If you drove by LPC yesterday, you could not help but notice all the activity in the Chapel parking lot. The crane, a chipper, and other equipment. And if you stayed for a while, you would have seen the ash trees come down. In this round of tree removals – it isn’t the first and won’t be the last – 20 or more (dead) ash trees on our south side of Gillam Avenue parcel are being removed. First, thanks to our Trustees who are such good stewards of the church’s property. Thanks, too, for the generosity of the LPC congregation that allows us to undertake such projects. But, second, no thanks to the EAB, the emerald ash borer.
The first emerald ash borer to arrive in North America booked passage on a freighter from China sometime around 2002. Apparently he invited friends and family to join, for sixteen years later, 40 million North American ash trees have been killed by the infestation. You may read the sad story as told by Penn State.
Emerald ash borers are little green insects, beetles about a third of an inch long. Their destructive power is immense.
The story of the EAB’s arrival in North America is innocent enough. They had infected the wood used to build pallets that held the freight in the hull of some ship. The pallets were off-loaded and the freight sent to the nearest Wal-Mart. The green bugs found our ash trees.
I am no fan of cheap junk at Wal-Mart, nor am I thinking about the pros and cons of free trade.
I am thinking about the ways small things, seemingly inconsequential, infest and then infect the church. A little twist here and a small compromise there and you end up with a Prosperity Gospel instead of the good news about Jesus. It takes only a small hyphen to say the Biblical call to discipleship is not enough or is way too hard and suddenly I am a social-justice-Christian or a religious-right-Christian, a Trump-Christian or a Bernie Sanders-Christian. A bug of laziness bores its way into my heart and I make listening to some popular Christian podcast or reading my favorite devotional book more important than my study of the Word.
When it comes to theological integrity, I am not much interested in a free market economy.
Part Two: The best part of watching the poor ash trees come down was the guy on the hook of the crane. He’d ride up high, attach cables to the tree, and choose just the right place to send his chain saw through the trunk. Then he’d shimmy down to the ground, and the crane would place the section of the trunk gently on the parking lot. Other chain saws and the chippers would do their work.
I am not going to apply for the crane hook job, but I like that guy.
The tree crew in the Chapel parking lot got their work done because each crew member knew and did his job. The church gets its work done – the work of sharing the Good News in word and deed – when each of us knows and does our job. Don’t volunteer to hook your harness to the crane if you don’t know what you are doing, but if you’re the crane guy, don’t waste your time drinking coffee chatting with your friends in the parking lot. We have a job to do.
See you Sunday