Armodoxy for Today: A Grain for Today

“Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies,” says Jesus, “It remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much harvest.”

This short proclamation could be a lesson directly out of a Botany 101 textbook. Jesus expresses metaphorically, the power of sacrifice. He alludes to himself and his death, which yielded the harvest of the church – a great harvest with churches and monasteries, the spreading of the message of love and light, schools, innovation, hospitals, artwork, music, and countless outreach programs during the last two millennia.

However, the axiomatic definition of a seed’s death yielding harvest is not confined to afterlife events. Think of a parent’s love, how sacrificial it can be. A mother or father, who sacrifices her or himself is the dying seed, and the harvest is great in the lives of their children.

Sacrificial love is Agape love, that is, it is defined by Christ in his action at the cross but can be found in the sacrifices made by others, with their lives and their talents. Parents, teachers, artists, physicians, caretakers are the obvious nominees for those who sacrifice, but caution, it’s not the action that defines sacrifice, but the spirit in which that action is performed.

Today we meditate on the sacrifices we make in our lives by heeding the words of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, who said, “If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michaelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, ‘Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.”