In the market culture of Nigeria and certain parts of Africa, a buyer usually receives a bonus, commensurate to the amount of purchase.  Retailed foodstuff, particularly grains such as rice, salt, groundnut, and beans, are usually sold in standard measures of “cups,” “bowls,” “basins” and “bags,” described by different terminologies in the different language cultures.  In certain parts of Nigeria, the term for describing that bonus is jara. For example, if you bought a standard “bowl” of rice, the seller could scoop you an extra handful of rice as jara.  If you bought two or three “bowls” of rice, you could get two handfuls.  It was not a compulsory part of the bargain, but it was the expectation of every buyer and the responsibility of every seller to give good jara.  Besides, it was an important incentive for retaining customers.

If you bought a “cup” of roast groundnuts, or a hundred naira worth of groundnuts, you expected about two spoonfuls of jara at least; but if you bought only five naira worth of groundnuts, you might get no jara, or the clever seller might quickly pick up three or four grains, craftily concealed in his clenched fist (as if the hand is full), and dump them as quickly into your purchase, before you started a case about your jara.

In this market culture, the more you buy, the more your jara; the less you buy, the less your jara.  Every buyer gets jara, but nobody goes to the market to buy jara, and nobody asks for jara before they have bought something for which jara may be given. 

We find in Matthew chapter 6 verse 33 that, in the market culture of the Kingdom of God also, jara is an important factor.  There, Jesus says, “But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things [jara] shall be added unto you.”  The unfortunate irony in our days is that we go to church neither seeking the King nor His government (or righteousness) but the “things” that should be “added” to us; we go to church looking for jara, before we have done “first” the things for which jara has been promised; or we give God two spoonfuls of dedication or some five naira worth of consecration, and expect two bags of jara.

It is fanciful to admire and desire ‘by faith’ the many “things” with which Heaven beautifies the lives of those who seek “first” the King and His pleasure.  It is Pentecostally fashionable to also ‘believe God’ for those material benefits which we see “added” to the people whose passion has been the “kingdom of God, and his righteousness”; but seldom do we remind ourselves of the hard currency for purchasing those “things.”

We see today in a lovely mansion that aged man who invested the first forty years of his ministry labouring joyfully with nothing but a stone for a pillow in dangerous jungle huts, and we instantly desire his mansion ‘by faith’; we want his jara before we have made his accumulated investments.  It is not fair.  Or we see flying today in a private jet that evangelist who, in his earlier days, crisscrossed the villages of the region by foot, his log book bleeding with miles enough to get to the moon and back, and we want his jet instantly ‘by faith,’ before we have done “first” things first, seeking the Kingdom.  It is not fair.

This beginning of year is a time when everybody tells God about the “things” that He must do; the jara that He must add to their lives, even though, as always, they are prepared to buy nothing from His market.  In any market, it would be robbery to demand a bag of jara for half a bowl of purchase.  In the house of God today, however, that covetousness is called by the fanciful name of “faith.”

What jara are you expecting from God in this Year of Restorations?  What are you going to purchase or “seek” from His market in the “first” place?  How much are you prepared to purchase?   A spoonful? A cup? A bag?  This leap year (with its jara day) is a jara year.  Ironically, this leap year is also a ‘weep year.’  It is up to you how much of the jara you may get.

25 Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?

26 Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?

27 Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature?

28 And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin:

29 And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.

30  Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?

31 Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?

32 (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.

33 But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.

34 Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself.  Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof (Matthew 6:25-34).

From The Preacher’s diary,

January 1, 2008.