And So

And—
saying that
the realm of God is
as though a person
throws seed on the ground
and sleeps and wakes
night and day
and the seed sprouts and grows
—no one knows how—
the earth yields
all on its own
at first the stem
then the spike
then the full kernel in the head.

So—
when
the fruit is ready
to be given up to the reaper
send in the sickle
because the harvest
is waiting.

(The above is a careful rendition of what the gospel verses say in the Greek, and I’ve put it in a similar poetic format. The phrase “no one knows how” can be read as referring to both the verse before it and the verse after it, just as it does in the Greek.)


I’m blown away. Mark 4:21-34 is the Gospel reading for today. I went to the Greek Interlinear because I wondered about the phrasing, and then I noticed that the Greek syntax in the story about the seed-sower was like a poetic form. I started looking up the individual Greek words, and got a shock. The word translated as “ripe”—paradidōmi— in the phrase ‘and when the grain is ripe’, actually means “betrayed”; “given up”; or “handed over”!
So, the story of the grain being sown, and growing up to fulfillment— ‘no-one knows how’— and then being betrayed into the hands of the reaper, is a metaphor for Christ’s own life and death. That must mean that the realm of heaven has the same terrain; the same boundaries; the same edicts as the world we know— a world in which seeds sprout and grow and no one knows how that happens. A world in which grain grows bit by bit— no one ever sees it actually growing, but it does— and one day its done growing, and it’s time for it to be betrayed; to be cut down and made into food to feed the world. I was reminded of a folksong called “The Passion of the Corn” or “John Barleycorn Must Die” which goes in part—

They've ploughed, they've sown,
they've harrowed him in,
threw clods upon his head,
and these three men made a solemn vow:
John Barleycorn was dead.
They've let him lie for a very long time,
till the rains from heaven did fall,
and little Sir John sprung up his head,
and so amazed them all.
They've let him stand till midsummer's day,
till he looked both pale and wan,
and little Sir John's grown a long, long beard,
and so become a man.
They've hired men with the scythes so sharp,
to cut him off at the knee,
they've rolled him and tied him by the waist,
serving him most barbarously.
They've hired men with the sharp pitchforks,
who pricked him to the heart,
and the loader he has served him
worse than that,
for he's bound him to the cart.
They've wheeled him around
and around the field,
till they came unto a barn,
and there they made a solemn oath,
on poor John Barleycorn.
They've hired men with the crab-tree sticks,
to cut him skin from bone,
and the miller he has served him worse than that,
for he's ground him between two stones.
And little Sir John in the nut-brown bowl,
and he's brandy in the glass;
And little Sir John in the nut-brown bowl,
Proved the strongest man at last.
The huntsman, he can't hunt the fox,
nor so loudly to blow his horn,
And the tinker he can't mend kettle nor pot,
without a little Barleycorn.

We too must be ploughed and sown and harrowed in; have clods thrown on our heads, and be left to lie abandoned.

We too must lie patiently and wait for the rain, and little by little— no-one knows how— we will spring up our heads.

We too must be betrayed, and cut off at the knee, and served most barbarously; pricked to the heart; laid low and broken; ground to powder.

Oh, but then, somehow— no one knows how— we will grow up to be food and drink for each other, and none of us will be able to get along without all of us.