I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. ~ John 12:24

Jesus said to them, “I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. ~ John 6:53

Once there were two men who longed for real tomatoes with good flavor unlike the bland, waxy variety found in the chain supermarkets. So they both decided to start their own home gardens.

The first gardener bought the best seeds in the best seed catalog and picked out a nice patch of dirt behind his house with good sunlight. Since tomatoes are the gateway drug of home gardening, he couldn’t help but purchase a few pepper plants and eggplants too. He dug in the hard soil (there was a lot of clay in their area) and planted and watered his seeds, careful to space them apart properly, and reflecting on how – in a sense – the seed had to die before new life could spring from it.

Every day he was diligent to water and weed his garden and, sure enough, in about a week little sprouts poked through the surface. But neither the tomatoes nor the others plants grew as big as those in the catalog pictures, and although his tomatoes tasted far better than the waxy supermarket variety, they looked a bit scrawny and didn’t produce very much.

The second home-gardener bought the best seeds he could find in the best seed catalog and picked out a nice patch of dirt behind his house with good sunlight. Since tomatoes are the gateway drug of home gardening, he couldn’t help but purchase a few pepper plants and eggplants too.

Because there was a lot of clay in their area he rented a roto-tiller and spent a day plowing up the hard dirt for his garden bed. The tiller violently ripped into the hard soil about a foot deep, churning everything over and deeply cultivating the topsoil and clay into a soft new mixture. Then he went to the local compost facility where grass clippings, pulled weeds, and other yard waste from all over the city was allowed to rot and decay into smelly black piles of rich organic matter. He filled his truck bed to the brim with this living-dead dirt and shoveled it onto his freshly-tilled planter beds. To this he added earthworm castings (worm poop!). He then folded the compost deep into the soil turning it over and over again one shovel-full at a time.

Then he added organic fertilizer, made from decomposed bone, kelp, and fish meal. He sprinkled the ashy white powder all over the planter beds and raked it into the dirt, shaping the beds into gently sloping mounds, which were now smelly, soft, and a deep dark brown color. Into this graveyard of decomposed animal and vegetable waste he planted and watered his seeds, and reflected on how they would have to break open and “die” in order for life to spring from them. And he thought, too, of how the young plants would be – in a sense – eating the flesh and drinking the blood of all the animals and plants that were sacrificed and given on their behalf, and he marveled at how much death was required to produce rich, full life.

That summer his tomatoes outgrew their cages, and the pepper plants were so full they crowded each other in the beds. He picked so many big, beautiful tomatoes and peppers that he had to share them with his friends and neighbors since it was more then he could possible eat all by himself. And his tomatoes were tasty.

Today’s reading is a little longer, and introduces us to Jesus’ teachings about the end of the age – a subject we don’t often hear about during the Easter season, but one that is obviously tied to his resurrection. So, read Matthew Chapter 24 and 25 and reflect on the questions below.

Questions for Reflection

1. How would you sum up Chapter 24? What is the main thing Jesus seems to be trying to say?
2. How would you sum up the teaching of the three parables in Chapter 25?
3. Why do you think Jesus might be discussing this during the week leading up to his crucifixion and resurrection?
4. How do you think this subject of the end of the age might be relevant for us today?

Take a few moments and read Luke 18:1-8.

Sometimes people are taken aback that Jesus compares God to a disrespectful, unjust judge. But the point of parables is never one-to-one correspondence. The point Jesus is trying to make is spelled out pretty explicitly by Luke in the first verse: “Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up.” Thanks Luke! That’s really helpful.

Jesus is informing his disciples that they can expect bad treatment, injustice, etc (refer to Luke 17 for this context). Like the widow, they are to be persistent in their prayers for deliverance and justice, because if an unjust judge will eventually give her justice, how much more will God do the same for those he loves? It’s the same kind of thing when Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount, “If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give good gifts to those who ask him?”

Again Jesus seems to be placing a lot of emphasis on the character of God, the essential goodness of the One we are praying to. Of course God will eventually vindicate, of course he will bring justice, because of who He is. It seems this is the first thing we doubt when our prayers aren’t answered according to the timetable we set up. It’s remarkable how quickly we begin to suspect God’s motives when our prayers aren’t answered immediately.

The call to action in this parable is for us to “pray and not give up,” to maintain a tenacious, faithful persistence in prayer, especially as we pray for justice. The basis of this kind of persistence is an unshakable belief in the goodness of God and the certainty of his deliverance.

The Psalms are stuffed with prayers for God’s deliverance to come to those who are suffering. Praying the Psalms is a very ancient Christian practice that has helped many people give words to their “groanings.” Today we tend to stick with the “happy” Psalms, but the darker ones can really help us give utterance to our emotions and stay tenacious in prayer.

Is there a difficult situation or relationship that you have given up praying about?

Perhaps when the prayer wasn’t answered in a timely manner, you began to doubt his goodness. Perhaps you doubted God’s ability to bring justice or truth. Regardless, this prayer exercise is designed to help you start become more tenacious and faithful in “crying out day and night” to God.

The exercise is simply to read Psalm 13: out loud, slowly, at least seven times. Jot down your reactions and responses. Leave a comment about what happened.