October 19, 2025
• Rev. Dr. Rob Fuquay
St. Luke’s UMC
October 19, 2025
The Faith of Trees
Spring Awaits
John 12: 20-25
The leaves are falling, falling as if from far up,
As if orchards were dying high in space.
Each leaf falls as if it were motioning “no.”
And tonight the heavy earth is falling
Away from all other stars in the loneliness.
We’re all falling. This hand here is falling.
And look at the other one. It’s in them all.
And yet there is Someone, whose hands
infinitely calm, holding up all this falling.
I started this series with a poem, so sharing another seemed to be a fitting way to start the last message. This one is by the poet Ranier Maria Rilke called Autumn.” It uses the "falling" of leaves as a metaphor for life and death, both in nature and for individuals. And that’s the final stage of trees that takes them from autumn to winter. Once leaves turn and fall, trees transition to their dormant period when they are bare and appear dead.
I learned many years ago serving churches in the mountains in North Carolina, that when trees reach this stage it’s a hard time of year for many people. When you are surrounded by mountains you can’t escape the stark change in landscape. No more green. No brilliant fall colors. Just brown emptiness. Add to that the decreased daylight and for some people it brings on depression. It connects too closely to our own experiences of grief.
I was talking to a woman just last Sunday after the second service. She has recently gone through several deaths of people very close to her. She says she feels like a tree that has lost all its leaves. She said, “I’m just bare right now.” Have you ever felt that way?
There are lots of ways we experience grief. Sometimes grief is large. It’s like losing a loved one. But grief can come in other ways. Sometimes you grieve not because of what changed but what didn’t change. You turned down a move. You said no to a relationship. You wonder, was it the right thing? You grieve what might have been.
Sometimes grief comes in natural transitions. Kids grow up, go to college, take a job, move away. Its everything you hope for and it can be an awful thing when the house gets quiet. I got a foretaste of this many years ago when our girls were little. I’m never so tired as a Sunday afternoon, and I fall asleep in my chair only to jolt awake with a squeal or shout. Then one Sunday afternoon, Susan and the girls were gone. I had the house to myself. And you know what happened? I couldn’t fall asleep. It was too quiet. There is nothing so deafening as complete silence.
Grief can come in so many different ways. If you think about it, most of us in this room or online are grieving something right now. There are probably a lot listening now who are experiencing a transition or change or loss that leaves a sense of grief. And trees remind us that grief is a season, but trees aren’t dead, they’re just dormant and waiting for spring to come again, knowing that it will. So, once more I ask, How can we have the faith of trees?
In the Gospel of John, on a couple of occasions, Jesus made a somewhat opaque statement, “My hour has not yet come.” His “hour” meant his return to the Father. It meant the completion of his mission. But several times he said plainly that now is not that time. He said to his mother at the wedding in Cana. She wanted Jesus to perform a miracle. He said, “My hour has not yet come.” A few chapters later Jesus’ brothers wanted him to go to Jerusalem during Passover and prove he is the Son of God, but Jesus said, “My hour has not yet come.”
But one day he said, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.” (John 12:23) What prompted those words? Some Greeks sent a message through one of the disciples saying, “We want to see Jesus.” And about all we can make of that is that Jesus’ ministry has now gone universal. It is not just for a particular people. He came for everyone. Now that non-Jewish Greeks have come seeking Him, Jesus is ready to leave it in the hands of the disciples, his hour has come.
But it’s his very next words that may be even more intriguing. “Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain, but if it dies it bears much fruit.” (John 12:24) It’s as if Jesus were saying, “This is why I came. This is the heart of my mission, to answer the universal question that everyone asks, “What is the meaning of life and death? What happens after death?”
This Wednesday at the Pastor’s Book Study, Dr. Adolf Hansen, our Theologian-in-residence here at St. Luke’s, will start a 4-week series, “Life After Death.” Adolf will explore this topic biblically, experientially, and faithfully. You are invited to attend in the Commons Room at 10am.
Let’s return to Jesus. He recognizes that his mission is fulfilled now that all people recognize that he is someone who can help with their deepest questions of life and faith. And what he offers with an illustration of a seed falling into the earth is not that different than trees in winter. It is an idea that can help us when we face our own winters and deal with death and grief.
