Bending in the wind. When I was a kid – this is the truth – I loved to climb trees. I was good at it. I was young, I was strong, I was athletic. I loved to climb trees. We lived on Fifth Street in Marysville starting when I was a fourth grader through my high school graduation. I was not climbing trees by the time I made it to high school. We had a nice, big backyard and there were a couple of old trees that stretched high into the sky. One of them was in the back of our backyard, and that one was my favorite. I was good at climbing trees, and now as an adult I figured out, looking back, I was a tree-climbing nerd. I would climb high into the tree with my little transistor radio in my pocket. I’m looking out, and some of you actually know what a transistor radio was. It was in my pocket, and I am not making this up. I’d find a branch that I could sit on reasonably comfortably, and I would watch the world go by below me, and I’d listen to AM radio music coming out of Columbus, the big city of Columbus.

One day I was up there, and this was the only time this happened. The tree spoke to me. She said, “Hey kid, someday a long time from now you are going to have the opportunity to tell people about me and my friends. You are going to have the opportunity to tell them about bending in the wind and how it makes you stronger. Tell them strong winds of change are going to certainly blow. Tell them to bend and not break. Tell them if they learn how to do this, then they can dig deep into their roots and fight for what’s right, what is loving, what is just, in the name of the Christ. Tell them.” Well, it’s true that I loved to climb trees when I was a kid, and I really did go up there and listen to music on my transistor radio. But I didn’t really hear the tree talking to me then. But I do now, and I want you to hear it too. 

The final collection and arrangement of what we call the Book of Psalms was completed probably in the third century BCE, 24 centuries ago. Most of the Psalms were written long before that, 24 centuries ago. What were they writing about? They were writing about life. More specifically, for the most part, Psalms is a book of prayer and a book of praise. It is not a book of doctrine. Doctrine’s fine. That’s not what Psalms is about. Psalms is a work of art. These writers are artists and musicians and poets speaking to us from their hearts from at least 24 centuries ago. I wonder what I’ve written that somebody 24 centuries from now will read. I am completely, utterly comfortable with the answer to that question.

We need to pay attention. The core teaching of the book of Psalms is this – the conviction that the gravitational center not only of life but of all of history and the whole creation is God. This is the core of the writers of the Book of Psalms. This is not a book of science. It is the book of the art of God being the center of our lives. Twenty-four centuries later, we can do this. The art of God being the center of our lives. In one of our lectionary readings today we looked at Psalm 1, how this book begins. Kasie just read it for us, I’m going to read just a couple of lines again – “Happy are those who do not follow the advice of the wicked, or take the path that sinners tread, or sit in the seat of scoffers, but their delight is in the law of the Lord, and on God’s law they meditate day and night. They are like trees planted by streams of water, which yield fruit in its season, and their leaves do not wither.” Translation, Psalm 1, according to Groat – happy are those who are constantly open to God’s instructions. In this case, not doctrine, but to the revelation of God every day. You don’t have to go to seminary to be open to the possibility of God revealing God’s self to us every day. You don’t need to know any doctrine to be open to that. It’s not the science of doctrine, but the art of being open to the possibility that every moment of our lives God is trying to get through to us. In our tradition, the Christian tradition, that is the revelation of the living spirit of Christ being the gravitational center of our lives, and unlike what is so prevalent in the winds of change today, the order of the day today is – are you ready? Not God-centeredness, but what? Self-centeredness. I’m speaking of some of our leaders. Self-centeredness. Every moment we are God-centered, Christ-centered, spirit-centered. This is what the psalm writes about. People who are open to God’s instruction through the mystery and art of our lives together are like trees planted beside a source of water. We are never without a resource to sustain our lives. Our roots are in precisely the proper place. We have deep roots in proper ground that allows us to withstand droughts of self-centeredness from our leaders, droughts of hatred and fear, hatred and fear, hatred and fear. And we will not be holy, and we will stand up with Christ.

You know what, sometimes things don’t go as planned. Right? Even involving the beauty of trees. My older brother Jeff, four years older than me, I think he was maybe in ninth or 10th grade at this time. We had a couple of dogs growing up, and one of them, which is a whole other sermon for a whole other time, was a Norwegian elkhound that we named Eric. It’s a Norwegian name, Eric the elkhound. We loved Eric, and my sister and I and my mom – my dad was off being a minister – and there was this big picture window in our living room, and we looked out and Jeff was on his back on the ground, kind of going like this, and Eric was barking, and we all said, “Oh, look, Jeff’s playing with Eric. Isn’t that great?” After a few minutes, my brother Jeff walked in the house like this (slumped down). Turns out he had fallen out of the tree, landed on his back. It’s hilarious, right? It’s hilarious because he was ultimately OK. Things don’t always go as planned. Write that down. I know you didn’t know that.

