grain of wheat – Kate Bluett

A single grain of wheat alone
cannot a loaf become,
but all that grew as Christ had sown
are gathered into one.
Though each is threshed by different means,
their chaff is cast away
and, gathered first or lately gleaned,
they join the harvest day.

So wide and winding is the field
where Christ has cast the seeds,
that patiently he waits their yield
who will not pluck the weeds.
But weeds and wheat together grow
that not a grain be lost,
and which is which he only knows
who bought them at his cost.

Though we are ground down day by day
as wheat is turned to flour,
yet Christ who loves each seed and grain
is with us every hour.
He gathers us to make his bread
from every seed he sows.
If one is lost, the loaf is less:
He will not let us go.

The days are coming, says the LORD,
…I will place my law within them and write it upon their hearts.
Jeremiah 31:31-34

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.
John 12:20-33

One for today’s readings, about hearts and seeds, to the tune O WALY WALY (“Take Up Your Cross”):

The days are coming, says the Lord,
when God will plant within our hearts
the seed itself, the living Word,
in barren gardens, worked and scarred.

Bring on those days, we pray, O God:
Take all we are and e'er have been.
Dig out the stones and break the sod;
transform us into Eden's green.

For you alone can make good ground,
that, when the springtime sounds its call,
within our hearts might love abound
if that one grain of wheat should fall.

If it should fall, if it should die,
if it should lie within the earth—
O God, may you be glorified
when grain to springing green gives birth!

Let grace and mercy in us toil,
a brand new Eden here to start,
then plant your seed within our soil.
Oh, write your Word upon our heart!

Tag: grain of wheat

Loaf

Barren Gardens