Tales of Home under the Mulberry Tree

Under the Mulberry Tree

I look up and see our friends have swarmed a nearby, ordinary-looking tree. They’re pulling something from the branches and speaking rapidly to each other in their heart language. I have no idea what’s going on and draw closer out of curiosity. As I do, hands immediately reach out to me—hands full of a harvested treasure—inviting me to take a little white berry with purple spots.

I’m told they’re sweet. But the joy on my friends’ faces tells me something unspoken: these berries don’t just taste sweet. They taste like home. So I reach out and take a single berry, but they tell me one isn’t enough by transferring the treasure trove of berries into my outstretched hand.

I take a bite, and it is sweet and tart and everything a berry picked just moments before should taste like. It doesn’t taste like home to me, though, and I long to hear the story behind my friends’ eyes. Under the mulberry tree, I learn to harvest with them. I’m told to reach up higher and that the darker the purple spots, the better. At home, they say, they would spread out blankets under this tree and shake the branches free of their fruit. I’m told that not only are the berries good fresh, but they’re also commonly dried and served with tea.

I stop for a moment and watch, caught by the sheer excitement in the air. I feel as if I’ve been invited into their home country for a moment—even though we are so many miles away, a place made even more unbreachable by security checkpoints than by distance. I blink, and I’m back under the mulberry tree, where another hand is reaching out to share the ripest berries they could find.

Hearing of Home

As someone who has spent time living the life of a sojourner overseas, I’m drawn to the idea of home as strongly as my friends were drawn to the mulberry tree. I’ve worked with refugees for years, and all of them have something that makes their eyes light up and opens the door to memories of a distant home. Oftentimes it’s food; sometimes it’s music, or a word, or a smell.

It takes time to find that proverbial key. It takes learning a language so you can ask questions. It takes learning culture so you can understand. It takes earning their trust by showing up for tea again and again, and choosing to stay when others have left. It takes a listening ear and a desire to hear their stories.

Maybe you’re wondering: why does it matter?

It matters because it matters to the people God has led us to love. It matters because it is part of their stories. It matters because it points to the longing we all have for a distant land—a home in heaven that we cannot yet reach. Finding their mulberry tree matters because it opens the door to talk about what matters most—the Good News of Jesus Christ.

Inviting into Home

When I stepped under the mulberry tree, my friends reached out their hands and invited me into a piece of home. The church is called to do the same. We are a people who open our doors to the weary traveler and say “Come find rest for your soul.” We cannot share Living Water with those who are thirsty if we fail to extend a hand of invitation. If we tell someone about the cistern, yet do not bid them in to rest and drink, how will they taste and see?

I used to live in an international city in Europe and often held meals at my house where people brought a traditional dish to share. During these meals, the table would be ladened with foods from around the world and surrounded by a mix of believers and nonbelievers. Multiple languages and smells that I often couldn’t identify filled the air. As plates were passed and stories of home swapped, deep Gospel conversations were also had.

Many who came would quicker enter the doors of a mosque than darken the steps of a church. They would, however, enter my home where they had the chance to see Christian community lived out. I was told that it was different than anything they had experienced before. One Muslim girl was shocked to meet an Arab Christian and another quietly confessed her dreams about Jesus to me during a meal. Friends who were far from their home countries, often said those meals and my apartment felt like home. One guy tole me, “Your home has good vibes.” I would say, the Holy Spirit was at work, creating a space that echoed of the home to come.

Telling of the Eternal Home

Everyone has a mulberry tree—something that reminds them of a time or a place they long to return to. Many of my friends physically cannot return to the land of their mulberry tree. None of us can go back in time to what was. Nostalgia may draw our gaze to the past, but it can also point us forward, as our longings reflect the ultimate longing of the Sojourner. As C.S. Lewis poignantly said, “If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.” [1]

There are people traveling through the dusty wilderness who have yet to hear the Good News. So many are sojourning without hope. So many do not know only those who repent and believe in Jesus will have an eternal home with God—a home unbroken by war, corrupt governments, famine, or natural disaster.

When we listen to people’s stories, when we care enough to learn about their homes, we reflect the heart of the God who saw Hagar in the desert. When we open the doors of our own hearts and homes, we reflect the heart of the God who cares for the weary sojourner.

And always, always, we share the Gospel with those who do not yet have a home in Christ, and point believers to the comforting truth that this world is not our home:

“But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.”
(Philippians 3:20, ESV)