Being branches of the tree of life

 “I waited for the present season; that … I might lead you by the hand into the brighter and more fragrant meadow of the Paradise before us.” Cyril of Jerusalem, 4th Century

Many ancient cultures have legends of a land of peace and plenty, free from suffering and strife, and a great tree, which connects the worlds of the living, the dead, and the gods – know variously as the world tree, the cosmic tree, or the tree of life.

In the Hebrew Scriptures, whose creation stories were based on those of the older Sumerian cultures, the tree of life is located in the Garden of Eden, which was translated into Greek as paradeisos, from an old Iranian word referring to the walled gardens of the first Persian empire.

“And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east; and there he put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground the Lord God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food, the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. A river flowed out of Eden to water the garden, and there it divided and became four rivers.” Genesis 2:8 - 10

In Sumerian legends, paradise was known as Dilmun and was thought to be located on a mysterious sacred mountain to the East. It was a place of fresh, flowing waters, thick forests, and beautiful gardens, without conflict, disease, hunger, or sorrow. Genesis places the Garden of Eden in a mysterious Eastern location on the earth.

What meaning might these legends have for us today? The myths and stories that have grown around these archetypes reveal much about how human cultures have understood human nature and our place in the cosmos. 

In Christianity, the legend of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden has been used to justify much oppression – women are still suffering from the legacy of Eve being painted as the villain of the story of the Fall – when Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and were banished from paradise.

The story inspired St Augustine to develop the doctrine of original sin, which has been used to wield the weapon of guilt ever since. And our culture has taken literally the invitation in Genesis 1:28, “Be fertile and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.”

And yet, despite all the problematic elements of this story, I still feel it has meaning for me today. I interpret the Fall story in psychological terms - the knowledge that Adam and Eve obtained from the tree was the development of the human ego, the illusion of separation that causes us to live as though we are separate from the Creator and the rest of creation, separate from Nature and from each other.

The early Christian church taught that, through the resurrection of Jesus, and the blessing of the Holy Spirit, given to the disciples at Pentecost, God had restored harmony to the world and humanity was returned to paradise. The Christian community sought to embody this restored paradise. Their central ritual was a celebration of the abundance of earthly paradise – a communal meal in which all shared in earth's bounty. Rich and poor, male and female, master and slave ate together, a radical equality that was deeply subversive in the Roman Empire. Christians dedicated all their material belongings to the community to be held in common. The walls, ceilings and floors of their sanctuaries were covered in images of paradise – lush green meadows, blue skies, the tree of life in the centre, filled with sheep and the figure of Jesus as the Good Shepherd, tending the sheep.

The imagery of the tree of life from Genesis reappears in the last book of the Christian New Testament, “Then he showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb. In the midst of the street of the city, and on either side of the river, was the tree of life, with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month; and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.” Revelation 22:1 - 2

In Saving Paradise, Rita Nakashima Brock and Rebecca Ann Parker examine the rituals, images, and theology of Christianity, to show how the emphasis shifted over time from paradise on earth to a focus on the crucifixion. 

Much of Jesus' teaching was about resistance to the empire of domination. The early Christians were pacifists and were often persecuted by the Roman empire. With the conversion of the Emperor Constantine to Christianity in the 4th century, empire and the Christian religion began to merge. Over the next few centuries, the Christian church became more enmeshed with empire and, by the middle ages, had begun to sanction violence and domination in the crusades, and the colonization of indigenous lands and peoples by Europeans. 

Paradise was no longer imagined on the earth, but was equated with heaven, the realm of the righteous in the afterlife. The communion feast had become a re-enactment of the sacrificial death of Jesus, which was now seen as atonement for sin, a theology created in the 11th century by St Anselm. Christian imagery began to reflect its theology of sacrifice, death and judgment, and crosses and scenes of the crucifixion and judgement day came to dominate church art. 

Brock and Parker traced the appearance of the first crucifix to the Rhine Valley in the 10th century, an area that had been subject to a brutal colonization by Charlemagne, over three decades around the turn of the 9th century. The Saxon form of Christianity blended the Christian story with their earlier pagan practice, honouring Jesus and Thunor and Woden, in sacred groves of trees and around holy springs. 

The Frankish empire, led by Charlemagne, invaded Saxon territory, cutting down their sacred trees and deforesting the countryside. They forced the Saxons at sword point to be baptized into the Frankish Latin version of Christianity. The Saxons rebelled, but ultimately lost the wars. Their descendants carved that first image of Jesus on the cross and joined the first crusade. The tree of life had become the tree of death.

The story of the destruction of the sacred Saxon trees made me sad. And yet, there was a hope in it that I held onto – for the spirit of the sacred trees hasn't died – it lives on in the people today who view the earth and all life as sacred. Paradise is the earth, and the tree of life can be, as we heard in Revelation, 'for the healing of the nations', if we take to heart its lessons about interconnection. Recent research has shown that the existence of the 'Wood Wide Web' – a forest is a vast network of trees, fungi, plants, and insects, in symbiotic relationship, operating more as one organism than as a collection of separate entities. 

Brock and Parker invite us to reconnect with a vision of community as earthly paradise. They write, “We come to know the world as paradise when our hearts and souls are reborn through the arduous and tender task of living rightly with one another and the earth. Generosity, non-violence, and care for one another are the pathways into transformed awareness. 

Knowing that paradise is here and now is a gift that comes to those who practice the ethics of paradise. This way of living is not Utopian. It does not spring simply from the imagination of a better world but from a profound embrace of this world. It does not begin with knowledge or hope. It begins with love.”

I like to think of paradise as another name for the beloved community – let us be about its work of love. Let us value the individual gifts we bring to benefit and bless the whole. Let us practise radical hospitality, honouring the inherent worth and dignity of everyone. Let us resist the forces of oppression and domination that try to separate us from each other. Let us work for justice and peace. Let us water the tree of life that shelters the whole community of every living being of the earth under its lush green canopy. Amen.