Canter Bridge

Few things connote to the human spirit the strength, steadiness, and persistence of a tree. We employ its rings to establish the timing of events that occurred long before we were born. We assume its presence after we are gone. A tree stands over the passage of events that come and go under its shade, making them seem small and short-lived.

For these reasons and more, the tree is a recurring metaphor in Scripture. It speaks of the very qualities I have mentioned, and more. The writer of the fifty-second psalm considers it the apt metaphor to help him express his confidence in the Lord’s enduring mercies over against the apparently insurmountable ragings of evil men.

Encouraged by his consideration of the Lord’s enduring supply, the writer rouses himself to address the evil man who in his mind’s eye stands before him at trembling attention.

Why do you boast of evil, you mighty man?
Why do you boast all day long,
You who are a disgrace in the eyes of God?
Your tongue plots destruction;
it is like a sharpened razor, you who practice deceit.
You love evil rather than good,
falsehood rather than speaking the truth.
You love very harmful word,
O you deceitful tongue! (Psalm 52:1-4 NIV)

In accordance with that moral dualism that fuels the rhetoric of men and women who write poetry while under seige, the psalmist reduces his adversary to one undiffentiated mass of evil scheming.

Then, this word:

Surely God will bring you down to everlasting ruin … he will uproot you from the land of the living.

When reading such brutal expression of confidence in the created world’s moral character, it is good to remember that one reads the words of the powerless. That man lives by these words, nourishes his frailty on the hope that they are true, confides his fears to the bold confidence of such affirmation. It is not easy to live besieged. Words are, sometimes, all that one has.

His trust in the eventual uprooting of the evil man is a my-last-penny bet placed upon the Lord’s promise to vindicate the oppressed. If he is wrong, all is lost. The odds are long.

In this high-risk context, the writer’s self-description becomes poignant rather than banal:

But I am like an olive tree
flourishing in the house of God;
I trust in God’s unfailing love
For ever and ever.

A tree, an ancient olive tree, planted in the Lord’s own presence too many generations ago for remembering, yet flourishing still when hatred and chaos roil the waters just beyond the temple threshhold.

When little boys stick out their chests and proclaim themselves invincible, we smile and know that they’ll learn in time to tone things down, to eschew self-exalting language, to practice self-deprecation in due measure.

Little boys grow up and discover they are not invincible, that hatred is too concrete for denial, that life becomes at times a drama of survival, that they have no resource but trust in a God whose lovingkindness outlasts all competition.

Sometimes, they imagine in worship, prayer, in solitude, that they are like a tree. Flourishing in the house of God.