in a new way. I crested a slight rise on the groomed track of a wooded trail, then emerged at the top edge of the meadow. In wonder’s pause of amazement, I stopped.

Today I saw a holy tree, both because wood peckers have done their penetrating work, and by observing with the soul-informed eyes of the heart. An old birch with a thick trunk and broad branches, each layered in several inches of fresh snow, stood in the glory of a muted, gray hue. The birch tree’s trunk was blunted at the top, much of it broken off, crashed onto the ground. Maturity’s scars on the wood meant there is no way to deny this tree is dying.

So many seasons ringed in its history, the trunk still tries to hold ground. Numbered days grow fewer as this life runs the course. Seed to sprout to sapling, young tree, then mature. Her girth was complete some time ago, and the trunk won’t go higher. Roots rot away, and already, large branches collect on ground once shaded.

Even in late stages, this tree’s life shares praise and blessing. The holes in the trunk become homes, like rooms with a view for birds, bees, and perhaps a squirrel or two. As woody pieces fall off they break down into soil and feed microbial life which flourishes in underground exchange of interdependence, years of sending to the tree, now replenishing from that which is given back.

It’s not long now, a few more seasons at best. Young evergreens already grow nearby, beneficiaries to inherit cyclical gifts returned to Earth. But even in its state of breakdown there’s a holiness to her, a sense of completeness that this moment fits well.

The decline ravages the tree’s physical integrity, but a grace infuses this life even as she gives herself away one piece at a time on all fronts. Leaves fall, branches break, roots rot, trunk gets hollowed, and all of this decline has benefits to others. Mycelium and organic fungi thrive in the depths of soil generated over years of early succession. Insects have habitat and birds find food, and the woodpecker’s holes double as housing. Branches collapse and create open canopy for sun to reach lower plants. New saplings of second stage succession race for the sky. On the tree’s entire body, the snow coats each nook and crook with thorough intimacy of knowing, like lovers.

This tree teaches others how to die, not in selfish grasping or isolating fear, but honestly and without apology; only thanks to everything connected in this holy place on the edge of a meadow on a sacred hill that overlooks a benevolent, enchanted universe of life, death, and rebirth.

John the baptizer recognized these wilderness lessons. The son of the high priest, this powerful prophet had already left the extravagance of liturgical life in the Temple. He was now preaching from the edge of the inside, on the wilderness boundary where he preferred the protection of the soft, downy fur of camel hair and the nourishment of abundance and sweetness. John saw and trusted the creative efficiency of new life. He was well aware that for something to be born, something deficient runs its course and dies.

There was no fear in this, only faithful participation, an offering of himself as a servant to something larger and as connected to everything as a river is to the sea and its cycles of rain gifted to parched places. John says he’s not fit to fix the sandal of One God has chosen to come after him. Succession. Early phases are unable to comprehend what comes next, and yet the unfolding changes everything and a new world is born, not to destroy the old, but to fulfill.

Why do we resist the cruciform life, of giving ourselves away for others? Or why do we pretend to be interested in the next thing, when we won’t let go of the former? John warns that “brood of vipers” who are going through the motions that their status quo will not work anymore. His voice echoes through the ages, but only because the wilderness voice spoke first. Maybe the church in obvious decline, rather than strive to survive, needs to listen to that voice, even as God promises to unfold something new.

Maybe lessons of a birch tree on a nearby hill are closer than we think. As Advent candles burn flames of exchange and interdependence, active trust discovers hope and love to light our day. Succession is at work. This moment yields to the next, then fades into past, held in the memory of God. The future becomes present and then past, in the constant flow of trust and love. If these don’t cast out fear they are at least large enough to hold it, to ease the burden, and transform its pain. A dying birch tree on the hill in winter teaches with every branch that falls.

As Isaiah says, “A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots,” says the LORD. “They will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain; for the Earth will be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea.” (Isaiah 11:1, 9)