A handful of Grain

When the LORD brought back the captives to Zion,

We were like men who dreamed. Our mouths were filled with laughter,

Our tongues with songs of joy.

Then it was said among the nations, “The LORD has done great things for them.”

The LORD has done great things for us, and we are filled with joy.

Restore our fortunes, O LORD, like streams in the Negev.

Those who sow in tears will reap with songs of joy.

He who goes out weeping, carrying seed to sow,

Will return with songs of joy, carrying sheaves with him. Ps 126

The farmer looked at his storehouse with satisfaction. The grain was golden—literally and figuratively. This grain would feed his family for several seasons. With this grain, his family had a future. Without it, they would starve.
It was good that he had the foresight to store the grain, instead of eating or bartering with it. A war was coming. The Babylonians were threatening invasion.
But with this grain, the farmer needn’t worry. His family could withstand a siege. They could retreat within the fortified walls of the city and last for months. Even if (God forbid!) something happened to him, there was enough here to feed his family for the rest of the season.
Then war came. The enemy laid siege to his town. Day after day they looked for help, which never came. Each day he opened his storehouse and took out their daily rations. Each day there was less. The farmer grew worried as he watched his precious sacks of grain grow thinner.
He conserved as much as he could. He cut the rations by half, then half again. Now there wasn’t enough to feed them all. For many days, he went without eating, so the children would have enough. Only one small pile remained—about a day’s ration. Tomorrow, even that would be gone.
The farmer took a small sack and carefully, precisely put every last remaining grain into it. He tied it up, took it to his house, and put it in a safe place. He and his family had nothing that night. His wife complained, “If we still have grain, we should eat it.” He shook his head. The grain would be needed later for other purposes.
The next day, his town surrendered. The Babylonians took everything they could find of value. But they missed the last of the farmer’s grain, because he had hidden it carefully. He lost everything else, but he still had the grain.
The Babylonians marched them away into exile. They were to be resettled on the banks of the Euphrates. They would never see their city again.
But they were not completely destitute. They still had something of their old lives—that handful of grain.
The farmer scratched a ditch in the mud. He opened his little sack and took out his handful of grain. Kernel; by kernel, he laid it carefully along the furrow, and covered it up with earth. Then he waited…
First the shoot appeared—then the stalk, then the tassel. New grain grew from the old. In the fall, they harvested the new grain. For the first season, they ate sparingly, putting most of the grain in storage for the next season. In the spring they planted again. Year by year, little by little, the garden grew into a farm. The single handful of preserved grain spread over many acres.
Seasons rolled by. The farmer grew old and died, but his son took over and managed it the way his father had taught him. When his son grew old, his children carried on. Seventy years—a whole generation—passed in the land of Babylon.
The family was successful in exile, but never happy. They wanted more than anything to plant in their own soil and to raise children in their own country. Every year, they said the same thing “Next year in Jerusalem.”
Then the word came down from the government that they could return to their homes. They lost no time in deciding to go. They celebrated just as this singer tells us—their mouths were full of singing and their houses with laughter.
Before they left, they harvested the grain. They put some into a small sack for seed. Then they left for Israel, bringing their sheaves with them.
The return journey took months. Finally, though, the family stood on the ground their grandparents left.
The first thing they did was to carefully plant the grain—the offspring of the very grain they carried into exile.
The grain had returned home.

The story that frames this psalm is the return of the exiles—how they reentered the land, sowed the seed, and harvested their crops. It is the story of how the people of Israel preserved their most precious traditions—their faith, their family, their God. They returned with their identity and principles intact. No wonder they sang it again every time they traveled from their homes to Jerusalem.
We enjoy the benefits of faith, but are we continuing to pass it on to the future? Faith must be planted in new soil every season. If we do not plant anew, our faith will disappear.
The world is changing. The old ways are dying. New generations are fleeing the parochial community of the past and becoming citizens of a much more complex global world. In this interaction with different cultures and traditions, Christians are in danger of losing their distinctiveness. Christians find themselves in a world they do not recognize, cut off from their roots by time and change. The world we knew will never return again. Instead, we are entering a world of diversity, where Christianity is one of many voices in a cacophony of competing cultures.
We should not worry about this. Christianity is ready for it. We were born for such a time. Old Testament Judaism was in constant competition with the religions of surrounding nations. The early church thrived in such a culture. Christianity was born in Galilee—the “circle of the Gentiles”—a melting pot of Jewish, Eastern, and Greco-Roman culture. Our journey is not that different from the one our ancestors made.
by the time we reach the middle years, we no longer look to our elders as leaders. We discover that we are the leaders. So it is important that we know what to abandon and what to preserve.
Much of what we think of as “traditional” Christianity is not traditional at all. Our music, our church sanctuaries, our liturgy, even robes and pulpits are not as ancient as we think they are. “Traditional” Christian churches maintain the outer trappings of a tradition, but may neglect the essence. Organs and choirs, and pulpit robes are not necessary expressions of our faith. We can abandon all the trappings of the past, so long as we preserve devotion to His Word and devotion to His Spirit. This is our handful of grain. As long as we stay true to Him, we need not fear assimilation into the world.
To preserve this grain, we need to plant it. Our generation has to plant that old faith in new soil. We may believe in a two thousand year old faith, but our ancient faith means nothing if it is not planted in contemporary soil.
The world is changing. We may enjoy prosperous times now, but lean times will come. When they come, our children—spiritual and physical—will continue our faith into the future. God will preserve them as He has preserved us. But there is one condition. We have to preserve the purity of our faith; so that one day we can return and rejoice, bringing our sheaves with us.