Sermon – What Tree are you Under?

(I preached this sermon at Christ Lutheran Church, Harrisburg, PA on Sunday, 8/31/25 based on Revelation 21:1-6 and 22:1-5).

A journalist once told the story of a town in Mingo County, West Virginia. It was coal country, tucked in the Appalachian mountains. For generations, families lived off the land — fishing in clear streams, planting gardens in rich soil, sitting on front porches in the evenings while children ran through the grass.

But then came the blasting. Coal companies blew the tops off mountains to scrape away what was underneath. The streams turned black with chemicals. The day came when folks turned on their kitchen taps and the water that poured out was the color of rust. Children got rashes from bathing. People lined up for bottled water. Neighbors, who once shared life together on porches, now fought over the next handout.

The land was gutted, and so were the people.

And why? Because far away in a boardroom, people decided profit mattered more than creation. Control mattered more than community. Supremacy over the land mattered more than stewardship of it.

Here’s what struck me when I first read that story: it wasn’t just about poisoned water. It was about a poisoned tree.

Not a tree with roots in good soil. Not a tree giving shade or bearing fruit. Not the tree of life from Genesis or Revelation. No — this was a different kind of tree.

A man-made tree. A false tree. A tree with leaves like dollar bills, fluttering in the wind. Leaves that promised prosperity, but instead delivered sickness. Leaves shaped like weapons, cutting neighbor against neighbor. Leaves steeped in greed, violence, supremacy, and control.

The leaves of that tree weren’t for healing. They were for profit. For power. For sickness.

Those leaves didn’t bring life. They brought rust-colored water. They brought mistrust. They brought death.

Friends, that’s the world as it is more often than not. Out of whack. A false tree with diseased leaves stands at the center of our common life, and its fruit is death.

Do we really want to be standing under that tree?

And into that brokenness, John gives us a vision. Not of escape. Not of God whisking us away to some far-off heaven. But of God coming down into the midst of it all.

“Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth… and I heard a loud voice saying, ‘See, the home of God is among mortals. God will dwell with them.’”

That’s the root of Revelation 21–22. Immanuel. God with us. Not us climbing up toward God. Not us grasping for divinity like Adam and Eve in Genesis 3. But the divine coming down, pitching a tent, making a home with creation.

And what happens when God moves in?

• Death is undone.
• Tears are wiped away.
• The first things — the pain, the crying, the mourning — pass away.

John sees a city, radiant with God’s presence. And at the center of that city runs the river of life, clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and the Lamb. And standing tall in the center is a tree.

Not a false tree. Not a man-made tree. But the tree of life.

And this tree is not cut off like it was in Genesis. Its branches stretch wide. Its fruit never runs out. And the leaves? John says, “the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.”

This is not the first time Scripture has given us this picture.

• In Genesis 1, God creates and calls it “good.” Not perfect, but good. And in the garden, there was a tree of life. But by Genesis 3, humanity reached for more than human, and we lost it.
• In Ezekiel 47, the prophet sees a vision of a river flowing from the temple, with trees on each side whose leaves are for healing. John is picking up that same picture.
• In Exodus, God’s presence moves with the people in a tent — God literally camping out with them.
• In John’s Gospel, the Word becomes flesh and dwells among us — the Greek word literally means “pitches a tent.”
• And in Revelation, all these threads come together. God’s home is with us. The river flows. The tree of life returns. The leaves heal.

Do you see the arc? From Genesis to Revelation, God’s mission has always been the same: to dwell with us. To heal. To restore.

Everywhere else, the leaves fall and die. But on this tree, the leaves never wither. They heal.

And notice again: it’s not about making creation perfect. God doesn’t deal in perfection. God calls creation good. And in Revelation, creation is good again. The brokenness is healed. The exile is over. The leaves bring life where there had been death.

Its leaves are for the healing of the nations.

So here’s the contrast John sets before us.

On the one hand, the man-made tree:

• Leaves of profit over people.
• Leaves of violence and war.
• Leaves of supremacy and exclusion.
• Leaves that drain creation and fracture community.

