I.It’s likely you likely first spotted the two hills before noticing the regal tree nestled between them. Tucked deep into Hadrian’s Wall at the northern edge of England, the Sycamore Gap tree and its dramatic setting made it one of the most photographed trees in the country, a landmark famous in calendars and guidebooks and postcards of northeast England. Hikers took selfies by it. Couples said their vows beneath its branches. Kevin Costner and Morgan Freeman strolled around it in 1991’s classic film, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. It even won the 2016 England Tree of the Year award!
But on a stormy night in September 2023, vandals came to Sycamore Gap with a chainsaw and a mad desire for bravado and renown. What took 120 years to grow fell in three minutes. England awoke the next morning to find this beloved icon felled for no apparent reason. And among thousands, feelings of anger, confusion, lament, distress. Off went that beautiful trunk and its branches, ready to be turned into memorial art and maybe a table or two, leaving only the stump behind.1
II.“In those days, John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness of Judea,” Matthew tells us, “proclaiming, ‘repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.’” In those days, the people flocked to this wild-eyed, raggedy looking, locust-and-wild-honey-eating prophet. You know the type – saying the things you don’t really want to hear, in a way you can’t really not hear them. He sounded like those great Old Testament prophets the faithful knew well, with a voice crying out about preparing ways in the wilderness for the coming Messiah. That’s who they’d been waiting for in those days. The faithful, I mean. The ones oppressed by poverty and oppression, by crushing expectations and withering hope. Matthew said they came from Jerusalem, from all Judea, from all the region around the Jordan, they came to him. And John the Baptist, that unruly wilderness messenger with Isaiah on his lips and repentance in his heart, becomes the voice of change.
Later in our Christmas narrative, Mary will speak of a turning world: the lowly lifted and the mighty brought down. Then Jesus will speak of a turning kingdom: God’s new day that we get to pitch in and bring about. But on this Peace Sunday of Advent, John speaks of a turning within the human heart. “Repentance,” he calls it.2 Or more accurately from the Greek, metanoia. Meta, or “go beyond,” and noia, as a form of nous, meaning “your mind.” It conjures up an image of transcendence, of going beyond what’s known – what feels most normal and natural in your mind – and letting the wilderness of unknowing and uncertainty change you from the inside out.
For the folks lining up with John at the riverbed and for us who hear about him today, the spirit of repentance extends beyond a change of mind to a change of heart or a change of life. Repentance means leaving behind what was and embracing what could be, a whole-self reorientation toward God. Repentance is not about guilt or shame, but rather stepping off the daily treadmill, changing direction, and committing to live differently. “Turning your whole body around and planting your feet anew,” as Meta Herrick Carlson said on your worship guide.3 Some scholars have added even more shades of meaning by looking closely at the Aramaic translation of “metanoia” which translates as ‘return home.’4 So if one repents, in John’s perspective, one turns, one changes from the inside out, one returns to the deepest and truest home of our being.
But John doesn’t stop there. No use in having a changed mind or heart or life if there’s nothing to show for it! “Bear fruit worthy of repentance,” he says, worthy of the change, the turn, the new way of living. Meaning: live it, don’t just think it or say it or post it or claim it. Live it, don’t just wear the t-shirts or speak the language or practice the rituals or seek its approval. Live it in your everyday, walking-around-this-world, kind of life, even – and especially! – when no one’s looking.
In those days, John’s language was utterly uncompromising, especially for the religious leaders who claim their insider status by throwing around the names of ancestors. A brood of vipers, he calls them. Pharisees and Sadducees, which is somewhat like saying “right and left, Republicans and Democrats, conservatives and progressives,” for no matter their party line or blood line, together they were united toward the status quo.5 “Bear fruit worthy of repentance,” John tells them, a life worthy of the turn, liberation championing the freedom it offers, evidence of transformation. And from one felled tree to another, John the Baptist threatens, “even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; therefore every tree that does not bear good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.” But where Sycamore Gap was a chop out of spite, this is a cut out of love, out of hope, out of care for what the old ways of living are doing to our souls, out of a desire for a turned-around way of living. For what good is the turn if not for the fruit?
