The Giving Tree

Do you remember the children’s picture book called The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein? It is a parable of grace, not unlike the parable of the prodigal son. The Giving Tree tells the story of a tree who loves the young boy who comes to climb up her trunk, play in her branches, and eat her apples. When he is tired, he sleeps in her shade. When the boy got older, he didn’t want to play with the tree anymore, he wanted money to do other things, so the tree gives him all her apples to sell and make money.

Later, the boy who has become a man comes back and says that he wants a house. The tree gives all of her branches so that he can build a house. Now the tree is just a trunk. Years later, the boy is an older man who yearns to travel across the sea. The tree tells him to cut down her trunk to make a boat. He does. Now the tree is just a stump.

At the end of his life, the boy comes back to the tree. The tree has nothing left to give: no apples, no branches, and no trunk. But the boy is too old to eat apples or swing in branches or climb up a trunk. He simply wants a place to rest. He sits down on the stump and is happy.

I think that the tree is God. She gives her gifts with love without conditions, and when he returns again and again empty handed, she welcomes him with great joy each time, much like the father in the parable of the prodigal son. After the son asked for an early inheritance and wasted it all, he comes back home with his apology speech rehearsed. But the father doesn’t want to hear it. He’s just happy to have his son.

There is a mistaken idea that our relationship with God depends on us, as if God is waiting for us to explain ourselves, apologize, and present a plan for making ourselves better. In fact, it’s just the opposite. It is God who watches for us, and runs out to meet us with great joy, and wants everyone to join in the party thrown in celebration of being found.