Amen, amen, I say to you,
unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies,
it remains just a grain of wheat;
but if it dies, it produces much fruit.
From the perspective of the grain this might not seem like a good deal. The hard surface of the has served a purpose thus far, keeping the grain safe from predation. If the grain was able to answer for itself it would probably say that it was quite happy to keep this shape going forward. Though of course if it did so it would miss the whole point of being a grain, that being, to produce much fruit. Yet we too are like this anthropomorphic grain. We typically identify ourselves with the hard shell of our ego. Although it hasn't been without any downside our ego has in fact protected us from real threats in the past. Our life experience leads us to conclude that without that shell to give us form we will not continue to exist in any recognizable fashion. And it is so. The ego gives us our current form. But we are meant to let our ego be cracked open so that we can be transformed into something that is not recognizable precisely because it is new and better. This new shape is unfamiliar, and feels risky, and even, to our egos, like an existential threat. But our lives are not meant to preserve the shape of a seed forever. We are meant to be transformed so that we can bear fruit.
Whoever loves his life loses it,
and whoever hates his life in this world
will preserve it for eternal life.
Jesus helps us to remember that, whatever we may wish, we cannot remain a seed forever. Trying to do so is a time constrained proposition that will not end well. If we are willing instead to trust Jesus about the true purpose of our lives, and sow the seed as he commands, as he himself first demonstrates, we will lose the shell of familiarity, the layer of self-protection, yet we will gain a life that is richer and more sustainable than the life of a seed. Seeds exist to bear fruit. We exist to bear the fruit of love, peace, and joy (see Galatians 5:22-23) that can only be realities in our lives when we take the risk of following Jesus, letting him break us open so that the true and deeper life within might be released.
Whoever serves me must follow me,
and where I am, there also will my servant be.
Paul gives us some guidelines for sowing the seed of our lives. From him we learn that God is not trying to guilt us into something, nor trying to force us onto a path that is invariable one of sadness. Paul helps us break away from the lies that keep us inside our shell, reassuring us that it is not all about us or our resources, but about the grace that God himself is able to make abound for us, "so that in all things, always having all you need, you may have an abundance for every good work". The normal way we begin to live this out is not typically perfectly and all at once. Before martyrs like Saint Lawrence sow the seed of their lives for the Kingdom they first sow some and reap some, testing and verifying the laws of the harvest of the Kingdom in their own lives. We too can take God at his word, sowing what we are able to sow, and witnessing the ways in which he himself makes fruit abound. As this happens we will begin to experience that the giving itself is his own gift. When this is our experience we begin to become the genuinely cheerful givers whom he loves.
The one who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food
will supply and multiply your seed
and increase the harvest of your righteousness.
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