Brad left school on Thursday with a smile on his face. Summer break was only a week away and the sun was shining down on everything making it impossible to be in a bad mood.

He climbed on his old bicycle with the spokes that were slightly bent and headed home, with the spokes making a CLACKITY CLACK sound with each turn of the wheels.

Brad drove past his school and passed his friends on the way home and he yelled at them as he passed by, with the CLACKITY CLACK of the wheels announcing his presence.

When he pulled into the driveway of his house that afternoon, he noticed two things that were out of the ordinary.

The first thing was his mother was home. She usually doesn’t arrive until after 5 o’clock on most days, but for some reason she was home at 3:30.

The other thing that caught Brad’s eye was a large piece of yellow paper that was nailed to the front door of their two bedroom house.

Brad leaned his bike on the water spout and went inside.

He found his mother sitting in the middle of the living room with all sorts of papers laying around her with a bunch of scribble marks with numbers and what not laying around too.

And as he came closer to his mother he noticed that she had been crying, her face was red and her mascara made a trail down her face and neck.

"What’s the matter" Brad asked.

His mother just shook her head.

"Come on Mom, what’s wrong?" he asked again.

"We have to move" she said.

"But WHY? I like this house, it is nicer than the others" Brad started to tear up at the thought of moving again.

Brad’s mom took him outside to the front door and showed him the eviction notice and explained to him that she didn’t have enough money to pay the mortgage and that they would have to move unless she could find $3,000 dollars in 24 hours.

Brad ran into his room and grabbed a piggy bank and a cigar box where he saved his money and gave them to his mother. She was touched by his generosity but told him that they would need a little bit more than that.

And with that, Brad’s mother went into the bedroom to think.

And when she buried her face in her hands so they would catch her tears, she nicked her face, but she found her answer.

She put on her best dress, grabbed her pocketbook, and ran out to find Brad. When she found him, she told him that she was going to the bank to try to convince them to give her a few more days.

In the meantime, she took off her diamond ring given to her by her late husband and told Brad to go to the Pawn shop and get as much as he could for it.

Not really sure of what his mother was trying to do, Brad hopped back on his bike with the CLICKITY CLACK of the wheels, he rode back into town.

Gaddy’s PawnShop was the only one in town. Many people would come in to see Gaddy for a buy, sell, or trade.

Many of Gaddy’s customers were teenage boys who suddenly found themselves without a girlfriend and tried to get at least something from all the jewelry they bought,

And girlfriends came into the store to try to get at least something from all the jewelry that their boyfriends had bought them.

Gaddy also saw his share of people on hard times and needed to pawn heirlooms or valuable personal items in order to make ends meet.

Gaddy was a wise old man who had a lot of compassion for people and their situations.

Brad’s mother had pawned many things from her past in Gaddy’s store, but this was the first time that Gaddy had seen Brad.

The pawn shop was a heaven for Brad. There were so many things that a little boy could lose himself in. He played on the drums sets that lined the back of the store and made a lot of noise with the guitars.

He was amazed at all the watches, cameras, necklaces, and other jewelry.

And Old Gaddy was amused watching Brad play.

And when Brad saw the rings that were in Gaddy’s store, he remembered the reason why he was there in the first place, and reached for his mother’s ring in his pocket, and put it on the counter in front of Gaddy.

Gaddy looked at Brad a long time before he picked up the ring, where did he get it, why did he have it, and why did he want to sell it?

Gaddy leaned close to Brad over the counter and said, "Son, this is a beautiful ring that is made for a beautiful lady, why do you want to give it to me?"

And Brad told Gaddy all about the problems his mother had right now, money, time, grief, all the while trying to be a good mother to Brad.

Gaddy straightened up and thought for a minute. He looked at Brad and then looked back at that diamond ring shining on the counter.

He then walked to the back of the store where Brad couldn’t see him anymore. When he came back he was holding an old burlap sack with a frayed piece of string tied at the top.

He took Brad’s hand and put that old bag in his palm and closed his fist over it.

Gaddy told Brad that in that bag was the mortgage that his mother needed. In fact, Gaddy said, his mother would no longer be in debt ever again!

Brad jumped up and down! He didn’t really know what debt was, but he knew that it wasn’t a good thing and that his mother was always fussing about it.

So Brad gave Gaddy the diamond ring and walked out the door.

Brad couldn’t hide the smile from his face. In fact the smile from his face was LOUDER than the CLICKITY CLACK from the spokes of his bike! He now had the solution and his mother would be so happy and she would no longer have to cry again!

But when he walked in the door and announced that her problems were no longer problems anymore, and placed the solution in her hand in the form of a burlap bag she was not smiling.

The bank would not give her an extension on the mortgage and she needed that money for the payment right now!

And all Brad had to show for a diamond ring that was worth a couple thousand dollars was a burlap bag.

Words cannot explain the emotional state of Brad’s mother, you know when you’re just so upset and so mad that you literally can’t think straight. She was destroyed as she watched her life shatter like glass after a baseball made its way through it.

And in one act to sum up her feelings, or really her life, she took that old burlap bag and threw it out the window, and as it landed that frayed string snapped and the contents fell to the ground.

Brad’s mother looked out the window and smiled,

Seeds. A diamond ring for seeds. Figures.

And with that, she went to bed.

