420 250 to Eternity

    (Note: This blog entry is based on the text for “250 to Eternity”, originally shared on July 3, 2026. It was the 420^th video for our YouTube Channel, Streams of Living Water (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB7KnYS1bpHKaL2OseQWCnw), co-produced with my wife, Rev. Sally Welch.)

   Americans will celebrate our Independence Day this coming Saturday, July 4th. Christians celebrate it and an even greater day, our Dependence Day. Why?

   The United States of America will celebrate the 250^th Anniversary of the adoption of our Declaration of Independence from Great Britian by our Continental Congress this coming Saturday, July 4, 2026.

   “Two hundred and fifty” may seem like a big number, but we are still a relatively young country. I read some time ago that almost our entire history can be measured in the lifetimes of five American presidents. Five.

   Thomas Jefferson, our third president, died when Abraham Lincoln was 17 years old. Abraham Lincoln died when Woodrow Wilson was 8 years old. Woodrow Wilson died when Ronald Reagan was 12 years old. And Ronald Reagan died when Barak Obama was 42 years old, and Barak Obama is still alive. Almost five lifetimes.

   I am 78 years old. That means that I have been alive for pretty close to 1/3 of our country’s entire history.

   We also watched video on TV showing the wildfires that are destroying land and homes and people because of someone’s foolish use of illegal fireworks.

   A 250^th anniversary is also known as a Semi Quincentennial celebration.

   I remember the celebration of our country’s Bi Centennial in 1976.

   This year’s celebration seems different. More muted. More commercial. Less about ideals and more about power. Less about service and more about empire. Less about liberty and justice for all and more about greed and money grubbing by the favored rich.

   We seem more divided and less sure of ourselves than I can remember.

   The most encouraging thing about being an American today seems to be the positive reaction of people who have come here from all over the world for the FIFA World Cup!

   I think that that’s worth thinking about.

   Benjamin Franklin, one of our Founding Fathers, when asked what kind of government the Continental Congress had formed answered, “A republic, if you can keep it.”

   He said that, “it would eventually fail and end in despotism if the citizens became so corrupt that they required a heavy-handed, authoritarian ruler.”

   Have we achieved that level of corruption as a nation?

   Do we care more about feeling good about ourselves than about anyone or anything else, or especially about living our virtues?

   Does our economy mean more to us than our liberty?

   Can we give the benefits of citizenship without also requiring the responsibilities of citizenship and still be a country?

   How much freedom, and the benefits of living here, can we give to people who hate our freedoms, and will take them away as soon as they achieve a majority?

   Is the American Dream something that is achievable through hard work, education, sacrifice for the future, and by helping to build a community. Or is the American Dream now an out of court settlement.

   Some of us might spend some time this week reflecting on how fragile our freedoms are, what it took to gain them and to keep them, and how quickly a few hot heads can burn everything down.

   We’ll celebrate the holiday with barbeques and parades, and some time off, and maybe some fireworks.

   We’ll lift our phones to record those fireworks, or this year possibly synchronized drones, but, as the meme I saw once said, “’Let’s watch this fireworks video I took a year ago’, said no one ever.”

   Our celebrations are as fragile as our republic. Our laments are as significant as our will to learn from them, and the witness we bring to our time has no guarantees that it will be heard, as we see in the Gospel reading that will be read in the vast majority of churches all over the world this coming Sunday, Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30. It begins with Jesus teaching his disciples about John the Baptist,

¹⁶ “But to what will I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling to one another,

¹⁷       ‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance;

we wailed, and you did not mourn.’

¹⁸ For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon’; ¹⁹ the Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ Yet wisdom is vindicated by her deeds.”

   Jesus compares his generation to children imitating the biggest public events that they see: weddings and funerals, dancing and mourning. And, like those children, and sometimes even like us in our time, when his disciples brought the Gospel to that generation, they got no response.

   There is a resigned futility here. Almost a sense of resignation, except for the last sentence, “Yet wisdom is vindicated by her deeds.”

