Out Our Way: The parable of the orange tree

"Go therefore and teach all nations; baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit; teaching them to observe all I have commanded you; and remember, I am with you always, even to the end of the age." - Matthew 28:19-20

Goliath, Charlie and I were riding fence for a friend up in the Bear Paws and part of the area was heavily wooded. Most of the cattle stayed amongst the trees while we road about. I suppose because of all the cattle, there wasn't much underbrush and it reminded me of the orchards I had seen in Colorado and California. I especially remembered the orange groves I used to play in as a kid.

It's funny, but have you ever noticed how no two trees are exactly alike? They each grow in their own way throwing their branches and limbs in what seems arbitrary manner to me, but, regardless, they all produce the fruit. That got me thinking about individual trees that have their own way of growing - yet no matter what branch the orange or apple or pear comes from, it is all just as sweet and juicy.

Most likely because Goliath has tossed me a few too many times on my noggin, my mind tends to jump around and take strange detours - and so it happened as I was thinking on trees in general, I remembered an illustration I had seen of the Church of Jesus Christ as a great tree.

I used this illustration last week to help folks grasp what it means to be part of the "holy, catholic and apostolic Church" we claim to be in the Apostles' and Nicene creeds. I thought I would share it with the rest of the family during Holy Week in the hopes that we all might grow a little closer to each other and also begin to become aware of what great things God is doing in our midst these days.

To begin with, the term "catholic" means "universal" or "worldwide." It is not referring exclusively to the Roman Catholic Church, for such did not exist at the time of the creeds. No, it was referring to the one church of Jesus Christ that is spread throughout the world. That is where the tree illustration came in handy.

Imagine a tree growing out of a single shoot. For a time the tree grows straight up as a single trunk. But for whatever reason, somewhere along the line the tree branches out, forming a "y" - and now there are two main trunks growing out of the main trunk. Each offshoot branches out and put out new limbs and branches etc.

But all parts still belong to the same tree. No matter which branch the fruit grows upon, it is the same fruit that the gardener harvests.

Back around 1055, the church of Jesus Christ underwent what scholars call the Great Schism, in which the church began to grow in two different directions, the Eastern or Orthodox Church and the Western or Roman Church. Here is the great "y" in the trunk as each branch grew in its own way. Out of the Orthodox trunk came various other branches - the Coptic church of Egypt and Ethiopia, the Greek Orthodox, Syrian Orthodox, Russian Orthodox, etc. Out of the Roman Church came our western protestant denominations - Lutheran, Presbyterian, Episcopalian, Methodist, Baptist, etc.

But despite the varied and often quite different worship styles and methods or worship, we all fed by the same roots and are all part of the same tree. This week, during Holy Week, we celebrate this as all across town, in so many different congregations, we will all be celebrating the same thing.

Christ is risen! He is risen indeed!

(John Bruington, Goliath and Scout can be reached at [email protected]. Past sermons, columns and Bruin Town Tales for kids are available on the website: wwwhavrepres.org. The book "Out Our Way" is available at Amazon.com.)