"Unless a Grain of Wheat Dies"
#92-28Presented on The Lutheran Hour on March 9, 2025
By Rev. Dr. Michael Zeigler, Lutheran Hour Speaker
Copyright 2025 Lutheran Hour Ministries
No bonus material MP3
Text: John 12:24
If you had to give yourself a rating, on a scale of 1 to 10, how religious are you? Now, maybe you don't prefer the word "religious" to describe yourself. When I was in college, I knew a guy named Mike M. who used to say, "I'm not religious. I just love Jesus," which, to me, sounded really religious.
At that time in my life, I probably would have said I was about a 5 out of 10 on the religious scale. Five, because when I lived at home, when I was in high school, I went to church—mostly because my parents made me. I volunteered as a Sunday school teacher—mostly because I wanted to have some community service to show on my college application. And I believed in God—most days—as long as "believing" didn't get in the way of what I wanted. So, I guess that made me about half as religious as Mike M.
When I met Mike M. my freshman year of college, he seemed like the most religious non-pastor person I had ever met. He used to host a Bible study in his dorm room on Tuesday nights at 7. And it wasn't even a Christian college we went to, but a secular one. Mike would walk the halls of the dorm, knock on doors and invite everyone to Bible study. Most people didn't even bother opening their doors. Some called him a "Jesus freak." Me, I'd cringe every time I saw him do it, and politely decline and say I was too busy to come.
Yeah, Mike M. would have been 11 out of 10 on the religious scale. Me, I was about a 5. How about you? What would the people around you say, on a scale of 1 to 10, how religious you are? Okay, similar, but slightly different question: on a scale of 1 to 10, how moral are you? How committed are you to being a good person? When I was in high school, I think I would have given myself a 7, maybe an 8. I'll say 8—I studied hard, got good grades. I didn't smoke pot or do drugs, but did I drink underage on occasion. And I cussed, but I knew how to turn it off whenever there were adults around. And I was a good friend—mostly.
We had this friend named Jamie. But then we started calling him "Jaime," just to mess with him. And then he'd say, "It's not Jaime, it's Jamie." And then we'd razz him and keep calling him Jaime. Then he'd roll his eyes at us. And then we mocked him for caring so much. And then he found better friends. Okay, so maybe I was closer to a 6 of out 10 on being a good person.
What about you? If you had to choose between being good versus being funny or popular, what would you choose? How committed are you to being a good person? Would you want to be good if it cost you something else that you wanted? So, on a scale of 1 to 10, how moral are you? Okay, hold that thought, and imagine that now we're going to play a game. It's a competition to see who can build the biggest tower. And for your tower-building resources, you will have dried beans. Why beans? Because we're on a tight budget around here, that's why. Beans! Three different kinds: white lima beans, red kidney beans, and speckled-tan pinto beans, 10 each to build your tower: 10 white lima beans, which are flat and oval-shaped, roughly the size of a quarter; 10 red kidney beans, which are a little smaller and rounded, roughly the size of a nickel; and 10 speckled tan pinto beans, which are even smaller, dime sized.
So, you've got this hill o' beans and your job is to build a tower, as tall a tower as possible, or at least taller than your neighbor's. And because you're smart, you start by organizing your legumes, one pile of white ones, one for the red, and another for the tan ones. And because you're thinking ahead, when I say "Go!" you start with the white beans, the limas, because they're the largest and flattest, and will make the best foundation; then you add a layer of red beans; and then the pinto beans on top. And now your tower is all finished. Now it's time to measure.
And for the purposes of our game, this tower is going to represent your life. And a pile about this big represents a decent life, but a pile this big means a good life, and a pile THIS big represents a GREAT life. Now, if you played your cards right, you were probably able to build a tower that's at least a half inch tall. And though a half inch doesn't sound like much—but on bean-scale, it's definitely at least a good life.
Okay, let's try again. See if you can build that tower tall enough to be a great life this time. But first, we have to pay some taxes—proportionate taxes, based on the answers you gave about yourself earlier. Two taxes: the religious tax and the morality tax. The religious tax must be paid from the white beans, the lima beans. And the morality tax must be paid with the red beans. Do you remember the numbers you gave yourself earlier, scale of 1 to 10? Well, now you gotta pay however many beans based on the number you gave yourself.
I gave myself a 5 on religiousness, which means I pay 5 white beans. And I gave myself a 6 on morality, I gotta pay 6 red beans. You pay what you owe. And, now that you know there's a tax, I'll even let you change your answers. If you decide you want to be less religious and/or less moral, you can lower your number and thereby lower your taxes.