That’s the tree humanity has too often planted in our world today. And we’ve seen its fruit: poisoned water, fractured neighborhoods, oppression, fear, division.

But on the other hand, the God-planted tree:

• Leaves that heal the nations.
• Leaves that offer shade, shelter, and peace.
• Leaves that restore what was broken.
• Leaves that invite us back into goodness.

Maybe humanity keeps choosing the man-made tree because its fruit looks so very good on the surface – the fruit of control and of being right and winning. The fruit of forcing others to comply.  The fruit of dominance.  

In Genesis 3, the serpent temps Eve into eating the forbidden fruit by saying that she will be “like God.”  It’s just too tempting. Especially when humanity has a skewed vision of who God is.  A skewed vision of someone with complete control over everything and everyone.  A skewed vision of someone who knows everything and is always right.  A skewed image of perfection, something beyond our human limitations.  

But every time humanity chooses this fruit, it ends in disaster, it ends in destruction, it ends in oppression, it ends in death.  Yet humanity keeps picking that fruit.  Every generation seems to say “yeah, but we’re different.  We’re good, reasonable people.  We can handle it.”  Sure.  That seems to be working out well right now in this country, doesn’t it?  #sarcasm

The false tree drains life. The tree of life gives it back.
What tree are we standing under?   What fruit are we reaching for?

And the promise of Revelation is that the false tree will not have the last word. The tree of life stands at the center. Its roots are deep. Its river flows endlessly. And its leaves are already healing us, one glimpse at a time.

And isn’t it something that today, at the end of the Narrative Lectionary cycle, we are reading the end of the story? Next week we’ll go back to Genesis 1, to the beginning.

Today we’ve stood at the last pages of the Bible, and what do we see? The same God who called creation good at the beginning is the God who calls it good again at the end. The same tree we lost in Genesis is the tree restored in Revelation. The same God who walked with humanity in the cool of the day in the garden is the God who pitches a tent with us in the New Jerusalem.

The story begins with a tree in a garden. The story ends with a tree in a city. And its leaves are for the healing of the nations.

From beginning to end, it’s one story: God with us. God healing us. God making all things good again.

So here is the Good News:
The tree of life is real. Its roots are planted deep. Its river flows. And its leaves bring healing — even now.

The false tree will not have the last word. The tree of life is already here. And its leaves are for the healing of the nations.

We do not have to settle for the false tree with its diseased leaves. The violence, greed, cruelty, and despair we see around us are not the final word. God’s dwelling is with us. The river of life flows. The leaves of healing are already falling on us, on our community, on this church.

Come to the tree. Stand in its shade. Eat its fruit. Be healed by its leaves.

That is the Good News of Revelation. That is the hope for us today.  And we got to encounter that last week.  

Last Sunday, we had our church picnic. Jim and Leta opened their backyard and made room for us. And what a sight it was. People of different races, languages, ages, every background gathered around tables. There was food in abundance. Children ran and played. Adults laughed as they passed a ball in circles around a large tree, playing the cake walk. And that tree’s many leaves shaded us.

And here’s what I noticed: in that backyard, defenses fell. People were safe. They belonged. They were free to laugh, to eat, to sing, to rest.

John looked out and said, “This is what the world should look like.”

And he is exactly right. Because in that moment, we weren’t standing under the false tree with its diseased leaves of violence and greed. We were standing under the tree of life.

For a moment, we could almost see it: the river flowing, the branches stretching wide, the leaves offering healing for every nation, every person, every heart.

Friends, that’s the promise. That’s the hope. That’s the vision. And sometimes — at a picnic, in a backyard, under a tree with wide leaves — we get a taste of it.

The false tree drains life. The tree of life gives it back.
Its leaves are for the healing of the nations.

So come. See the river. Gather under the branches. Take the fruit. Let the leaves heal you. And know that God is here, dwelling with us, making all things good again.

Thanks be to God.