John knew that this message mattered, but it mattered only inasmuch as it prepared the faithful for the coming Christ. “I baptize with water,” John clarifies, “but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.” I’ll clear away the dust and cobwebs of this life, but he will burn off the trash heaps of evil and suffering and death-dealing forces in this world, returning all to God where hope, and peace, and joy, and love remain.
III.Remember that Sycamore Gap tree that was cut down by vandals? Well, the following spring, the Northumberland National Park Authority hammered in a hopeful sign where the tree once stood and the stump was now fenced off, that read: “this tree stump is still alive. If we leave it alone it might sprout new growth,” the sign continued. “Please respect the barrier.”
Over the next few months, eight tiny clusters of shoots emerged around the base of the stump. To a tree that once rose nearly 50 feet high, these were just a few small leaves, only a handful of centimeters tall. But they were unquestionably alive.6
When I heard this story of the tree, I couldn’t help but to think of the possibilities of repentance, of metanoia, of turning and returning. Because in these days, our lives often seem like vandals snuck in under the cover of darkness and cut down all that identifies us. Aging steals our capacity and youth. Illness plunders our plans and resources. Technology abducts our attention and imagination. Fear ransacks our trust and relationships. Gleeful power-grabbers plunder institutions, norms, rules, identity. Despair and helplessness take our power, hope, energy, agency. As Dr. King said, the preference for a negative peace, which is the absence of tension, robs the possibility of a positive peace, which is the presence of justice.7 In these days, we wake up in the morning to find that everything has changed seemingly overnight. Repent?, we cry out. Change? Everything’s already changed, and now I’m left with this useless old stump of a life.
Good news, though: the God of those days is the God of these days. The same God who asks us to prepare the way – not to be found by God’s judgment, but to be reached by God’s tenderness.8 The same God who fills the valleys and lowers the mountains, who makes the crooked paths straight and the rough ways smooth. The same God who proclaims a day when wolves will slumber with lambs, and swords will be beaten into plowshares. The same God who says that despite all evidence to the contrary, shoots will burst forth from stumps. The same God who tore open the heavens and came to a forgotten stable, to poor refugee parents and a gaggle of shepherds and sheep. The God of those days is the God of these days, because Christ is coming once more.
IV.That’s God’s work to do, then and now. But our work is the work of bearing fruit worthy of the turning. Sometimes that work feels terribly hard. Those old ways and patterns are quite familiar, comfortable, easy. But as Walter Brueggemann says, “To be confronted by such a holy God and to discover who one really is, painful as that may be, brings relief.”9 Relief in the way of Love. Relief in justice for the oppressed. Relief in God’s new day coming near.
And so, dear beloveds, our work of Advent preparation in these days is twofold: to turn and to bear. To turn away from the life of certainty, of animosity, of fear, of boasting, of letting our beliefs define us and letting those same beliefs divide us. To turn away from thinking any ounce of our living is too precious, too formed that Jesus can’t come in and wholly renew us from the inside out. To let go of even our tightest grasp, so we can live open-handed, open-hearted lives. To come home to who and whose we are.
To turn, and then to bear fruit. Fruit that looks like, sounds like, feels like a change has taken place. Love where there is hatred. Pardon where there is injury. Faith in doubt. Hope amidst despair. Light in darkness. Joy dancing within the sadness.10 Fruits of a life ready to be turned by Jesus into fire.
V.The story of the Sycamore Gap tree is a three-part story. You see, it doesn’t just end with vandals chopping it down, nor does it end with shoots from a stump, as striking as that image is. After it was cut down, thousands of citizens sent in ideas of how the trunk could be put to meaningful use. Artist Lucy Pittaway, who regularly painted the Sycamore Gap tree, decided to plant a tree in the nearby Swinton Estate for every print she sold. To date, over 1000 trees have been planted and a new woodland created.11 And the National Trust’s Plant Conservation Centre felt it important to share the spirit of the Sycamore Gap tree, even in its absence. From the trunk, the National Trust has been able to grow saplings, 49 of which have been given out to charities and organizations and planted across the United Kingdom, one for each foot of the tree’s original height.
Bear fruit worthy of repentance, you see. Bear fruit in those days. Bear fruit in these days too.
Amen!