One year ago, while reading through Isaiah in prayer, I saw a vision that has haunted me throughout this difficult year. As I read Isaiah 10 and 11 in The Message, the Lord brought to my mind an incident that had happened years before.
When I lived up in Sylvania, Ohio (“Tree City, USA”), I used to walk, talk, and pray with my arborist reunion group brother in the woods around a Franciscan convent/college. One day in early spring, we had just prayed and were heading to our cars when the air was shattered by an explosive CRACK. We looked, and saw a beautiful tree under which we had just walked break in half, and fall. How could a perfectly healthy-looking tree fall so catastrophically, I asked my friend.
He told me that trees grow from the outside, but their structure is the heartwood–the inside. We walked over to the tree, and saw that the heartwood had rotted out of the trunk. Green and alive, the tree was vulnerable to the next gust of wind. One small breath, and it failed, and fell–not because it was dead, but because it was hollow.
I have been struggling with this vision, and the verses of Isaiah from which it sprang:
Look, the Sovereign, the LORD of hosts, will lop the boughs with terrifying power; the tallest trees will be cut down, and the lofty will be brought low. He will hack down the thickets of the forest with an ax, and Lebanon with its majestic trees will fall (Isaiah 10:33-34).
At first, I saw the vision as a clear judgment on the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). I have seen the hollowing out in elders of 40+ years of service challenging tithing by saying “who came up with this 10% figure anyway?” or saying, “I don’t believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God; I told my pastor before they ordained me, and he told me, ‘just say yes anyway.'” Prayer, studying Scripture, and spiritual direction have been displaced in pastors’ lives by executive/managerial concerns. We have hollowed out the tree of faith–it is green, but the winds have come, the crack has been heard.
But as I have reflected further with help from some brothers and sisters, I see that we have all been playing the hollowing-out game together. We have all played a part in the destruction of the trust that is the heartwood of any community, with each of us playing St. George to the other side’s dragon. We have worn the faith as an emblem of honor to “win” the battle inside the PC(USA) so that “right will prevail.”
I realize now that this “righteous struggle” may be the most destructive agent in the heartwood of this blessed tree. I have walked in presbyteries with full “friend or foe” guard protocols, not sharing my self, my faith, my compassion. I have argued and remonstrated, verbally performing surgical procedures on this body without anesthesia (a pretty good definition of torture). I have not greeted those who will not greet me, cared for those who did not care for me, or loved those who did not love me. Evangelicals and presbycostals have traded evil for evil with the academics and progressives. Evangelistic Presbyterians have traded evil for evil with Presbyterians for social justice. Proud upper middle class Presbyterians have traded evil for evil with Presbyterians who they perceived were beneath their station. An eye for an eye leaves us all blind. What is needed in the PC(USA) is a good round of repentance–and let it begin with me.
My moment of clarity came on my knees in the sanctuary of Peachtree Church on August 18. In the midst of the first conference of Presbyterian Global Fellowship, we were called to repentance; I admit that I knelt to the floor thinking, “Repent for what?” When I got there, I could see the final piece of the vision I had not understood.
When the tree had fallen in the woods in Sylvania, I was an outside observer; I am part of the falling tree that is the PC(USA). I bear part of the responsibility for its cracks and fissures, its hollowness, silence, and coldness. The PC(USA) is my family. I am part of the system. I am part of the problem. I need to repent.
After that experience, God placed Rick Ufford-Chase in my path. Rick and I do not agree on things; for some reason that has always shown up on the top of my list of things to say about us. I could not help myself when I saw him; I hugged him, and knew that there is a bond there that nothing of this world can break. I said to him, “You know, Rick, even though we don’t agree on things…” and Rick said back to me, “but there are so many things we do agree on.” And I could see he was right. Like it or not, the voice of the Lord is clear: Behold, your brother. The PC(USA) is my family. I belong here.
Finally, in the last worship service, hearing Dr. Mouw’s clear exposition of what I have believed it means to be Presbyterian–that Jesus Christ seeks to save body and soul, individual and society, heart and mind–we were given an opportunity to commit ourselves. I gave my life to Jesus Christ 30 years ago, and have been giving it to Him ever since, more and more. But I had never given myself fully to the part of the vineyard He placed me in until then. The PC(USA) is my family.
As Mike Warnke used to put it, you can choose your friends, but you’re stuck with your relatives. So, PC(USA), you’re stuck with me. I am sure that Rick doesn’t know what to make of me just as much as I don’t know what to make of him–but that’s family. I cannot see how our differences resolve–but we are still connected; we both have a seat at the table. I felt a new meaning to Isaiah 11 take shape within me, a word of hope for this hollowed-out, blessed tree: A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots. The spirit of the LORD shall rest on him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the LORD (Isaiah 11:1-2).
My hope and prayer is that as we put down the hammer and nails, as both crucified and crucifier repent and forgive, as we dare to love where we have only dared to argue, perhaps that shoot growing in the heart of the old tree will replace the heartwood lost. I can only covenant to repent of my lack of relationship, love in the midst of disagreement, and commit my life to make disciples of our Lord Jesus Christ in the world through the PC(USA).
Clay Allard is senior pastor of Oak Cliff Church in Dallas, Texas.