   Jesus’ critics were focused on earthly things. As in our culture, they were focused on themselves. They were their own God.

   Jesus is God. He is God’s wisdom. What of a long line of God’s might acts could Jesus be refereeing to? God was about to act decisively, once for all, on the cross.

   Those who receive Jesus in their true selves have lives that look like something. They are not our virtues, because Christian virtues cannot be achieved. They can only be received and lived in response to the cross.

   Paul describes this Christian life as the fruits of the Holy Spirit, in Galatians 5:22-25,

²² By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, ²³ gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things. ²⁴ And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. ²⁵ If we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the Spirit.

   We live by the Spirit, not by the flesh (the human condition without Christ).

   This is the true source of America’s greatness.

   Alexis de Tocqueville was a French diplomat and sociologist who toured the United States in the early 1800’s to learn about America, and he was deeply impressed with our singular democracy.

   After looking for the source of American greatness among the attributes and institutions of our new country, he wrote, in his book Democracy in America, “Not until I went into the churches of America and heard her pulpits flame with righteousness did I understand the secret of her genius and power. America is great because she is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.”

   Let’s let that sink in for a minute… “and if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.”

   Are we a good nation, or have we reached the level of corruption that Benjamin Franklin warned us about.

   How do we end the fragmentation, the loss of national unity and identity, the selfishness, the might makes right ideology that has crept into our country, and even into the church?

   M.A.G.A. Make America Good Again!

   Make our pulpits flame with righteousness again!

   What is righteousness in the Bible but the restoration of the right relationship with the one true living God restored on the cross and given to all who will receive it by Jesus Christ?

   What is the Christian life but living the transformed life by the Holy Spirit that comes from within as a natural, unforced, outcome in response to that selfless sacrifice of Jesus?

   And yet, we have piped and the world has not danced. We have wailed and the world has not mourned.

   How do we live with integrity, obedient to His command to love one another and to make disciples of all peoples, seeking only to do God’s will?

   Through the transformative work of Jesus on the cross.

   But sometimes, I wonder if we should just write off this generation as evil and adulterous (spiritual infidelity) as in Matthew 12:39,

³⁹ But he answered them, “An evil and adulterous generation asks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah.

   Except that Jesus doesn’t give up on his generation. At the end of this verse, he refers to the sign of Jonah in Jesus’ coming death, burial, and resurrection.

   Proclaiming that message is our mission to this generation, because Jesus has revealed God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit to us, as we see as the Gospel for this Sunday continues in Matthew 11:25-27,

²⁵ At that time Jesus said, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants; ²⁶ yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. ²⁷ All things have been handed over to me by my Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.

   I saw an exchange between two people online the other day.

   One said, “I don’t believe that God exists. There just isn’t enough evidence.”

   The other said, “Let’s do a little thought experiment. Of all the knowledge in the universe, about how much do you think that you know?”

   “Excuse me,” the first person said.

   “Of all the things that could possibly be known, what percentage would you say that you know.”

   “About 5%,” the first person said.

   “I think that you’re being a little generous,” the second person said, “but let’s say that you know 10% of everything that can be known in the universe.

   “Don’t you think that it’s possible that the evidence you seek might be within that 90% of the knowledge in the universe that you don’t yet know?”

   “What do you mean,” said the first person.

   “I mean that, when you come to a problem you can’t solve, do you assume that there is no answer and give up, or do you keep looking?”

   Jesus says that the things of God have been hidden from the wise and the intelligent and have been revealed to infants.

   Why?

   I think it’s because people who know that they don’t know are more likely to receive instruction than people who think that they already know everything.

   In the same way, people who think that they are good people who don’t need Jesus are less likely to receive him and be made new by Him than people who know that they are sinners and need a Savior.

   God has been revealed to us on the cross. How can we make America good again? How can we reveal God to the world? Here are five ways:

1.    One. The world doesn’t respond to the Good News because it doesn’t know the bad news. That comes first.

2.    Two. Most people in Christian, or post-Christian, cultures come to Christ by their 18^th birthday. They see what is important to their parents, and they imitate their parents’ belief and behavior.

