Cat Goodrich
Faith Presbyterian Church, Baltimore, MD
January 26, 2025
One Body
1 Corinthians 12:12-31a
The leaves are shaped a bit like teardrops, round with a point at one end. The trunks are white, and splotchy, standing proudly in a quiet glade. When the wind blows, the leaves appear to quiver, the whole forest alive and gently trembling in the breeze. The forest appears to be made up of multitudes of trees, but in fact it’s mostly one single organism – the largest and possibly also one of the oldest living things on earth. Its name is Pando, and it’s a stand of quaking aspens in Fishlake National Forest in central Utah. Covering more than 100 acres, scientists believe Pando grew from a single seed that took root more than 80,000 years ago – in prehistoric time, when giant sloths and mastadons roamed the land, a massive ice sheet covered much of North America, and humans hadn’t yet thought to put a paintbrush to the wall of their cave. Over 80,000 years, Pando grew – Pando, which means, “It spreads,” in latin – roots expanding underground, sending up shoots that become new trees, all exact genetic copies of each other, growing bigger, heavier, each year. It’s difficult to comprehend, really, the size and scope of it, but it’s true. Pando the aspen, dropping a carpet of golden leaves each fall, some 40,000 trees that are separate but rooted and entwined together; Pando is many but one.
We’ve learned so much about trees these past few years at Faith, haven’t we? Native trees that thrive here on our property, despite dry, hot summers. Redbuds and tulip poplars and pinleaf oaks. Why it’s better to plant those trees instead of non-native varieties. Those of us who read the Overstory a few years ago with book club can tell you all about mother trees, the American chestnut, old growth forests, giant sequoias, and the extraordinary lengths ordinary folks have gone to to save trees. We know from the research of Suzanne Simard that trees communicate through the biomass underground, taproots and fungus signaling danger, or drought, or disease. They even share resources, nourishing younger trees to help them survive, sharing carbon not just among a parent tree and its offspring, but incredibly: between species. And any home inspector can tell you, tree roots somehow seek out water underground, wrapping around pipes if given time to do so. Trees are amazing.
But you know, we tend to overlook trees. Anyone familiar with Tolkein’s middle earth and the Ents can tell you we do so at our peril, but it’s true: Humans dismiss organisms that don’t move at our speed, that can’t speak our language, can’t dream and scheme like people do. We could learn a lot from trees, I think. A forest’s diversity, its generosity, its beauty. Because if you’ve been paying attention this week, you know there are some who would like to divide us. Who are fixated on dividing our country into false binaries: us and them. Loyal or disloyal. Male and female. Citizen or undocumented, white and everyone else. Over the past week that the new administration has been in office, they are making, and reinforcing an old hierarchy about who belongs, and who does not; who is worthy of protection and inclusion, and who is not.
And as I struggle to understand what is happening in this new America, and what we are called to do as people of faith, how we are called to respond, I can’t help but think about that aspen, out there in the Utah wilderness. Its narrow trunks standing tall, one after another after another, shading a valley leading down to a lake. Those trees look so separate from one another. Some trunks are old, the branches failing. Some are new, just coming up from the ground. The distance it covers is remarkable, so many trees, but really, it’s just one tree. Just one. Pando.
Together, Paul writes, we are one body: the body of Christ in the world. A body unified in and by the Spirit, but with many different parts. Different gifts, different callings. Working together for one ministry. He is writing to the church in Corinth, the first of two letters we have from him to this congregation, and he is urging them to live and work in unity. Clearly there was some division within that early house church, where people of different economic statuses, different genders, different cultures and races and ethnicities and identities were coming together to eat, to worship, and to minister to their community. Ancient Rome was a highly stratified society, and so the early church was one of the few places where people came together with others who were different. You know, honestly, if you think about it, the church is one of the few places where this happens authentically here in our world, too. Paul is urging us to treat one another with respect, to value what each person brings – because each of us is worthy of love and belonging, each one has something to offer as part of the body. Paul’s challenge to the Corinthians, and to us, is to realize that those we would disregard – those people society considers less than – are equally important, equally valued in the reign of God.
Jesus tells us this, too: in his teaching, in his healing, in his life, with his death. The story we heard this morning is the very first public act of his ministry in the gospel of Luke. It’s the first time he clearly, publicly states who he is and what he’s come to do. When he reads from the scroll of Isaiah in the assembly, he’s claiming the mantle of Messiah: by proclaiming the prophecy fulfilled, he is saying that he is the savior, the healer of the breach, the restorer of streets to live in. It’s interesting that he chooses to do it in Nazareth, his hometown, standing before the synagogue that raised him.
The passage he reads says the Spirit is upon him, empowering him to proclaim good news to the poor, to release captives, restore sight, to forgive debts, and to set people free. He came to serve amongst the poor, the enslaved, the sick, the imprisoned, the indebted, the oppressed. Jesus’ ministry is primarily with and to those on the margins, he says so right from the start.
And his family friends, his hometown community – remember how they respond? They rally together and run him out of town; they try to throw him off a cliff! So we shouldn’t be surprised, then, at the outrage and ridicule heaped on Bishop Budde after her sermon about unity, and plea for mercy for those who are fearful this week. Jesus, too, faced scorn and ridicule when he challenged the powerful to show compassion for the vulnerable. It’s risky to speak truth to power.
Paul reminds the church in Corinth: You are the body of Christ, and individually members of it. That continues to be our calling in this new era in our country. To remember that if one member suffers, all suffer together with it. We are called to practice radical solidarity with the least of these, a courageous testimony that each part of this body is worthy of love and belonging.
Overstory author Richard Powers attributes Buddha as saying, “’a forest is an extraordinary organism of unlimited kindness and generosity that asks for nothing and gives copious food, shelter, protection, shade, and wealth to all comers, even to the men who cut it down.’” He goes on to observe: “The hundred thousand species of Earth’s trees are endlessly inventive and varied, and they are so … beautiful it can hurt to look at them. They talk to and nourish one another, remember the past, and predict the future. What’s not to love?”[1]
I am so grateful to be part of this community – one body, with many parts, and different gifts, to proclaim good news, to work together for liberation. Our calling, I believe, in this time, is to be like Pando. Rooted and grounded in the grace and love of God. Remembering and celebrating our unity despite those who would have us believe otherwise. Remaining committed to unity without uniformity. Celebrating that though we are many, indeed – we are one. Thanks be to God.
[1] Powers, Richard in conversation with Amy Brady, “Interview with the Author of The Overstory,” Yale Climate Connections newsletter, 5/2/18.