Beautiful Deception

One of my favorite signs of spring is a driveway or country lane lined with rows of shapely Bradford pear trees, all decked out in their delicate, snow-white blossoms and filling the air with a beautiful fragrance. Ha ha! Just kidding about the fragrance – unless you love the scent of rotting flesh! But the smell does attract all sorts of pollinators, and when you walk under a Bradford pear in bloom, it is literally buzzing with activity. I’m sure the beautiful blooms and attractive shape of the tree are some of the qualities that caused it to start gaining popularity back in the 1960s. Plus, the trees usually have some attractive fall foliage, can grow in all types of soil, grow quickly, and are drought tolerant and disease resistant. BUT……the Bradford pear tree has a dark side and has turned from being a landscaper’s dream tree into an environmental nightmare.

The Bradford pear tree is a cultivar of the callery pear, brought to the United States from China in the early 1900s for conducting experiments to produce a more disease resistant version of the fruiting pear. (A cultivar is a plant that is produced and maintained by horticulturists but does not produce true-to-seed.) Our nation’s pear orchards were being threatened by fire blight, and it seemed that the callery pear was resistant to that disease. Scientists hoped to use the callery pear as rootstock onto which the common, or European, pear could be grafted. Another scientist noted that the tree was tough enough and handsome enough to be more than rootstock, and he chose one particular specimen, thornless, stately, and strong, from which to mass produce, or clone (by grafting genetically identical twigs to rootstock), what is now known as the Bradford pear tree. It appeared at first that the perfect ornamental tree had been cultivated, and the Bradford pears were planted along streets and in yards all across the nation. (Click here to read more about the fascinating history of the Bradford pear tree.)

It didn’t take too many years, however, for problems to become apparent with this “perfect” tree. One major concern was the weak branch structure of the trees, which caused them to be damaged easily in high winds and ice storms. While the original tree seemed resilient, it’s mass-produced clones developed tight branch-to-trunk angles, which made its limbs susceptible to breakage. The most pressing concern about the trees today though stems from their invasive nature.

A Bradford pear tree is sterile – to an extent. These trees won’t pollinate among themselves, but, if they are around other pear trees, they will pollinate and produce viable fruit – fruit that is attractive to birds that help to disperse seeds everywhere! And the trees produce suckers, or shoots, that can rapidly spread. If you have Bradford pear trees in your yard, you probably keep the shoots mowed down, but, once the seeds have been spread by birds into other areas, the saplings that grow and the shoots they produce can quickly take over a field or forest. So what’s the big deal?? How beautiful a field full of white blooms must be in the springtime!! While that might be true, all those beautiful blooms disguise what’s really happening – the rapid growth of dense, thorny thickets that slowly choke out our native trees, like oaks, hickories, pines, dogwoods, redbuds, and maples. Today, many states consider the Bradford pear an invasive species and offer incentives for people to cut down their Bradford pear trees, destroy the stumps and roots, and replace the trees with native species.

The word “invasive” means “tending to spread prolifically and undesirably or harmfully.” The plant scientists responsible for bringing the callery pear (and thus the Bradford pear) to the United States had no intent to cause harm and really could not have predicted the future problems. Actually, several factors came together, including years of environmental disturbance, to add to the invasiveness of this pear tree. And that’s probably true for the thousands of invasive species plaguing the U.S. today. Some traveled here accidentally in imported goods. Some were brought here intentionally in efforts to solve a problem, like the Asian carp that was originally introduced into ponds to control algae. Some arrived here to become pets, like the Burmese python and giant African snail, but are now wreaking havoc after escaping or being released into their new habitats.

