"Very truly I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains just a single grain, but if it dies it bears much fruit."

Whenever I hear this sentence, I think of countless generations of farmers and gardeners, who have planted seeds confidently expecting that the seeds will germinate and grow and yield a good crop. Wheat farmers, like the children of Israel were very familiar with this picture, and Jesus often compared the kingdom of heaven to seeds growing. There is the story of the sower, who scattered seeds on the path, on the rocky places, among the weeds as well as in good soil. We know the story of the seed growing secretly, hidden from sight underground until the green shoots poke through the earth. And what about the weeds among the wheat, where wheat seeds and weed seeds were planted together, the good and the bad? And who can forget the mustard seed, so very small, which grew into a great bush so that the birds of the air could make nests among its branches?

When I was at school we used to sprinkle mustard and cress seeds on damp cotton wool to watch them grow. We also used to put a little water in a glass and some rolled up blotting paper with a bean or pea seed. The miracle was that it didn't matter which way up the seed was, the roots always grew down towards the water and the green shoots always grew up towards the light.

In today's gospel, Jesus is using the picture of the seed to describe his own crucifixion as well as the ministry of his disciples.

Jesus is the seed which will fall into the earth and die. It is hard for Jesus as a human being to accept that his own death must happen before the true value of his life is seen. The living Jesus could bring salvation to the house of Zacchaeus, and healing to sick people. He could also bring some who were dead back to life. But when Jesus died on the cross, the whole world received a new life. "When I am lifted up from the earth," says Jesus, meaning, when I am nailed to the cross, "then I will draw all people to myself." He said this to indicate what kind of death he was to die. You will notice that this passage does not use the word crucifixion. Instead it talks about the Son of Man being glorified and God's name being glorified. This is because the kind of death Jesus was to die is a life-giving death - just as the death of a seed is a life-giving death.

St Paul preached a sermon to the Corinthians on this very subject. He said that the resurrection of a little, dry, golden grain of wheat is a tall green plant with leaves and a stem and many hundreds of new grains. The resurrection of the dead is not a reanimated corpse, but life filled with the glory of God. Christ's death on the cross bears fruit in our lives. The glory of the Son of Man, the glory of God is offered to us, to give us new life, abundant life, everlasting life. This is the promise of God to us, a promise which comes to us through our faith and trust in God.

But the seed that dies and bears much fruit is also a picture of the followers of Jesus, who are called Christians. Jesus said, "Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also. Whoever serves me the Father will honour." The seed which dies produces much fruit, and the fruit contains seeds which must, in their turn, die, so that more fruit again must be produced. Those who love their life are like seeds which want to stay just a single grain. All their goodness is held inside, like the inside of a nut. They are like people who must have everything and who will not share it. They hold on to what they have and refuse to look beyond their own interests. Every looked inside an old almond shell? The inside goes all black wrinkled and dead.

On the other hand, those who hate their lives are those who want to break free and grow. No musty old prison for them! Growing plants can split the toughest shell and break through rocks to reach the light. Just so, Christians can do miracles if they truly follow Christ. Following Jesus does not automatically mean crucifixion - what it does mean is being prepared to embrace the life that Christ gave us by dying, and use that life to the fullest, letting nothing stand in our way.

The question will always be, what is the life to which we cling, what is the shell stopping our seed from growing? We don't have to worry about what sort of fruit we will produce - God has already decided that.

Here's an avocado seed; it has no shell at all, all it needs is soil, water and warmth and it will grow into a huge tree and have lots of avocados. It's the same for this snow pea. Its shell is soft so the water can get in easily and the plant can climb up a trellis and produce pods full of peas. Here are mustard seeds - they are very small and can grow in moist cotton wool to provide a flavouring for our sandwiches. And here's a quandong. It has a really tough shell, and even when it does break out it needs to join its roots to another tree and take food from that. But then it produces the most beautiful tasty fruit for jam, for sauce and for quandong tarts.

So what sort of seeds are we? What sort of help do we need to grow? Each one is different, and we are here to help each other break out and grow. All we have to do is to be aware that we all have growing to do. We all have shells that need cracking; we all need to set aside things we like so that we can grow properly. Let's pray and work together and commit ourselves to follow Christ and to live his life, and the growth will be amazing, abundant and glorious. It is a humbling thought that Christ's death gives us that promise. Thanks be to God