Brad went to the window after his mother and looked at the seeds too. Surely he thought, there must be a mortgage payment in there somehow. He knew something would happen, he knew there was something in those seeds. He just knew it.

And with that, he went to bed.

That night, Brad’s mother could not sleep. She tossed and turned and kept thinking about those seeds. She remembered planting corn as a child and how those seeds grew to feed her family and provide a livelihood for her family.

She remembered blowing dandelions and how those seeds would produce more dandelions.

And then she thought all about the mortgage, the bills, and her son.

So she got out of her bed, went outside to those seeds and began to bury them, along with her anxiety, worry, depression, anger.

The next morning, Brad got up before his mother and went to the cabinet to get his cereal before school. But as he was reaching for his Cheerio’s, he looked out the window.

Standing in the yard where his mother threw the burlap bag, was a kudzo vine, did I tell you that Brad was from Lowdneville? that reached all that way up to the sky. Now this was no ordinary kudzo vine, this was a kudzo that was eight feet around and Brad couldn’t see the top!

Brad put down his Cheerio’s and began to do the natural thing, he started to climb that gigantic kudzo, all the way to the top.

He climbed and climbed and finally he came to the top. And Fee Fi Foe Fum, Brad stood before a great kingdom!

It was simply amazing! He ran all around this kingdom and saw children playing and people laughing. It was bright and glistened. The grass was the greenest grass he’d ever seen, the sky was the bluest sky he’d ever seen, and the peace was the greatest peace he’d ever felt.

And there was a house, it must have been ten times the size of his house, with at least thirty rooms. There was a great big door at the front of the house and there was a notice nailed to it. Brad began to frown because he had seen too many of these long pieces of paper, and he couldn’t understand why there was a eviction notice in such a grand and wonderful place!

But when he got close he realized that it wasn’t an eviction notice at all, but a note that said "The house of Brad and Mom".

His own house! No moving, no worrying, no anger, no anxiety, but peace.

He quickly climbed down the kudzo vine and told his mother all about this place with the big house and the greens and blues and children running and playing!

His mother didn’t believe him until she saw that enormous kudzo in the yard, and then she climbed up to see for herself.

And she immediately felt the peace when she heard these words,

"Fee Fi Foe Fum, You’re a child of God, Welcome to my kingdom!"

Here the words of Jesus and recorded by Saint John:

(read St. John 12:23-33)

A paradox is when two things are compared that are opposite.

Jesus shocked the disciples with words of his death moments after his triumphal entry into Jerusalem.

The disciples were convinced that the time when Jesus would take his place as the King of the Jews would happen soon. He would overthrow the Romans and rule his kingdom.

He even came into Jerusalem with people shouting and screaming Hosanna, Blessed is the King of Israel!

But Jesus was talking about his looming death. A paradox. The triumphant king talking about death.

This man who claimed to be the Son of God and promised to bring life to Israel was about to die, at least according to him.

It just didn’t make any sense!

But Jesus related the creation of his kingdom with the creation that the disciples knew, and we know, the earth.

The life that the disciples sought and the life that Jesus spoke about would come about through death.

If we plant one seed from an apple, if we bury it in the ground, as if we would bury a loved one, a seedling will burst up.

And that seedling will turn into a tree, and that tree will produce not just one apple, but many apples.

And those apples will have seeds of their own, and they will fall to the earth and sprout seedlings of their own, and so on and so forth.

And the same is true for the kingdom of heaven! For life to be given to us all, the first seed must come from the ground to bear fruit and give life.

That first seed is Jesus, and from his death he rose a life giving vine, the True Vine, and we are the branches.

Christ has offered us life through death, and for us to experience life, we too must experience a death.

For us to find a peace like Brad and his mom, we must experience a death like they did.

Brad’s mother had problems. Problems like many of us have, not necessarily identical problems, but problems that don’t have clear solutions, problems that keep mounting up.

She looked for the answers. She looked in the bank, she looked in friends, she looked in family, but she never found the answers she was looking for. She never found her peace.

Until she got on her knees, and buried those seeds.

Jesus tells us that we must experience death.

In order for us to have this life we must die. The part of us that loves our life and is selfish. The part of us that seeks the glory of this world and not the glory of God.

The part of us that refuses to relinquish control, the part of us that listens to the advice column instead of God, must die.

The part that mocks faith, must die.

Those parts must be buried. The selfishness, the greed, the envy, the hate, all of those things that are alive and well in our lives must die.

And through their death comes LIFE!

Life that can’t be found at the bank, from family or friends.

Life that gets us through mortgage payments and eviction notices.

It may not seem like a fair trade. Adoration, money, praise, friends…………for a burlap bag.

When those parts in us die, when we are willing to give what it may take, even a cherished diamond, we will have peace.

When we bury those things, we will find ourselves on the TRUE VINE, growing and planting the seeds of life in others.

This life is so simple that it may look like a worthless burlap bag with a frayed string, but that is how FAITH is.

It doesn’t have to be extravagant, it doesn’t have to be ornate or have big words written on it, it just has to be.

And it has to be real.

A burlap bag may not seem like the way to life for us, it didn’t to Brad’s mom.

But through death, a life of peace, love, and majesty will grow forth, a vine that has no beginning, and no end.

A vine that leads to a kingdom, with the greenest greens and the bluest blues; with children running and playing, and a loving voice that says:

"Fee Fi Foe Fum, you are my child in my kingdom"

In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen.