I wrote this for a harvest assembly for children aged
from 3 to 7. It was (very) loosely inspired by the story of the man who built
bigger barns, which would have been inappropriate for this very young age. I
noticed the way that in the story (Luke 12.16-21) the man appears to be totally
alone The pronouns are all “I” – there isn’t even any mention of his own
household – and it seemed to me to be significant and sad.
("What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’
“Then he said, ‘This is what I’ll do. I will tear down
my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store my surplus grain. And
I’ll say to myself, “You have plenty of grain laid up for many years. Take life
easy; eat, drink and be merry.”)
The other starting point for the story was the Old
Testament requirement that the edges of the fields should be left unreaped, and
any corn not cut in the first reaping be left, so that the landless poor could
glean it, something that would be horrifying to any efficiency expert today…
It is an original story by me - you are welcome to use it, but please don't spread it about without my name attached to it.
Need: A sack with a small hole – big enough to stick
your finger through – in the bottom to be produced at appropriate moments in
the story. It is not essential, but I think it helped the children to visualise
the scene. They enjoyed spotting how the seed had come to be sown, so it was
good in the telling to have given them the clues, but not told them how the
grain got out until the point that the farmer realised it!
There was once a rich farmer who had lots of land to grow
his crops, and lots of money. One spring morning he decided it was time to sow
the wheat seed in his field. He called for his worker and gave him a sack which
was hanging on a nail by the door. “Fill
this with seed and we will carry it to the field to sow it.” The farmer didn’t
notice, though, that the sack had a little hole in one corner where a mouse had
nibbled it. The worker took it away and filled it up. He didn’t notice the
litte hole that the mouse had nibbled either.
They set off through the village with the worker carrying
the sack of seed on his back. As they walked along they passed a row of
cottages where some very poor people lived. They didn’t have any fields to sow
seed in – just a bit of muddy ground in front of their houses. And they didn’t
have any seed either. As the farmer went by they called out to him. “Mr Farmer,
we have no seed to sow in our gardens, and we see that you have plenty. Won’t
you give us just a handful, so that we can sow our little patch of ground and
grow some wheat for our children?”
“I can’t do that,” said the Farmer. “ This is my seed, and I
am going to sow it in my ground, where it will grow into my wheat that I will
grind into my flour for me to eat!” And he and his servant went on.
When he got to his fields they sowed the seed all over the
ground till the sack was empty, but still they didn’t notice the little hole
that the mouse had nibbled. Then they went home again.
The sun shone and the rain fell, and pretty soon the wheat
in the farmer’s fields started to grow. It grew taller and taller as the months
passed. The sun shone and it turned from green to golden as it ripened. Then
one day he knew it was ready to be cut. Each little seed had grown into a new
plant and each one had lots of seed on it now. So he sent out his servants to
cut the wheat and bring it back to store in his barns.
What a fine harvest – he thought – and all mine!
That evening, though, there was a knock at his door. “That’s
funny – I wasn’t expecting anyone.” If the truth be known he didn’t have many
friends!
He opened the door and there outside were all his
neighbours, the ones who had asked him for seed in the springtime. The ones he
had said no to.
They were holding in their hands, a great big fresh loaf of
bread.
“We’ve come to say thank you” they said. You said that you
couldn’t give us any seed, but then you must have come back and sown some
anyway, because during the summer, all along the pathways at the front of our
houses – all the way from your house to your field, lovely golden wheat has
grown. And now we have cut it down, and stored away plenty for the winter. But
we have taken some of it, ground it up into flour, baked it into bread and
brought it to you, to say thank you for giving us the seed. We are having a
harvest party tonight to celebrate and we would love it if you would come.” The farmer didn’t know what to say. He hadn’t
given them the seed, even if he really felt he should have done. So how did it
come to be growing there?
He was very puzzled. But then he noticed the sack the seed
had been in, hanging on the nail by the door, and he suddenly saw the little
hole that the mouse had nibbled. And suddenly he realised what had happened…
And I expect you have realised it too…
He felt really mean and miserable. These people thought he
had been kind and generous, but really it had just been an accident. As they
had walked along, some of the seed had just trickled out of the hole. He hadn’t
even noticed, because there was so much in the sack to start with. He could
have easily spared that seed for these people. And now here they were inviting
him to their party!
“I am so sorry,” he said, “but I didn’t give you the seed –
it just fell from the sack – but I wish I had given it to you…and I would
really like to have come to your party” – he had realised just how lonely it
would be eating all his fine harvest by himself – “but I am sure you won’t want
me now you know the truth!”
But the people on the doorstep just laughed. “Well, maybe we
should have invited the mouse instead then, but we would still be glad if you
came because no one should be on their own at harvest time.” So the farmer went
to the party, and it was the best party he had ever been to.
And then next spring he sowed up the hole in the corner of
the sack…and he sent the whole sack to his neighbours, and gave them some land
to sow the seed in too, because he had realised that when we share with others
we make new friends, and friends are always better than money!
copyright: Anne Le Bas
