During a long and brutal winter, three sisters visited a community where food was scarce, the people starving. Despite this famine, the three sisters were greeted warmly, and fed generously. In gratitude for this hospitality, the three sisters gifted the people with three seeds – corn, bean, and squash – a small package that ensured the people would never go hungry again. Robin Wall Kimmerer, a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation and a scientist, shares this origin story in Braiding Sweetgrass and reflects on its spiritual and biological significance. These three seeds naturally complement each other to produce an abundance of food. She writes: “The lessons of reciprocity are written clearly in a Three Sisters garden. Together their stems inscribe what looks to me like a blueprint for the world, a map of balance and harmony. The corn stands eight feet tall; rippling green ribbons of leaf curl away from the stem in every direction to catch the sun…The bean twines around the corn stalk, weaving itself between the leaves of corn, never interfering with their work…Spread around the feet of the corn and beans is a carpet of big broad squash leaves that intercept the light that falls among the pillars of corn… The organic symmetry of forms belongs together; the placement of every leaf, the harmony of shapes speak their message. Respect one another, support one another, bring your gift to the world and receive the gifts of others, and there will be enough for all.” Mark’s text for this fourth Sunday after Pentecost also tells a story of seed and sower that, working together, grow into a great bush whose branches offer an abundance of gifts. The mustard seed could grow into a bush the size of a house, a great nesting place for birds who eat the seed pods that can also be ground into a powder for curries and condiments. The bushes’ leaves are also edible, eaten raw in salads or cooked as mustard greens. Jesus’ parable reminds us that we are co-creators with God and the earth. When we respect these relationships and support one another, the kingdom of God is revealed — a place of plenty; a place where all God’s creatures can bloom, and grow and flourish. But when we neglect these relationships and God’s blueprint of balance, all creation suffers. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote of this suffering in his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”: “We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” ... Read the rest of the commentary on the website. | 
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