3.    Three. Adults come to Christ by the testimony of a credible witness. Who trusts you to tell them the truth when they need to hear it?

4.    Four. Be fishers of human beings. Go to where the people are and bring the Gospel to them as they are.

5.    Five. Know that you are never alone. As Jesus says to us and to the unsaved in the conclusion of this week’s Gospel reading, in Matthew 11:28-30,

²⁸ “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. ²⁹ Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. ³⁰ For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

   God has not given up on you. He is carrying your load.

   Even when we are unfaithful, God is faithful. God is steadfast, and his steadfast love endures forever.

   As we celebrate the 250^th anniversary of our republic, one of the most important contributions Christians have to offer is 16^th church reformer Martin Luther’s theology of the Two Kingdoms.

   How can Christians who live in the already here but not yet perfected reign of God live and contribute as good citizens of their country?

   Luther taught that God ruled the world through two kingdoms, outwardly through the kingdom of this world through law, the civil authority, and the “sword” to maintain order and curb sin in a fallen world, and through the kingdom of God at work inwardly in the spiritual kingdom through the gospel of faith and grace to grant eternal life.

   Both kingdoms are to be measured by what God is calling them to do. And, as Christians are citizens of both kingdoms, we are to call the temporal (earthly) kingdom to always act in accord with the will of God. That is the biblical definition of “justice”.

   This coming Saturday we will not celebrate the triumph of force. The Revolutionary War ended on September 3, 1783.

   We will celebrate the codification of a set of ideas that have guided nations for 250 years: that all men are created equal, that they are given rights by their Creator that cannot be taken away from them. That is, that we are creations, not some random outcome of the evolution of our DNA.

   Good can only come from God. It needs no justification. Otherwise, it’s just someone’s opinion.

   It seems odd to me that the FIFA World Cup is taking place in North America, including the United States of America, at the same time that our 250^th Anniversary as a nation is taking place. And yet, Christians celebrate the greatest victory in the history of the universe every day!

   We’re about three-quarters of the way through the tournament and we’ve already seen dramatic upsets, unfair penalties, increasing tension, intense drama and rapturous joy. We’ve seen patriotism, laughter and tears, good sportsmanship and bad, ridiculous pricing, and heroic performances.

   Sally and I have celebrated the victories of our country’s team, Team USA, and the teams of our ancestors, Norway and England.

   Yet we haven’t yet seen anything compared to what was, and to what is and to what is to come.

   Christ has won the greatest struggle of our lives for us. We didn’t do it; we couldn’t do it. We didn’t earn it; we can’t earn it. We depend upon Him.

   Christ won the victory over sin, death, and the power of the devil that had beaten us. We depend upon Jesus.

   The day he gave his life for us showed us what it took to be made free forever. Three days later he took his life back again as a promise that we, too, shall rise.

   We couldn’t do it. We are completely dependent upon him for eternal life. We needed a savior, and we have one in Jesus Christ. We declare our dependence on Him every day! It’s what puts every day that we are on this earth in the perspective of eternity!

   We are celebrating many things this week, but the most important one is our Dependence Day, our dependence on Jesus Christ for new life and eternal salvation. It has been given for all who receive it.

   Receive it.

   And share the good news.

419 Prediction Market

   (Note: This blog entry is based on the text for “Prediction Market”, originally shared on June 25, 2026. It was the 419^th video for our YouTube Channel, Streams of Living Water (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB7KnYS1bpHKaL2OseQWCnw), co-produced with my wife, Rev. Sally Welch.) 

   Most people are motivated by some kind of reward. One kind is temporary and another is eternal. One divides and another unites. Which reward motivates you?

   Sally and I have got the fever! FIFA World Cup Soccer Fever! 😊

   We don’t usually follow soccer, though when our son graduated from high school and Sally’s mother gave us some money to take him to Europe on a ship, the European Championships were going on. It was a ship based in England, so the games were a very big deal. They were broadcast live on board.

