Vine

As Eve and Adam ate and fell,
all swallowed by the gates of death,
their children in its shadow dwell:
The teeth of hell are locked and clenched.

Woe for the fruit that passed our lips!
Oh, that we would have kept our fast!
What would we give for one small sip
of Eden's streams—but they are past.

So we become the meat and drink
that gluts the hungry maw of death
yet never fills it to the brink.
If it could, death would swallow heav'n.

O Christ, whose fall was marked by ours,
you came to be death's bread and wine.
It swallowed you down, soul and scars,
and up you sprouted like a vine.

Around the gateposts then you wound,
your living bursting from the dead.
The gates of hell came crashing down,
and death was choked by wine and bread.

Out of the garden, you, firstfruits,
took Eve and Adam from the ground,
not broken reeds but living shoots,
and brought them where the sun shines out.

Now Christ the sower, Christ the seed,
you bear us on your upward climb
to where the harvest ever feeds
on heaven's living bread and wine.

Convolvulus vine twining around a steel fixed ladder By Namazu-tron – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7282183

Kingdom

Jesus said to the crowds:
“This is how it is with the kingdom of God;
it is as if a man were to scatter seed on the land
and would sleep and rise night and day
and through it all the seed would sprout and grow,
he knows not how.
Of its own accord the land yields fruit,
first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear.
And when the grain is ripe, he wields the sickle at once,
for the harvest has come.”
He said,
“To what shall we compare the kingdom of God,
or what parable can we use for it?
It is like a mustard seed that, when it is sown in the ground,
is the smallest of all the seeds on the earth.
But once it is sown, it springs up and becomes the largest of plants
and puts forth large branches,
so that the birds of the sky can dwell in its shade.”
—Mark 4:26-34

The kingdom of God's a little seed;
no one thought it came to much,
but it grows beyond what we can see
into everlasting love.

It fell to the ground: We thought it lost
like the leaves of yesteryear.
It woke and it grew—how, we knew not—
first the blade and then the ear.

When we cut it down the grain was ripe,
and it fell like one who's dead,
but we lift it up with rich red wine,
and we live on broken bread.

And the beggars from the byways eat
where the kings cast off their robes,
and the tax collectors take their seats,
and we all of us come home.

The birds of the sky will take their rest
where the branches spread out broad,
in the shade where the swallow builds her nest,
in the kingdom of our God.

Identifier: wildlifeoforchar00inge (find matches) Title: Wild life of orchard and field; Year: 1902 (1900s) Authors: Ingersoll, Ernest, 1852-1946 Subjects: Animal behavior Publisher: (New York London) Harper & brothers Contributing Library: Smithsonian Libraries Digitizing Sponsor: Smithsonian Libraries View Book Page: Book Viewer About This Book: Catalog Entry By Internet Archive Book Images – https://www.flickr.com/photos/internetarchivebookimages/14761113296/Source book page: https://archive.org/stream/wildlifeoforchar00inge/wildlifeoforchar00inge#page/n188/mode/1up, No restrictions, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=43688808

Harvest

They came to Capernaum and, once inside the house,
he began to ask them,
“What were you arguing about on the way?”
But they remained silent.
For they had been discussing among themselves on the way
who was the greatest.
Then he sat down, called the Twelve, and said to them,
“If anyone wishes to be first,
he shall be the last of all and the servant of all.”
Taking a child, he placed it in their midst,
and putting his arms around it, he said to them,
“Whoever receives one child such as this in my name, receives me;
and whoever receives me,
receives not me but the One who sent me.”
—Mark 9:30-37

Those who receive the seed receive the harvest,
and with the sowing enter in the feast.
Those who receive the Son receive the Father;
Christ gives to them the Spirit of his peace.

Who plants the acorn will receive the forest
and all the birds that nestle in its shade.
Within the seed there lives the morning chorus,
and with it all the music ever made.

Then if you would receive the risen savior,
receive the child he sends you, in his name,
and as a child receives a parent's caring,
you have no need but in his arms to stay.

For all the world's great love is in your loving,
and each beloved bears the face of God.
Your every good work brings the kingdom coming,
each seed a harvest hidden in the sod.

Acorn By Alias 0591 from the Netherlands – Acorn, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=74284721

Sower

On bearing good fruit:

Turn my earth, O sower,
thistle-choked and thorned,
lying fallow, stone-filled:
Sift it more and more.
Harrowed, softened, broken,
deep the furrow's scored.
Ready me for sowing,
plowed with ruined sword.

There the seed will burrow
when you give the Word,
hidden under sorrow,
roots that reach the core.
After winter snowing,
springtime bursting sore,
summer's golden growing,
autumn will run o'er.

Tend me through the slow days;
nurture me, my Lord.
Slow, the work of growing;
great is the reward.
Grown to be scythed lower
(thus are harvests born),
I was yours at sowing:
Spent, I still am yours.

Walled 17th-century kitchen garden at Ham House near London, with orangery in the distance. By mym, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=9132385

Seed of Hope

When I grow weary with my days

that never seem to bear your fruit,

Lord, lead me to some sheltered place

where new life stirs in leaves and shoots.



And when I sink down on that ground,

give me the strength to plant my seed,

to let its hidden roots reach out

and grow again your hope in me.



Although I cannot see it thrive

while buried in the ground it sleeps,

teach me to trust the source of life

that hope is stirring in the deeps.



Though what I plant is all too small

for everything tomorrow needs,

you made both the seed and soil.

You bless the bread, and thousands eat.



So if I cultivate this hope,

though I may water it with tears,

it is your harvest I will grow

to feed the joy of coming years.



O Lord of bounty, nourish me

with days of sun and days of rain.

Call all I have into your feast

and grow your hope in me again.

Phone photography. Birth of life. Seedling of unidentified plant By akshatsgi – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=74067396

The Ages-Endless Love of God

Beneath the surface, there's a seed;
in stillness deep it lies.
All through the winter it may sleep;
in springtime it will rise.
So, hidden in my weary heart
beneath a world of noise,
the ages-endless love of God
lives there, a quiet joy.

The seed that fell down to the ground
will rise to greet the dawn,
to find a day where hope abounds
or where all hope is gone.
Though locusts may devour the crop
or storm and drought destroy,
the ages-endless love of God
will be my quiet joy.

Though I may spring up with the days
or fade into the night,
yet do I hear a song of praise
in darkness or in light.
It sings in me, and I resound
to echo that small voice:
The ages-endless love of God
is still my quiet joy.

Seedling By Momali – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=11840240

Barren Gardens

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!