“THE CHATTERING TREE”

           

Have you noticed the “chattering tree” on your way to North Ryde Community Church? It’s a huge tree (you can’t miss it) on the corner block facing our church. Each time I arrive this tree is alive, its leaves hiding a mass of resident birds of differing species loudly discussing their accommodation arrangements with their neighbours.

There are other noticeable things available. When the bottlebrush trees alongside Cutler Parade are in bloom, each tree quivers full of lorikeets feasting upon the nectar. In the front of the North Ryde Community Aid Centre you can notice community beds of flowers and of vegetables and herbs growing.

Perhaps we may have been in too much of a hurry or have too many things on our minds to notice any of these things. God has so much to show us and we do mean sometime to stop and smell the Manse roses but procrastination is always something we put off trying to correct.

We are entering that long part of the season of Pentecost where we are called upon, according to “With Love to the World” to “focus on God’s creation and reflect on our own faith journey”. We are often so busy trying to keep on top of things that we miss the simple messages of creation all about us. We ignore them at our peril and at the peril of those who will come after us who may well find them no longer there when it is too late.

Less and less we taste the locally grown food and depend upon imports from God knows where. Not only is the little community garden next door to our church hardly noticed but its purpose to encourage attenders at the Centre to participate in the nurture of these plants. In times of disadvantage, an ability to grow and prepare one’s own food can mean the difference between dignity and despair, between self-reliance and dependency. And it is only when we begin to notice our environment that we find our proper place within it.

I suspect that El Nino is arriving in what is turning out to be a dry time for us where water and therefore some foods become all the more precious through their scarcity. The bowling green lawns look brown. Watering is taking place this winter because the rains are spasmodic.

All these are signs that we are neglecting our environment – the creation of God. Our farmers continue to find rural life more difficult with our cities becoming more congested by default. Country bridges, the lifeline to many communities, fall into disrepair because resources seem only available to develop high-rise urban living.

The sign of the chattering tree is that of God telling us something about his creation. In Jesus Christ we have been given the opportunity for new life, not just for us, but for our community, not only for ourselves but for all life placed around us. When we stop for a moment, we may hear the cries of people treated badly, near and far away. We may experience in the changes of our climate that we have not treated our environment much more kindly than those seeking asylum. We find to our horror we are capable of great cruelty and indifference when what we want is put at risk in any way. Nature and human victims cry out like the murdered Abel in Genesis ch 4 from the ground on which we stand.

We remember Jesus who did not shrink from putting himself at great risk so that we may have life abundant. Our call to discipleship is to include others and our environment to taste this great life which God has given to us.