   Somehow, I don’t know why, we started following Portugal. Christiano Ronaldo was in his second year playing professional soccer, and he was on the team.

   We organized our daily schedule around when Portugal was playing. We made friends with people on board who were from Portugal. “Por-tu-gal! Por-tu-gal!”

   When we got to England, we found pubs that showed Portugal’s games, and we watched them until they were knocked out of the tournament.

   Now, with the FIFA World Cup being held in North America, we are again watching soccer. We are rooting for the U.S., and the country of my family’s origin, Norway, and the countries of Sally’s family’s origin in the British Isles.

   It’s exciting to see the world come to our part of the globe.

   It’s also been fun seeing the mostly positive reactions of the tourists to how nice people are in the U.S. Many have been pleasantly surprised by our fast food, our sports stadiums, the wide-open spaces (including around private homes), even gas station mini-marts! One visitor said that he felt like he was living in a movie!

   There has been a wholesome atmosphere among the fans, for the most part, and everyone seems to be having fun and is happy to be here.

   Their passion is infectious.

   Why? Why do they, and now we, care about winning a small trophy?

   Partly, I think, it’s because of the intangibles. We are made for community. We want to belong to something, we want to think that we have an identity that sets us apart. We favor our identity over the identity of others. And we like to think of ourselves as being the best, even if vicariously, and even if only for a short time.

   Right now, the games are pretty friendly, even when played by teams of nations that are in some level of conflict with one another.

   But we have seen what happens when “hooligans” take control. They’re not there for the game. They’re there for the trouble.

   Riots aren’t pretty. And they are more likely to happen as the tournament moves along and there is more at stake and as old grudges take root.

   And, as people have placed bets, and have money in the game, indirectable anger will boil over into homes and communities, among family and friends and neighbors. It is projected that global betting on FIFA World Cup games will be somewhere between $50 billion and $60 billion dollars for this tournament!

   That is the pollution of sport. The desire for tangible rewards.

   We experienced something about pollution this past week. The pollution that has been blowing east from the massive warehouse fire in Boyle Heights has been polluting our air since last Wednesday! One small inferno has ruined the air for millions of people across L.A. County and beyond.

   It doesn’t take much to pollute something that is much larger.

   Rewards and punishments themselves can be huge motivators in human behavior, and they can have widespread effects. But which rewards we seek, and what we do to get them, are also huge factors.

   Many retail businesses have rewards programs. Sometimes they’re called loyalty programs. They keep track of your purchases on their apps, and you get points toward getting rewards.

   Sally and I get points from Target, for example, and from our credit cards, and from Mr. D’s Diner, and 99 Ranch Market, and more. At some point we redeem them.

   When I was a kid, the public library had a summer reading program where we got a stamp on a card for reading a book. At the end of the summer, we could redeem those stamps for a reward, a certificate. They worked as a motivator.

   Does God have a rewards program? 

   Yes, though it’s different from any rewards in this world.

   We live in a world that is polluted by sin. We are separated from God by Sin. The world is not the way God created it to be, and it’s not like the way it will be in the new heaven and the new earth that Jesus will usher in with his second coming. In fact, the battle has already been won on the cross of Christ and in His resurrection.

   All who believe and are baptized, who live in a living relationship with the one true living God, receive the gift of new, eternal life now  by God’s gift of faith through God’s grace.

   But God also has a rewards program.

   In God’s rewards program, you don’t need to be a prophet to receive a prophet’s reward. You don’t need to be a righteous person to receive a righteous person’s reward. And you don’t have to be a disciple to receive a disciple’s reward.

   How can that be?

   Here’s what Jesus says, in Matthew 10:40-42,

⁴⁰‘Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. ⁴¹Whoever welcomes a prophet in the name of a prophet will receive a prophet's reward; and whoever welcomes a righteous person in the name of a righteous person will receive the reward of the righteous; ⁴²and whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple—truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward.’

