June is wheat harvest time here in Oklahoma. It’s hot, in the 90s today. I’ve been out walking down a country road. I pulled a head of wheat from the edge of the field. The greener heads are a little softer, not quite ready to cut. They make easier chewing. I rubbed the head against my palm and got about a teaspoon of wheat kernels.

As I chewed that teaspoon of grain, I thought about the disciples walking through the field with Jesus, rubbing grain heads to get a mouthful to chew. It was barely something to ease an empty stomach.

They were hot. It’s always hot at grain harvest time. Maybe they were thinking about the meals they’d missed. In their past lives, they probably didn’t go hungry that much. Tax collectors probably didn’t miss a lot of meals. Fishermen ate as long as they caught fish. Neither profession probably spent much time walking in the fields in the hot sun of the afternoon.

At least a few of them surely thought about this as they pulled a few heads of grain, rubbed them against their palms, and got their teaspoon of grain to chew.

And even that little bit came with a public rebuke from religious leaders. Did they question their decision to give up everything, to walk away from all that they had and all that they knew?

My stomach wasn’t empty. I don’t go hungry. I’ve never given up everything. But one teaspoon of grain reminded me to think of the disciples as people.