For one thing, this idea suggests that There are seasons to be dormant. Grief requires a dormant time. I can’t remember who the author was, but I remember something a person wrote that stuck with me. The writer recalled a bit of advice from his father who said, “Don’t ever cut down a tree in winter.” The point was that it’s hard to know the difference between what is dead and what is dormant. And if you act too quickly you can regret it. Some actions require a time to be dormant, particularly in seasons like grief, when we may just want to race out of it, make quick decisions, move on. But trees remind us that you can’t make spring come. You can only wait.
Inactivity is a part of the spiritual life. Sometimes we believe that the only way we can grow is to do something. But God builds into the rhythm of life a regular time to be still. The word Sabbath means cease. Once a week we are to have time not to be productive. Even daily, we are to be aware of this. Our Jewish siblings teach us that day does not start at sunrise when we typically think, when we become active. No, the day begins at sunset when we prepare for bed, understanding that while we sleep, the God who never slumbers of sleeps is at work. Our greatest need is not for God to help us do more, it is to know that we can rest because of what God is doing.
Desmond Tutu was the former South African bishop who was the spiritual leader of apartheid resistance—talk about someone who stayed busy! Yet he said, “napping is a spiritual act.”
Sometimes the hardest thing to do is nothing. And trees preach to us and show that nothing is not nothing. There are seasons to be dormant so that we can know what to do.
Two weeks ago Shaquille Leonard made his retirement official at the Colts game, though he hasn’t played a game for 2 years. Stepping away from football was a terrible grief for him at first. Who was he if he wasn’t playing? He couldn’t watch games on TV. He didn’t what his purpose was. But the dormancy gave him clarity. He fell in love with being at home and around his girls and pouring into them more. He started to find value not in being cheered for, but cheering for others. So he began volunteering at his old high school, helping the student athletes. He said, “They got dreams just like I had dreams…I love to pour into them. There’s no better feeling.” (with pic of Shaquille)
Being willing to embrace a dormant period can be the harbinger to new flourishing.
But another observation from Jesus’ words is that Grief is a season not a sentence. I don’t want to sound pie-in-the-sky. Grief is never a gift. Walking through grief can be an awful, painful journey. But it helps perhaps to remember that just like trees I winter, it will not be that way forever. The dormancy is a season, it is not a sentence.
Ed Siegel was a member of St. Luke’s who died from Covid back in 2020. He was the Indiana Hall of Fame basketball coach of Pike High School. He was also the father of Mark who played for his dad, then went to play at the University of Evansville. Mark died in the tragic plane crash that killed the entire men’s team in 1977.
Coming through that experience, Ed said, “I can’t coach again. I’m going to resign.” He met with his pastor, Carver McGriff to share this. Carver listened empathetically, then offered just one question. He said, “Ed, what would Mark say?” Ed was quiet, then responded, “Mark would say, ‘Dad, get your backside on that bench again.”
And Ed did what I would call a courageous thing. He kept going. He went back to his team and coached and taught another 18 seasons. And he found joy and laughter and value in doing that again. In that time he influenced all new generations of boys including one named Eric Holcomb who became governor of Indiana and credits Ed Siegel as one of the important influences on his life.
Grief always remains with us, but it doesn’t have to end us, and it can even aid our flourishing again.
One last thought about this image of Jesus. We are never alone in grief. Ever. No matter what it feels like. You see, Jesus is the seed that dies. He is the one who falls into the earth and then becomes new life. He is that source of life in all of us who says, “I will never leave you comfortless.”
He is that source of life in a tree, that after the winter rises up again through the roots, restoring the chlorophyl and causing buds to sprout and leaves to appear. He is our source of life that is as real as a tree in summer. And he’s always been there. Even when trees are dormant. He’s there, we just don’t always sense it, but when we believe that, and we believe we will sense Him again, we will experience life again, we can hang on.
In one of Glenn McDonald’s reflections a number of years ago, he wrote, “We can survive the loss of many things. But we cannot survive the loss of hope. It is the spiritual fuel that keeps us going in the midst of a broken world.”
Then he told about a young woman he knew one time. She was going through an exceedingly hard time, but she spoke three sentences that have stayed with him. The woman said, “I know things will be OK in the end. Things don’t feel OK now. So this must not be the end.”
Go into explaining leaves…