Okay, so we pay our taxes and build again. And some of you, if you paid heavy taxes, your tower's not much with just a bunch of pinto beans. You lose those lima beans, you're toast! You'll be lucky to end up with a decent life. Some might even call it a sad life.
Okay, one more round, and one more tax, but this one will be a "flat tax"—everyone pays the same. No calculations, no complicated forms, no loopholes, no exclusions, no exceptions, no processes to appeal. Everybody pays the same. It's called the "death tax," and it'll cost you everything—your whole hill o' beans, because there are at least two things certain in this life, as they say, "death and taxes."
When I was younger, this is how I thought about life. The goal was to hoard your resources and build as super awesome a life as possible. And I tried not to think too much about death. But things changed for me when I had to prepare a death inventory for a young man named Matthew.
I had graduated from college and joined the military. Matthew and I were both on active duty, in the same military unit. And at 6 a.m. one Sunday morning, he was driving on the highway and fell asleep at the wheel. The vehicle drifted to the right, Matthew woke up, overcorrected left. The vehicle flipped and landed in the median. Matthew was killed instantly. He was 25 years old.
When someone dies while on active duty in the military, the commander appoints a member of the unit to inventory, safeguard, and ship the personal property of the deceased, so that it can be turned over to their next of kin. In Matthew's case, it was his mother.
The commander appointed me, which meant I had to go through all of Matthew's closets, drawers, and lockers to prepare a list of all his possessions—things that he had saved up to buy, things that were once precious to him, things that he had forgotten he had, and things of which he would have been embarrassed if his mother knew he had them.
After that experience, I couldn't not think of death. Before that, I tried. I didn't want to think about the death tax because it was depressing—the fact that we have to turn in our hill o' beans eventually, and in a hundred years or so, no one will even remember us or how tall our towers were. It's depressing because it feels like we were made for more than this, doesn't it?
And maybe that's why many of us are willing to pay at least some religious or morality tax, just in case it counts for something. I'll pay out some, I thought when I was younger, even if it means I have a smaller tower. Sure, I'll pay some—just not as much as a Jesus freak like Mike M. That's too much. I still want a shot at building at least a good life. I can't afford a Jesus tax.
But then I started to hear more about this Jesus from the Bible, to really listen to His story. And it dawned on me that Jesus isn't playing our game. He wasn't here to hike up our taxes. He was up to something different. He was here to grow a new creation.
One of His followers, a man named John, recorded His words. In the 12th chapter of John's book, John's Gospel, we hear Jesus say in verse 24, "Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains by itself alone. But if it dies, it bears much fruit. Whoever loves his life will lose it. Whoever hates his life in this world" [that is, whoever quits building towers and entrusts all their resources to God], "that person will keep it to eternal life." Jesus says, "If anyone would serve Me, let him follow Me. And where I am, there My servant will be also. My Father will honor the one who serves Me."
The Bible teaches that death comes to us all, but not because it's a tax—a tax is something a government takes from you, so that it can build roads and stuff. But God doesn't need anything from us. So, death isn't a tax. Death is a consequence of trying to live for ourselves. Living for ourselves is what the Bible calls "sin." Death, separation from God, hell—those are sin's consequences. But Jesus said that God His Father had sent Him to give us life, true life—life with God lived for others. Jesus said His life was like a seed. It wasn't something to hoard for Himself, to build into a tower. Instead, it was a gift from God, a gift that gives life by dying, dying to self like a seed dies. No, Jesus didn't come to raise our taxes. He came to die on the cross, to take away our sin, and rise to give us His life—eternal life—life with God that cannot be measured.
So, let's look at those beans that we talked about earlier from this new perspective that Jesus gives. Now, even if you lost all your white and red beans in those taxes, take a look at just one of those tan, dime-size pinto beans. Pinto doesn't mean small; it means painted, and each one is painted differently, each is unique like a human life. Now say that you let this single, dried-up bean die. Say that you entrusted it back to its Creator, submerged it, soaked it, "baptized" it in the water. In about three days, you'd see a sprout coming out of it.
And this isn't theoretical, by the way. You can go buy a two-dollar bag of dried pinto beans from your local grocery store and do this at home. It's not theoretical. It is real. But it's not a quick process. It happens on God's time. But if you entrust it to Him, you'll see it, you will see it with your own eyes, a once-dormant capacity for life would be revealed. But then we couldn't use it in our little tower building game anymore, could we? Because sprouting seeds isn't a game. Or maybe it's a different kind of game—slower, more messy, but bigger, more wondrous. How wondrous? Well, imagine you planted that sprouted, painted bean in the soil in a warm place where it could get at least six hours of direct sunlight each day. In several weeks, it would reach full maturity. And how many new seeds would that single seed go on to produce? If all goes well, roughly 100 new seeds.