   Rewards? Rewards are not certain in this life, as we hear in Ecclesiastes 9:11,

11 Again I saw that under the sun the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to the intelligent, nor favor to the skillful; but time and chance happen to them all. 

   What can we depend upon if there seems to be no reliability in this life?

   This week’s Gospel reading reminds us that we can we can depend on God.

   There was a lot of what commentators called “physicality” in the basketball games during the recent NBA Championship. (Quick question: who won? I’d guess that a lot of us have forgotten already.)

   And there have been a lot of “physical” soccer games in the current FIFA World Cup.

   “Physical” is, I think, a euphemism for violent and brutal, where players get away with behavior that would be called a foul during regular season play.

   One of my favorite sports quotes comes from the comedian Gary Shandling, who once reflected on Leo Durocher, the ruthless coach of the Dodgers when they were the Brooklyn Dodgers, and who famously said, “Nice guys finish last.”

   Gary Shandling said, “Nice guys finish first, and anyone who doesn’t know that doesn’t know where the finish line is.”

   What is the finish line? And where is it? And when will it appear?

   Prediction markets have become extremely popular, and extremely destructive lately.

   Prediction markets are a kind of online gambling where people go to an app and place a bet on an event happening or not. FanDuel is a kind of prediction market where participants can set up contracts, usually “yes” or “no”, to bet on the outcome or the point spread of sporting events, cryptocurrency, political outcomes, finance, and more.

   It’s shocking to me that these things are allowed to advertise themselves on TV, during the events themselves, and that people think that they can reliably predict the future, especially given the ancient wisdom that we just read that, “time and chance happen to them all.”

   People may think that they have figured out the date for the Second Coming of Christ, even though Jesus said that no one knows when it will happen, and they may want to place a bet on it, and someday someone will be randomly right (though good luck collecting on your bet)! 😊

   No one will know the time, but we do know the outcome already.

   We know that today’s reading from Matthew 10 is the key to living that coming outcome of the welcoming relationship with God that overcomes our divisions and lasts forever. It is finding our connection and our unity in the common relationship with Jesus that we have been given, expressed in John 17:23

23 I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.

   That’s the outcome!

   That’s the kind of reward that lasts forever. It overcomes our divisions and makes us whole. It makes the difference between life and death!

   We were created for a living relationship with the one true living God, but we rejected it. Sin is that separation from God.

   We are sinners reconciled to God by God’s unearned love, through faith in Jesus Christ who earned it for us on the cross.

   The key to God’s reward program is in the first verse of our main text, Matthew 10:40,

⁴⁰‘Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. 

   Jesus is the key to eternal life! When we tell the story of our faith, we are telling the story of Jesus! 

   So, if we all were created for a living relationship with the living God and we rejected it, but that relationship was restored by Jesus Christ on the cross, why isn’t there more unity in our churches?

   We are divided, we are fractured, pulverized and digitized. We can’t talk about politics or social values, or sometimes even the Bible and the Christian life, without conflict, so we have devolved into homogeneous groups of political and social values, and race and tribe, and personal identity and sexuality. We now accept our rejection of others as normal. Why?

   I once heard a story about the congregation of a Jewish synagogue that holds true for many, many Christian church congregations, but I first heard it about a synagogue, so that’s how I’m going to tell it.

   A new rabbi was called to serve and during his first worship service he noticed that half the congregation stood during the Shema (the part that begins, “Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One.”) and half were seated.

   Those who stood hissed at those who were seated, “Stand up! Stand up! It’s the tradition!”

   And those who were seated hissed back, “Sit down! Sit down! It’s the tradition!”

   After the service, the rabbi turned to the cantor and said, “What was that all about?!”

   “What?” the cantor answered.

   “All that hissing about standing and sitting!”

   “Oh, that. I don’t even hear that anymore.”

   “But how did it get started? And who’s right?”

   “That was happening when I got here, and I think it’s been going on for a long time,” the cantor answered.