A number of years ago, researchers in Illinois placed a number of young trees in a greenhouse. One group of trees was supported by being tied to a stake. A second group was left to grow with no support at all, no stake. And a third group also grew without any stake support, no stake, but a researcher manually waved the tree back and forth for several minutes every day. At the end of several months, the three groups of trees were measured for growth in height and trunk diameter. The trees that grew with stake support, the first group, they grew the tallest, and they ended up being the weakest because they had small trunk diameter. Tallest and weakest. You know where this is going. The trees growing with no stake support were intermediate in height and trunk diameter, and many of these trees were not growing straight. Now, the third group, growing with no stake support, but manually waved back and forth several minutes every day. They were the shortest, but they had the greatest trunk diameter. They were the strongest trees. When you plant a young tree, give it only enough support to allow it to stand upright. Let the top of the tree bend and wave in the wind to promote the development of a strong trunk. There is a scientific name for this phenomenon, I mentioned it to you earlier – thigmomorphogenesis. In my sermon text here, I have that broken down into about five syllables. I’ll try it again. Thigmomorphogenesis. This is a mechanical stimulation of a tree swaying and bending in windy conditions that encourages the tree to produce stronger, denser wood and develop a more tapered trunk.

You know where I’m going with this. This isn’t about trees. This is about you and me. Trees are made stronger by bending into the wind, and so it can be for us. You know, I have a ritual. On Sunday mornings, thanks to the grace of God, for over two years now, two and a half years, I’ve been driving up here on Sunday mornings to be with you. I’ve developed a ritual. At 8 o’clock every Sunday morning, I listen to the news on NPR. In the last two and a half years, there’s always been a little hesitation. I’m not sure I want to hear it. But I listen, and I listened this morning. Every Sunday morning, I have to fight it. I need to learn how to bend and not break as the winds blow. I’m so grateful for these scientists and their tree study because now I understand it can make us stronger. We can find new ways. Trees are made stronger by bending in the wind and so it can be for us. This is what my favorite tree in my backyard as a kid is saying to us today. We can be made stronger by bending in these fierce winds of change that are blowing. Ironically, unexpectedly, gracefully, we grow stronger so that we can fight the winds of change that are filling us with fear. We are like trees planted by streams of water. And as my computer screamed at me earlier this week, not only planted by streams of water, planted by dreams of water. We are like trees planted by streams of water, and we can yield our fruit in this season of great change. Our leaves do not litter and in all that we do we can prosper.

Alright, here it is, and then I’m done. “The wind blows where it wills, and we hear the sound of it but we do not hear where it comes from or where it is going.” That’s my favorite passage of scripture. I didn’t know that until about 20 years ago. I was interviewing for a pastor position at another church. No one had ever asked me this. We were about halfway through the interview, and they smiled at me, and they said, “Pastor, what’s your favorite passage of scripture?” Nobody had ever asked me that before. It just came. The wind blows where it wills. You know, you might remember that that Greek word pneuma has at least a double meaning. It means both wind and spirit. The pneuma blows where it wills and we hear the sound of it but we don’t know where it’s coming from. We don’t know where it’s going. So it is for people of the spirit. So, what does that mean? It means be where your feet are, and look down at your feet, and know that we are trees planted near streams of water.

We lived in La Grange, Illinois. It’s a west suburb of Chicago. About 10 years before we moved there, the neighborhood that we lived in was filled with elm trees. All of the elm trees got Dutch elm disease, and they cut them down except for one. Vicki and I bought this house, it had a small backyard and an elm tree in the backyard. We had an expert come in. He said, “This thing is at least 150 years old.” Our backyard went from right here to here, and then back in front, and the trunk of that tree went from here to here. We had a guy come and look at it. He was so excited to see it. He didn’t understand how it could have survived. And he said something to me that I’ll never forget. We lived about 125, 150 yards from Ogden Avenue, which is a main artery in the western suburbs. He said, “You know what? The roots of this tree, they go as far as under Ogden Avenue.” About 100 yards, 125 yards away. I’ll never forget it. You know what? It’s nothing. It’s nothing. Our roots go back at least 24 centuries. And we’re going to bend, but we’re not going to break. We are not going to break. Jesus said that in John 3:8, and we may not know where the Holy Spirit comes from or where it’s going, but we know it is here. We know it is now. It is the wind that blows for us today, here today, and we are strong. Amen? Amen.