Tree: Olive (Olea europaea)

Biblical Text: Romans 11:17-24

The Story: The Olive and Its Grafts

"But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, a wild olive, were grafted in their place to share the rich roots of the olive tree, do not boast over the branches. If you do boast, remember that it is not you that supports the root, but the root that supports you...For if you have been cut from what is by nature a wild olive tree and grafted, contrary to nature, into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these natural branches be grafted back into their own olive tree."

Why the olive? Significance of the tree:

In his letter to the Romans, Paul uses the olive tree as a metaphor to convey his message. The tree is Israel; the branches broken off are the unbelieving Jews; and the branches grafted in are the Gentiles who believe in Jesus.

It is no accident that Paul chose the olive tree. A major crop throughout the Mediterranean, olives were familiar to Paul in his native Tarsus, in Jerusalem where he lives and studied, and to his audience in Rome. Many verses in the Hebrew Bible refer to Israel as an olive tree:

"The Lord called you 'green olive tree, fair with choice fruit'" (Jeremiah 11:16).

"I am like a green olive in the house of God" (Psalm 52:10).

The olive thrives in Israel's dry, rocky hills and was much beloved and admired. It was grown mainly for its oil, the "light bulb" of the ancient world, and was important also for food, for healing, and for anointing kings and priests. The English word "messiah" derives from the Hebrew mashiakh, meaning "the anointed one." Olive trees live and produce fruit for centuries, much longer than other fruit trees. Unlike Israel's other native fruit trees, the olive is an evergreen, providing beauty and welcome shade in Israel's hot climate.

Grafting olives was a common practice, familiar to Paul and to his audience. Grafting was the quickest way to propagate olives of a desirable variety. Olives form only on the outer branches of the tree which are exposed to the sun. The larger the tree, the more branches open to the sun, and the more olives. If you plant an olive shoot in the ground, it takes some ten years for it to grow big enough to produce a decent crop. But a sturdy, mature tree with strong roots can receive grafts of twenty or thirty brances that will produce fruit in three or four years.

As Paul states, grafting branches from a wild tree onto a cultivated tree is "contrary to nature." It was always the branches from a cultivated tree, which has the desirable olives, that were grafted onto the wild tree, which is stronger. This image of doing something that was the opposite of normal practice would be striking to Paul's audience. It is through this unexpected reversal that Paul draws attention to the richness of God's grace in the salvation of the Gentiles.