   The new rabbi found some contact information for his predecessor and called him up.

   “Rabbi ___. People are arguing during the Shema about whether to stand or to sit. Both sides say that theirs is the tradition. Who’s right?”

   “I don’t know. They were doing that when I got there and I could never get them to settle it.”

   “Well, who would know?” the new rabbi asked.

   “You could try my predecessor, Rabbi___.”

   So, the new rabbi called through a succession of rabbis who didn’t know who was right until one said, “Well, you could call Rabbi ___. He’s the founding rabbi. He’s in a retirement home now but he’s still pretty sharp. He could probably tell you.”

   The new rabbi was relieved that finally he could settle the issue once and for all.

   He took a member of the “sit down” faction and a member of the “stand up” faction and drove to meet the founding rabbi.

   After some pleasantries about the congregation, the new rabbi got down to business.

   “Rabbi___, the congregation is divided. Half the congregation stands during the Shema, and half the congregation sits. Both say that theirs is the tradition. We are here today to ask who is right.”

   The founding rabbi nodded, and the new rabbi said, “Is it the tradition to stand during the Shema?”

   “No, that is not the tradition,” the founding rabbi said.

   The leader of the “sit down faction” leaned forward, excitedly, and said, “So, it is the tradition to be seated during the Shema!”

   “No, that is not the tradition,” the founding rabbi said.

   “Well,” the new rabbi said, “If it is not the tradition to stand and it is not the tradition to sit during the Shema, why do we fight over it?

   “That is the tradition,” the founding rabbi said.

   Change the titles and I think you could tell that story in many, many Christian congregations.

   And I think that it got worse through the pandemic and in our age of tribal identity and social media.

   This is so because we are saints and sinners. But it is not so in the Reign of God.

   Whatever rewards are dispensed, they are not earned. They are given.

   And they aren’t given on the basis of doing what we think is the right thing. The are given on the basis of being the persons God made us all to be. We don’t earn God’s favor. It was bought for us on the cross. We live our lives entirely in response to that reward.

   What is required to receive a reward in today’s text in Matthew 10:40-42? It’s what is done “in the name of” a prophet, or of a righteous person, or of a disciple.

   To do something “in the name of” means to do it in the fundamental living reality of that person, their truest real self.

   To do something in the name of God means to do it in the living reality of God at work within us. We are made for a living relationship with the one true living God. The God of Abraham, and Moses and Jacob and Isaiah and Elijah, and Job and the disciples and Paul. It is the transformative relationship with God that defines us, and it is us, and it cannot be taken away from us because it is given by God.

   I think that the way forward for us as a Church is to define our ministry and our life together in the name of Jesus Christ, to focus on what draws us together not what pulls us apart, and to keep it there. To be drawn together by Jesus defining everything about us and everything that we do every day.

   We don’t need to speculate about what is coming, there is no risk involved for us, we don’t need to predict the future or gamble on it.

   We know what the future holds for us, because we know who holds the future!

   God’s rewards program is the cross. It is reconciliation to God and to one another, it is forgiveness, peace, and eternal life and it is the restoration of our true selves as a gift from God.

   The FIFA World Cup has come to us, but only one team will win the prize.

   Let us take God’s rewards program for all people to those who are close to us, and to the world.

   The greatest prize of reconciliation with God has already been won for us by Jesus Christ!

418 Living What You Value Most

   (Note: This blog entry is based on the text for “Living What You Value Most”, originally shared on June 19, 2026. It was the 418^th video for our YouTube Channel, Streams of Living Water (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB7KnYS1bpHKaL2OseQWCnw), co-produced with my wife, Rev. Sally Welch.)

   I can’t imagine a worse Gospel reading for Father’s Day than the one that will be read this coming Sunday in most churches. Or a better one. Today, we’re going to find out why.

