Unless a Grain of Wheat

A sermon preached at St Martin-in-the-Fields on March 16, 2025 by Revd Dr Sam Wells

Reading for address: John 12: 24

There are many reasons why people may be deprived of their course of life. There can be mischance, such as illness; or misadventure, like an accident; it can occur on a large scale, as in the pandemic, or through a major event such as a war. It may come about through disappointment, like being fired, or through major disruption, like imprisonment. It can happen in a bereavement or a breakup. It can also arise through being required to step aside so that others can ensure justice is done.

What all these experiences have in common is that they’re like a little death, in which for a moment, or an extended time, those undergoing them can feel powerless, can sense a loss of identity, and may feel a bottomless pit opening out below their feet. Another thing those facing such things share is that any attempt to suggest meaning or glean consolation in the moment tends to fall flat. It can be profoundly isolating. Nothing anyone can say can make it better.

Peter De Vries’ 1965 novel The Blood of the Lamb tells of Don Wanderhope, who grows up in post-war Chicago searching for hope. His 20-year-old brother dies of tuberculosis, followed by his first love. Then his wife takes her own life. But the greatest tragedy is the leukaemia contracted by his 11-year-old daughter, Carol. Don is plunged into the process of constant tests, desperate treatments, yearning consultations with experts, furrowed brows and shaken heads. But then, out of the blue, young Carol goes into remission. She’s no longer confined to a hospital bed. She can go outdoors. She’s capable of eating regular foods. Don and Carol can share the simple goodness of life together. They’re able to read a book without the sombre fear it might be the last time. They can play cards, and argue over a hand of rummy. They can cradle a mug of cocoa and feel the warmth permeate their hands and snuggle up close. Don describes this as the greatest of all human experiences: the rediscovery of the commonplace.

The rediscovery of the commonplace. When you’re in the midst of despair, brought upon yourself or imposed from outside, this can be your most significant consolation. If like Don you get to emerge, conclusively or temporarily, from such a desultory period, this may well be your strongest sensation. Not triumph – because the wounds are too deep. Not victory – because no one celebrates when they’ve stopped being put through what feels like an assault. But instead, this gentle, tender, revitalising awareness that Don calls the rediscovery of the commonplace. You’re not looking for grand gestures or seeking memorable moments. When you’ve had everything taken away from you, what’s most important and significant is the goodness of a hug, the kindness of a hand on a shoulder, the simplicity of a walk along the canal, the sound of birds singing, the taste of a bacon butty, a familiar voice on the phone.

The mystery disclosed by today’s gospel reading is that this experience, of having your life taken away from you, and then finding it given back, is at the heart of who Jesus is and what’s he’s about. ‘Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain.’ A grain of wheat can do nothing in the open air. It has to be plunged into the earth, change shape, find nutrients, and in due time, after much waiting, bear fruit.

I’ve baptised a lot of people, but one baptism sticks in my mind more than any other. The mother had found conception a long journey, and felt humiliated that her life had shrunk down to a longing for a child. It was like she’d lost emotional contact with the rest of her life – her career, relationships, sense of humour. But eventually the moment came, the test was positive, the baby grew inside her and the precious birth occurred. What I recall is the moment I stood at the font and stretched out my hands to take the baby from her mother’s arms. The mother looked at me with an unforgettable mixture of trust, fear and hope. It was like she couldn’t bear to let go of what she’d so much longed for, but at the same time believed that in handing her baby over to be baptised she was enabling him to become part of a so much bigger story. Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain. When I handed the baby back, the mother no longer looked at me but cherished her infant son in a whole new way. Only by letting go had she rediscovered the commonplace of cradling anew.

That’s how baptism works. It’s also how Lent works. In Lent we give up booze and candy and biscuits not because they’re wrong but because only by doing so do we fully appreciate the goodness of the other elements of our diet. If you never give up jam and marmalade you never truly relish the joy of fresh bread and butter. If you never fast, you never recognise the truth of Jesus’ words in the wilderness that we do not live by bread alone. When Easter comes, and for those partial to chocolate and doughnuts we are given our life back, we don’t actually gorge on the candy or drink the whole bottle of cabernet; we’ve come to enjoy what previously seemed bland and to find life in the ordinary. We’ve rediscovered the commonplace.

