One of my hobbies is identifying species of trees. The Audubon Society book I use poses question like, “Is the leaf a needle-shaped conifer, an untoothed simple leaf, or a compound leaf”? The readings this Sunday, however, reverse the direction of the questions. Instead of teaching us about the trees, they have the trees teach us about God and ourselves.

Take the tree in the passage from Ezekiel. In Ezekiel’s second allegory in the reading, the Lord plucks a tender shoot from a mountain cedar and transplants it to a high and lofty mountain. The tender shoot flourishes and the birds of the air shelter beneath its shade. The shoot taken from the top of the tree is a symbol of the king of Israel, the descendant of David, the great King Josiah. He is “tender,” that is, humble and vulnerable. In Hebrew as well as in English, princes and young kings can be described as young plants, for example, “he was the scion of a wealthy family.” And “the seed royal” can refer to the heir of a throne.

The Gospel of Mark allows trees to provide a lesson for us, in fact two lessons. The first is the amazing fact that the seed that the farmer scatters in hope of a harvest, grows by itself with no help by the sower; in the Greek, automatē; the farmer doesn’t know how. Jesus argues that if even an ordinary seed grows because of an inner dynamic and not because of the skill and care of the farmer, how much more mysterious power the seed or word of God contains. Preachers who take credit for the effect of their words on their hearers are deluding themselves. They are taking credit for something that God is doing.

The second lesson of Mark’s Gospel is not as we might expect from proverbs such as “great oaks from little acorns grow.” The lesson rather is the enormous difference in size between a seed and its results. It highlights the dynamism of the tiny seed, which grows on its own independent of the farmer’s work and intent.

I mentioned at the beginning the wisdom of allowing trees to talk to us. To sum up what the trees are telling us: (1) God cares for the vulnerable Davidic king, who seems small and powerless among the nations of the world. Yet God sees to it that the young scion, the seed royal, despite its seeming insignificance can flourish if the king places his hope in God’s choice rather than on his own virtues and prestige; God will do the work. (2) Somewhat like the first lesson, God’s word has a power of its own. We can receive it, revere it, it runs on its own “automatically,” despite our frequent assumption that it depends on me or my crowd.