So, let's say your mature pinto bean plant produced 100 new seeds, and what if you didn't keep any of it for yourself? What if you entrusted all of them back to your Creator, and all those seeds reached maturity? How many seeds would you have then? Well, that's 100 plants, each producing 100 seeds— 100 times 100, that's a 1 with four zeros, that's 10,000 beans. And what if you did it again? What if you surrendered it all to the God who gave it and planted 10,000 beans? And, what if all 10,000 reached full maturity, each producing 100 new seeds? That's 10,000 times 100, so a 1 with six zeros—now you've got one million beans! And what if all of those were baptized, what if they all fell into the earth and died and bore much fruit? What if we kept doing this, giving away all our beans, letting them die, in five growing seasons, we'd have 10 billion seeds. In 15 growing seasons, the number of those seeds would be a one with 30 zeros behind it. The weight of those painted beans would be heavier than all of planet earth. And it 20 growing seasons, they'd be heavier than the sun.
Of course, as any farmer would tell you, this is theoretical. It's imaginary, because who could possibly handle all those beans? But it is our imaginations that Jesus is after when He compares His life to a seed. All of that creative power and potential hidden within Him, the Word of God become human. But first He had to die.
When God created you, He created you by His Word, in His own image, which means God endowed you with a capacity for a relationship with Him. But like me, you got caught up in the lie that you could live for yourself, that you could build a half inch life for yourself. You got caught in sin. But Jesus, the Christ, came to take away your sin—to restore your relationship with God, so that you could be nurtured by hearing God's Word in Jesus, recorded in the Bible, so that you could grow by praying to Him and in fellowship with Him and His people.
Jesus said that His life was like a seed that must die to live and bear much fruit. And in Him, your life is the same. When you are baptized in the water as Jesus commanded, you are baptized into His death. You begin to die to yourself and to live for God by living for others. This happens when you are planted and nurtured in a local Christ-centered community.
And if you aren't currently gathering with a local church, this is the perfect time of year to start. This Sunday is the beginning of a season called Lent. During this season, leading up to Easter when we remember the resurrection of Jesus, many Christian communities gather to focus on this truth that we are called to die to ourselves, so that we might live in Christ for others. So, go. Go be part of your local Christian community. Go to church. Gather with them.
I used to think that going to church was like paying a religious tax. But it turns out Jesus doesn't want a few of your beans in a religious tax. He wants all of you. Every bit. Nothing held back to call your own. It's all His anyway. And He takes it all from you not to hoard it for Himself, but to give it all back to you as a gift, more life than you can measure, not just a half-inch pile of life, but eternal life, life as God intended, life in a relationship with God, lived not for yourself but for serving others in Jesus' Name. And little by little, your old, tower-building self begins to die, so that a new life can grow, nourished by God's Word, nurtured in a relationship with Him and in fellowship with others in His church, and one day to rise from the dead forever when Jesus returns. Dying and rising to live in Jesus isn't about paying religious taxes. It is God working the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus in us to grow a new creation.
Eventually, I started to see that guy I knew in college, Mike M., the so-called Jesus freak, I started to see him differently. And it made more sense. Because the way he lived, it didn't seem taxed, but rather that he was alive on a different level. He didn't care what people thought about him, because in Christ he was dying to himself, which, as far as I could tell, didn't mean that he thought less of himself, but just that he thought of himself less, and of God and others more. He wasn't playing the same game anymore. I could see this in him, in the way he cared for people, in the way he talked and smiled.
So, I started going to his Bible study. And something sprouted in me, I guess, something from my Baptism that had long been dormant. Because after Mike graduated, I found myself out in the hall in our dorm, knocking on doors to invite others to Bible study because this life in Jesus, it's too much, too big, too wondrous to keep to ourselves. We've got to share it. We get to share it.
Would you pray with me? Lord Jesus, I have been crucified with you. And I no longer live. The life I live now, in the body, help me to live by faith in You, because You love me, and You gave Yourself for me. Amen.
Reflections for March 9, 2-25
Title: Unless a Grain of Wheat Dies
No reflection segment this week.
Music Selections for this program:
"A Mighty Fortress" arr. Peter Prochnow. Used by permission.
"O Lord, Throughout These Forty Days" arr. Henry Gerike. Used by permission.
"Christ, the Life of All the Living" arr. Henry Gerike. Used by permission.
"Crucifer" by Sydney H. Nicholson, arr. Peter Prochnow. Used by permission.
"O Lord, Throughout These Forty Days" From The Concordia Organist (© 2009 Concordia Publishing House) Used by permission.
