“Maria! Wake up! It’s wheat harvest time. The Master says the fields are ripe.” Little Timmy was bouncing up and down, half on the floor, and half on his sister’s bed.
“Wa… wait… Really? Wheat! I be right there.” Maria yawned, shook the sleep out of her eyes, and hurriedly crawled out of bed.
Oh how they loved wheat harvest time; to see the beautiful grain fields golden with dried wheat heads. Each head contained many little seeds that could be shaken out and ground to make flour. Maria and Timmy loved to help in the fields at harvest time. All summer they had watched the wheat grow tall and thick. Now it was ready at last.
The two children scarfed down their breakfast, threw on their work clothes, and hurried out to the field to join the workers. At first, the harvest party began with the usual jubilation, but then something strange occurred.
“Hey John, look at this.” Pete stood with a sickle in one hand and his other hands held up close to his face.
John dropped his sickle and hurried over to see what Pete was looking at. The two examined the contents of Pete’s hand. Maria and Timmy could not hear what they said, so they meandered closer to see what was going on.
“But the field looks so great… The wheat heads are nice and big… I don’t understand…” John’s voice trailed off.
“I know. I don’t understand it either. This should have been our best crop in years.” The excitement was gone from Pete’s voice.
The children moved still closer.
“Did the birds do this?” asked John.
“I doubt it. They would have knocked the wheat down or something.”
Maria moved silently towards the two men. Timmy, more bold than his sister, marched up to them.
“What is it?” Timmy’s voice chimed up.
Pete lowered his hand so the boy could see. In his hand he held a beautiful, luscious wheat head. Though he had pulled the grain out of it, only a few pieces of grain had been found in it. The wheat head was mostly empty!
“What?... What caused it to..” Timmy’s voice trailed off in silent confusion.
They all realized what this meant. Maria came to stand next to her brother. The fields looked so luscious and beautiful, but the crop was empty. Wheat heads that had boasted a hundredfold production barely attained to fivefold.
Tears welled up in Timmy’s eyes. At last, he ran a little ways through the field and burst out, “Liars! All of you!” Little Timmy screamed at the wheat. “You make it look like you grew much grain, but you are all empty liars! Hypocrites! Why?” Timmy crumpled down and cried.
Maria came up to him, squatted down next to him, and put her arms around him.
Timmy continued to sob. “Why did this happen? The crop looks so fruitful, but it is such a poor crop.”
Choking on her own tears, Maria cleared her throat a little. “Sometimes, the poorest things in life look like they are the richest, but inside they are empty.”
John noiselessly approached behind them. “Yes, they pretend to be something great, yet they lack what truly counts.”
“Long ago, the Master warned us that something like this could happen; a crop that boasted great wealth, but was as measly as this.” Pete crunched through the stubble to join the huddle.
“This is worse than even weeds taking over. At least you can see weeds and fight them, but this…” A look of utter disgust covered John’s face. “This is a worthless crop.”
The four persisted in silence for a moment longer.
At last, Maria stood up. “Well, I guess we had better go tell the Master, and see what He will do with this fruitless harvest.”
(fiction) John 15:2 (KJV) “Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit.”