Homily L5-B Lent, Fifth Week, cycle B

Every time I enter the house of some good friends of mine, I stop and read the plaque on the wall of the kitchen.  It is a hand made, cross-stitched message that reads, “Anyone can count the seeds in an apple...but only God can count the apples in a seed”.  I'll repeat that. “Anyone can count the seeds in an apple...but only God can count the apples in a seed”.  They know that I like that plaque so when it was missing from its usual spot one day, I looked around and they said, “It is in the living room.”  I went into the living room, and sure enough, there it was.  They made me a duplicate plaque when I entered the seminary.  It hung in my seminary room for 4 years and hangs in my bedroom today.

We can take an apple seed and plant it in the ground.  With our care, watering and fertilization and God's miraculous gift, it grows into a seedling and then a sturdy tree.  Eventually crop after crop of apples can come from this one tree.  Each crop bearing hundreds of apples each with another handful of seeds.  Those seeds can start the process all over again. The simple message of the plaque is made manifest in the actual planting of a single seed.  Our one seed produces more apples that we will ever know, but God knows.

Today's gospel speaks of another seed, a grain of wheat.  “Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain if wheat; but if it dies, it produces much fruit.”  In the same manner of the apple seed, this grain of wheat can produce a whole stalk of wheat if it is planted.  That stalk can then produce more stalks until an entire field is planted and the harvest feeds an entire village for a year.

It took me many years of hearing this passage before I realized that Jesus was not talking about wheat. He was talking about His own death and the results of His death.  Unless He (the grain of wheat) died, Christianity (the fruit) would never be able to spring to life.  Later in the same passage, Jesus says “It was for this purpose that I came to this hour.”  Jesus knew that His Father had a plan.  That plan ended with Jesus dying on the cross to redeem us and give us life. That life started as seedlings named Peter and Paul and grew into the millions of believers today.

Last week, we heard the famous passage from John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son”.  God gave us His Son knowing full well that Jesus would be crucified. God planted Jesus as a grain if wheat, His seed, there on the cross and in the tomb.  Is there a parent here that could give their son or daughter away knowing that they would be killed?  I trust that the answer is “no”.  How can we possibly understand God's action?  God's ways are not our ways, but we do know from that passage that God loves the world.  God loves us.  Everyone of us, just as we are, warts, flaws, sins and all. We must never forget that.  We must never allow anyone to talk us out of that.  God is love and God loves us all. He showed us His love by giving us His only Son.

That plaque that I like so much, it is not about apples and seeds.  It is about the power of God to see what we cannot see.  It is also about how God works through us.  In our lives, we plant seeds again and again.  We plant seeds of faith, seeds of love and seeds of hope.  Those seeds sometimes die where they are planted.  Often, those seeds bloom where they are planted and new faith, new love and new hope is born and thrives.  Those new seedlings frequently bring more faith, hope and love into the world.  We will never know how much faith, hope and love results from our seeds, but God will know.  This is our legacy, not our wealth or possessions, but how much love we leave behind in the world.

What seeds have we planted today?