This is also how the Eucharist works. We hand over the bread, which represents our honest toil and simple endeavour. We hand over the wine, which signifies our joy and exuberance and creativity. And we hand over our money, which represents our independence, self-reliance, and ability to choose. For a moment we’re without all three. Again, it’s an experience of losing our life. But unless this grain of wheat dies, it remains but a single grain. When you do indeed hand over these three things, the presider tells the story of how in Christ, the faithful and fragile efforts of humankind are transformed by the wondrous and enduring glory of God, and our humble earthly temporal lives are folded into the mystery of God’s unfolding embracing eternal life. Our single grain bears much fruit. But only if it dies.

One expression common in America we don’t quite replicate in the UK is the simple yet often confrontational instruction, ‘Do the math.’ Jesus’ striking phrase about the grain of wheat provokes us to do the math. When we do the math, we find that if a single seed of wheat is buried it produces an ear of corn with around 40 further seeds. If you plant all these seeds and they produce at the same rate, within seven years you’ll have around 8bn seeds, or one for every person on earth. It’s an awesome metaphor. Jesus is persuading us by saying, ‘Do the math.’ No one wants to lose their life. But when you lose your life, you sometimes discover something you’d never otherwise have found. And that something may be what you always had but never before appreciated. The commonplace. The wonder of seeds replicating. The simple acts of baptism and eucharist.

But Jesus isn’t just drawing homespun lessons about human existence. He’s talking about himself. He’s preparing the disciples to comprehend what’s about to happen: both that he’s about to have his life taken away from him, and that mysteriously in losing his life he will bear much fruit. He is the grain that will be buried and will restore the life of all whose lives were lost.

See how multifaceted is the mystery of Christ’s passion and resurrection when we construe it this way. It’s truly three-dimensional. Here’s the first dimension. The disciples are terrified, distraught, inconsolable. If Jesus loses his life, they have lost him. They’re like Don Wanderhope losing Carol. Except more so, because they haven’t just lost the apple of their eye, the one who redeemed all their previous griefs, the hope of every troubled heart; they’ve lost God, the very truth of existence, the meaning and destiny of all things. Not surprising they try to talk Jesus out of it.

Here’s the second dimension. We don’t dwell on this dimension very much. If Jesus, the fully human representative of all humankind, loses his life, it’s not just that we have lost God; it’s that God has lost us. Jesus is a kind of bridge that ties us to God, and if that bridge is broken, God has lost us. The fact we put Jesus to death makes it even more poignant. We’ve cut ourselves off from God: God can’t reach us, because the rope by which God connects with us is severed. So it seems we have lost God; and God has lost us.

But there’s a third dimension. In the cross we lose God. And God loses us. But beyond both of those terrifying things and at the very edge of our conception, what happens on the cross is that God loses God. Jesus is fully God as well as fully human. Jesus being fully God isn’t a gong like getting a knighthood or being ushered into a prophetic hall of fame. It means Jesus is integral to the Trinity. The Father and Holy Spirit are unimaginable without the Son. If God loses Jesus, God loses God – God’s whole identity is in peril, and the meaning, heart and truth of all things is on the brink.

Which is why the resurrection is the moment Jesus’ words about the grain of wheat come true, and why these words point to the mystery at the heart of existence. In the resurrection we who have lost God receive God back. In the resurrection God who has lost us gets us back. In the resurrection God who has lost God gets God back. And like never before, each in their different ways rediscovers the commonplace, and what has died becomes wholly fruitful.

To have your life taken away from you is an experience I wouldn’t want for anybody. I wish I could say when this happens you find a companionship in God that transcends your isolation, but that’s not always true. The most appropriate prayer might well be, in the words of an Irish blessing, ‘When times are hard may hardness never turn your heart to stone.’ But what an experience like this does give us is an insight, perhaps a unique insight, into the threefold mystery at the heart of existence – that in the passion and death of Christ we lose God, God loses us, and God loses God, which are the three worst things there could possibly be. But in Christ’s resurrection each is given back, we rediscover their glory, and each bears much fruit. And that fruit is the gift of the commonplace – the daily, perpetual interaction of God with us, and God with God. The commonplace we call eternal life.

When you’ve had your life taken away, and are given it back, you cherish it like never before.