SITTING  UNDER 

THE APPLE TREE 

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily is, “Sitting Under the Apple Tree.”

As I read today’s readings - I noticed in the first reading - the story of Moses and the Burning Bush. It was a key turning point of Moses’ life.

We all have them. Lent is a good time to name them.

Moses had been running, running away. He had killed someone. He was in hiding. Here on a mountain,  he has a God experience. He was called from a life of moving away from -  to a life of moving towards.

Then I read today’s gospel from Luke and I noticed the story of the fig tree - and how that story could be a significant turning point in one’s life.

It struck me how significant trees can be in one’s life.  I remembered the old song, “Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree  With Anyone Else than Me.”

“Oh no!”

I looked it up on Goggle and found out that the song goes back to 1939 and then 1941 and into 1942 - 1943 - at the beginning of World War II. It’s a song about a young soldier going off to war and has to leave the girl he loved. The message to each other is, “Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree with Anyone Else than Me.”  Glenn Miller and the Andrews Sisters played it.  It remained Number One on Your Hit Parade from October 1942 till January 1943. That was the longest period for a war song to be Number One.

THE BIBLE AND TREES

The Bible features lots of stories about trees. Genesis tells us about the tree of life in the middle of the Garden of Paradise - as well as the tree of good and evil.

Adam and Eve have it all. They are in paradise. However, there’s a catch. They can’t eat from the fruit of a certain tree - the tree of good and evil.

There’s always a catch.

There’s always the possibility of messing up a good thing - messing up a good life.

How many lives - how many marriages - have we heard fell apart because someone began to eat forbidden fruit?

And they bit into evil and their eyes were opened and they hid from God in the shadows and the bushes in the Garden of Paradise.

Here’s Moses in today’s first reading experiencing God in the burning bush. He asks God, “What is your name?”  That’s another great question for Lent - asking God his name - asking God, “Who are You?” And God gives his name and who He is, “I Am Who Am”. That’s Yahweh in Hebrew.

The Psalms begin with Psalm One saying we have a life choice of being a tree planted near running water giving fruit every season or we can be a dead leaf scattered in the wind. Our choice. Our move. We know the difference between an apple tree and a dead leaf or a dead apple blossom.

Jesus says we can be a good tree or a bad tree. And here in today’s gospel he says we can be a fig tree that produces figs or we can be a dead tree.

In Matthew the fig tree doesn’t get a second chance. In Luke - true to character - we are told that the fig tree has a second chance. This is the year of Luke. Luke is the gospel of mercy and forgiveness. We’ll hear his stories this year - especially Luke 15 with its three get parables of mercy and forgiveness - the stories of the Lost Sheep, the Lost Coin, and the Lost Son. These stories are key to this year of mercy that Pope Francis is stressing and pushing.

Judas hung himself from a tree.  He gave up. Oh no.

Jesus was killed on the tree of the cross. He gave us himself. Oh yes!

Trees. It’s Lent. It’s cold here in Maryland and I don’t see us sitting under a tree these cold days. But I can see us sitting here in church on the wood of trees - benches - sitting under the tree of the cross.

I’ve gone into many churches in my life - outside of Mass times - and I’ve seen many people sitting there quietly - in late morning - or afternoon - sitting quietly on wood under the tree of the cross.

Here in St. John Neumann we have this gigantic tree of the cross - and right underneath it,   is the Eucharist - and we can hear Jesus say to us - the words of life, “Take and eat! Take and drink.”

Bread and wine - like trees - planted in the earth - growing - becoming the food of life for us.

And many people find church as holy ground - like Moses discovered the ground to be holy where he experienced God in a new way - when God called him to bear fruit in a new way - and God said out of the burning bush, “I Am Who Am.”

Lent is a good time to drop into church and sit quietly - with our God.

This year is a good year to come through the doors of this church or St. Mary’s  - designated as one of holy churches for this year of mercy. Our doors are open and it’s good to think of the doors of our lives. Have we shut any doors on others? Have we had a door slammed in our face? Do we feel the church has shut its doors on us?

Lent is a time to take a seat and eat the great messages of God to us.

Lent is a good time to have a Moses moment.

Oh yes.

TREES

When I lived in Tobyhanna, Pennsylvania, from 1976 - 1984 I was driving up Route 611 one late afternoon and I was driving into the sun and it was coming through a red beautiful Japanese maple tree and I had a God experience. I was seeing the burning bush - while driving.

I say this to get you thinking about God experience moments in your life and have any of them been connected to trees?

Around 1975 I was attending a weekend conference by Father Tom Berry a Passionist priest - who was world famous to some as an earthologist - anthropologist - poet - theologian etc. etc. etc. It was being held at the Cardinal Spellman Retreat House on the Hudson River.  He invited people to attend a conference where he wanted to give a New Creation Account - pulling together everything he and we knew up to that moment in 1975.

The priest - a friend of mine - that I went with - told me that I would understand only about 1% of what Tom would be saying. He was correct - but what I got that weekend was 100 doors to open - like what were the Native Americans about - what science,  so too Confucius, so too Buddha, so too Mao of the Chinese revolution and on and on and on.

However, that Friday evening as Tom Berry began he told us as he pointed to the glass doors along the side of the big room we were in - that at the bottom of the lawn just out there - that leads to the Hudson River - is this gigantic 450 years old oak tree. Tom Berry said, “I think we’d get more out of this weekend if we all simply sat down under that old tree and watched the Hudson River go by this weekend.”

In time I understood that message 100 per cent. But it took time. Oh yes.

People get 100 times more of God and Holy Ground stuff and life when they sit in sacred places  much more  than from sermons and talks.

Has that been your experience? Like moments sitting in airports or malls watching the world going by. Like sitting in a quiet room in a rocking chair holding a baby while babysitting for our kids. Like sitting in a window seat on a bus or a plane and looking out the window at the world we live in.

Like the moment Jesus said to Nathaniel, “I know you. I saw you sitting under a fig tree the other day.” Like the moment Sir Isaac Newton sat under an apple tree and an apple fell to the ground and he realized the law of gravity.  Like the moment Buddha after trying both extremes of life - pleasure and complete fasting - discovered, was enlightened, realized under the Bo Tree - that the answer to the mystery of life was in the middle.

Like when I think about all this I remember in the 1940’s - as a family going to Bliss Park in Bay Ridge,  Brooklyn and climbing this neat hill and sitting under this great big gray bark tree - my dad and mom setting up a blanket there - with food for a picnic - and we four of us kids would roll down the hill or run down the hill - the same hill we snow sled down in winter and then have a family picnic in summer there. Under that tree we were learning: This is the meaning of life. There is holy ground. There is God. There is the gift of life together under  a great tree of life.

CONCLUSION

The title of my homily is, “Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree with Anyone Else than Me.”

“Oh no!”

It’s Lent. Take the time to sit with the most significant person - persons in your life and talk and listen to each other about your life together. Oh yes.

Take the time to sit together with God - and thank God for the gift of life - and talk about the fruit of your womb - the fruits of your work - the fruits of your life.  Oh yes.

And if you feel like a fig tree than hasn’t been producing, here in Luke, hear Luke tell you that Jesus says, “Start cultivating the ground around your life - get fertilized, so that you’ll start bearing fruit again. Tell God you don’t want to be cut down. Oh no!