For years I have enjoyed the springtime beauty of Bradford pears in bloom, ignorant of their invasive nature. But, after becoming aware of the dangers posed by these trees to our native species, I couldn’t help but have different thoughts about them as I observed their delicate blossoms for another spring. I couldn’t help but compare the deceitfulness of their attractive appearance to the deceptive and attractive nature of sin. Someone once said “The devil don’t come ugly,” and that was surely what Adam and Eve thought about him. Even though they were told not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the serpent made the fruit of that tree seem so appealing! What could be wrong with being like God and knowing good and evil? And so it began!! The devil has never stopped deceiving us and never stopped trying to convince us that sin is attractive, fun, exciting, safe, and without consequence, and he plays on our vanity and pride. Peter tells us in 1 Peter 5:8 that our “adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.” But if he appeared to us as a dangerous, roaring lion, we would most likely try to stay away. Instead, he makes himself seem less threatening, so he is able to nibble away at us, bit by bit, until we’re totally consumed. That’s why the first part of that verse tells us to “be sober-minded; be watchful.”

Satan employs every possible means to attack us relentlessly, and Paul emphasizes in Ephesians 6 the importance of being prepared against his schemes. “Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm. Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and, as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace. In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one; and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end, keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints,……” (Ephesians 6:11-18) There is no vacation from the devil. You can’t let your guard down for a minute. You can’t stand up to him wearing only part of your armor. There’s a reason Paul stated to “keep alert with all perseverance.” John Owen wrote in The Mortification of Sin, “Do you mortify; do you make it your daily work; be always at it whilst you live; cease not a day from this work; be killing sin or it will be killing you.” Again, “keep alert with all perseverance.” “Be sober-minded; be watchful.” In his book, The Cost of Discipleship, Dietrich Bonhoeffer stated, “When all is said and done, the life of faith is nothing if not an unending struggle of the spirit with every available weapon against the flesh.” Satan knows every weapon, and he is an expert at wielding each and every one. “Keep alert with all perseverance.”

I’m reminded of the parable of the sower when thinking about the different ways the evil one can get to us. “Hear then the parable of the sower: When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what has been sown in his heart. This is what was sown along the path. As for what was sown on rocky ground, this is the one who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy, yet he has no root in himself, but endures for a while, and when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately he falls away. As for what was sown among thorns, this is the one who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and it proves unfruitful. As for what was sown on good soil, this is the one who hears the word and understands it.” (Matthew 13:18-23a) Lack of understanding, times of trial, cares of the world and the lure of riches – all different reasons that allow the devil to subtly chip away at our defenses and consume us little by little. Thomas Merton (No Man Is an Island) wrote, “The greatest temptations are not those that solicit our consent to obvious sin, but those that offer us great evils masking as the greatest goods.” “Keep alert with all perseverance.” C.S. Lewis wrote about the gradual road to Hell in The Screwtape Letters, his book about a devil, Screwtape, who advises his inexperienced nephew on the best way to tempt a man into sin and eventually into Hell. “You will say that these are very small sins; and doubtless, like all young tempters, you are anxious to be able to report spectacular wickedness. But do remember, the only thing that matters is the extent to which you separate the man from the Enemy. It does not matter how small the sins are provided that their cumulative effect is to edge the man away from the Light and out into the Nothing. Murder is no better than cards if cards can do the trick. Indeed the safest road to Hell is the gradual one — the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.” “Keep alert with all perseverance.”

Just as the attractive Bradford pear tree started as the deceitfully perfect, ornamental tree and has slowly grown into an invasive species that chokes out native trees, sin can start taking root in our lives as a beautiful deception that chokes out the Word and prevents us from completing the “good works” that God has prepared for us. “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” (Ephesians 2:10) “Keep alert with all perseverance.”

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SOURCES

• https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/how-we-turned-the-bradford-pear-into-a-monster/2018/09/14/f29c8f68-91b6-11e8-b769-e3fff17f0689_story.html
• https://mdc.mo.gov/sites/default/files/downloads/callerypearinvasive.pdf
• https://hgic.clemson.edu/factsheet/bradford-pear/
• https://www.invasive.org/alien/pubs/midatlantic/pyca.htm
• https://www.sunnysports.com/blog/top-5-destructive-invasive-species/