Judges 6:3-4, 6, 11-13a
“Whenever the Israelites planted their crops, the Midianites, Amalekites and other eastern peoples invaded the country.  They camped on the land and ruined the crops all the way to Gaza and did not spare a living thing for Israel…Midian so impoverished the Israelites that they cried out to the Lord for help…The angel of the Lord came and sat down under the oak…where…Gideon was threshing wheat in a winepress to keep it from the Midianites.  When the angel of the Lord appeared to Gideon, he said, ‘The Lord is with you, mighty warrior.’  ‘But sir,’ Gideon replied.  ‘If the Lord is with us, why has all this happened to us?  Where are all his wonders…?’”

Psalm 126:5-6
“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.”

John 12:24
“‘I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed.  But if it dies, it produces many seeds.’”

Sower of Life, you have not stopped singing songs of creation over the soil of this earth.

Only in you can we bury our questions and disappointments and have them sprout and flourish into a harvest of hope.

Thresh our anxious hearts and remove the chaff of fear.  Remind us that unpromising kernels sown in your strength ripen into stalks heavy with grain.

In the name of Christ we offer our prayers, the perfect seed fallen into death to produce sheaves of glorious life.

Listen to ‘Barnfloor and Winepress’ by Wen Reagan