Sunday, June 16, 2024
Ez 17:22-24 | 2 Cor 5:6-10 | Mk 4:26-34
This week’s Gospel includes an image I remember learning about in Sunday School as a child: the small mustard seed growing into a mighty bush and the single seed of grain producing a mature head of wheat. In fact, one of the women at our church had a necklace with a single mustard seed housed within a tiny glass ball. She wore it around her neck most Sundays; I remember studying it and being in awe of how such a small thing could turn into something so big and mighty!
As a child I was reminded that Jesus was the sower, spreading the word of God throughout the world. We were the soil. And if that word fell on “fertile” soil — well, then, like the kernel of wheat and the mustard seed, good things would grow and an abundant crop of “good fruits” would be produced! Even back then, though, I had to wonder, am I fertile soil?
Here in Tanzania, where my husband, myself, and our three children are serving as Maryknoll Lay Missioners, growing food for sustenance remains a vital part of the communities we live in. Even here, in the city of Mwanza, almost every area of green space is tilled and planted with crops: corn, tomatoes, cassava, green beans, rice.
Young children, men, old women alike spend large parts of their day with a hoe in hand — harrowing and tilling the soil to prepare it for new crops. Since arriving here, I often see the same space growing corn one season, cassava the next, and something new soon after. After each harvest and a period of rest, people can be seen in the fields early in the morning until late in the evening, turning the soil and sowing new seeds.
While rereading Mark’s Gospel this week, it struck me that Jesus used two crops that were cultivated by Jewish people at the time: the mustard bush and wheat. These were not just any wild-growing plants. These were specifically grown in gardens and fields to harvest their final product for use.
A well-cultivated wheat field could sustain a family with food — or provide important income. A mustard bush, likewise, could be used to make mustard for home use and to sell. The goal: a rich crop. Oh, and that tiny mustard seed? It could grow up to be a 10-foot-tall bush — if the soil and growing conditions were right.
And that, I realize, is the beginning of an answer to my pondering as a small child of “am I fertile soil”? As we enter June here in Tanzania, the lush greens of the wet season are beginning to die down. Dust is in the air and on my shoes after my morning walks. The grass in our front yard now requires watering several times a week — as do the newly planted banana and orange trees behind our house.
I see the locals standing in the roadside culverts early in the morning now, scooping water by the bucketful and tossing it on their crops. Just two months ago they were weeding from so much rain. Now they work to water. So, while the seasons change, the work required to keep the soil fertile and prepared for a healthy and abundant crop goes on.
We are reminded in Mark’s Gospel, however, that the growing of the fruit is not for us to do. No matter how much fertilizer I add, no matter how much I water and prepare the soil, I cannot make a seed grow. I cannot make it bear fruit. Only the miracle of nature — and God — can do that. Jesus tells us that “…the seed would sprout and grow, he knows not how. Of its own accord the land yields fruits, first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear.”
I am inspired by the Tanzanians working in the fields each day, caring for and cultivating their soil hoping that their crops will bear much fruit. Likewise, let us each care for and cultivate our lives in a way that will allow the words and ways of Christ Jesus to live within each of us, helping us to grow, eventually, into the full head of wheat, and even into the mighty mustard bush that can feed those around us and offer rest to those in need.
Maryknoll Lay Missioner Anna Johnson, a registered nurse, serves in Tanzania with her husband, Maryknoll Lay Missioner Kyle Johnson, and their three children. The family volunteered together at an orphanage in Mexico before moving to East Africa.
Featured image: A view of the Johnson family garden in Mwanza, Tanzania. (Courtesy of Anna Johnson, Tanzania)