   This coming Sunday is Father’s Day. I just mention that as a community service so that you can be prepared, though it’s not as big a deal as Mother’s Day. I don’t know why. 😊

   There are lots of influences that make us who we are, probably too many to measure, much less to know. But, if you are like most human beings, I’m guessing that a big chunk of the person you are comes from your father.

   I think that most of us will remember or honor our fathers this Sunday with deep appreciation for the sacrificially given gifts they have given to us. Our fathers were our protectors and providers, servant leaders in our communities, our models for living with integrity and purpose, our jokesters and the men who were models of the Christian faith for us.

   For some of us this Father’s Day Sunday will not bring happy memories, however, and we acknowledge that.

   Some of us grew up without a father but had people who served as our fathers, and sometimes that was our mothers. Some had fathers who were distant and not so loving, and we desperately wanted the approval that never came. Some of us wanted to be fathers but couldn’t. Some of us no longer have their fathers and we miss them.

   All those feelings about Father’s Day are an expression of a deeply impactful and meaningful relationship. It is a relationship that is celebrated on a holiday by cultures all over the world.

   Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit, but he had an earthly Father, Joseph, who raised him. We don’t hear about his “step-father” Joseph after, approximately, Jesus’13^th birthday. But Jesus would have learned a life skill from his father, as did all boys of his time, which in Joseph’s case would have been being a carpenter.

   Jesus commanded us to baptize “in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit”. Jesus prayed to the first person of The Trinity, one God in three persons, using the word “abba” in the Aramaic language that he spoke. “Abba” is a familiar form of the word “father”, meaning something closer to “dad” or even “daddy”. Jesus is “one substance” with the Father.

   We love our fathers and we are grateful for all that they have done for us.

   That is the kind of relationship with which we love God. Having a father who is active in our lives forms us and is extremely important in making us the kind of people we are.

   But our relationship with God goes even deeper than our relationship with our mother or our father. It makes us who we are at the level of our truest selves, deeper than anyone can know but God.

   That is at the core of the Gospel reading for this week, Matthew 10:24-39, and it’s hard for us to absorb, especially when we tend to focus on our earthly families.

   Our relationship with God sets us apart from anything that would try to put itself in God’s place.

   That’s why this week’s Gospel reading begins with Jesus’ teaching that we who follow Jesus should not be surprised when we are condemned by the world (those without a relationship with Jesus) in Matthew 10:24-25,

²⁴ “A disciple is not above the teacher, nor a slave above the master; ²⁵ it is enough for the disciple to be like the teacher, and the slave like the master. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul, how much more will they malign those of his household!

   “Beelzebul” is a name for Satan, the prince of demons. It literally means “Lord of the files”!

   Jesus reminds us that we should not be surprised when the world calls “good”, “evil”, or when it calls “evil”, “good”.

   It is how the world seeks to put  itself in the place of God.

   How can Christians live in that kind of a world? Jesus continues in Matthew 10:26-31,

²⁶ “So have no fear of them; for nothing is covered up that will not be uncovered, and nothing secret that will not become known. ²⁷ What I say to you in the dark, tell in the light; and what you hear whispered, proclaim from the housetops. ²⁸ Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. ²⁹ Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. ³⁰ And even the hairs of your head are all counted. ³¹ So do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows.

   Be bold, Jesus says. Fathers sometimes pretend they are scary animals or monsters so that their children can wrestle them and defeat them. To show them not to be afraid, but to struggle and overcome them. Don’t be afraid of those who have no ultimate power over you.

   Jesus goes even further for us by his actions. He says, in John 16:33,

³³ I have said this to you, so that in me you may have peace. In the world you face persecution. But take courage; I have conquered the world!”

   Our hope is in God, not the world. And God is deeply connected to us. God is present for us when we read the Bible, which points to one thing: Jesus giving his life us on the cross, which is validated when He takes his life back again in His resurrection.  We encounter him today in the Word and in Baptism and Holy Communion,

   I had conflicts with my dad when I was a kid. I think that we all do as we grow up. But I loved my father and he loved me, and we both said it and we knew it.

   Love is why we celebrate Father’s Day. It’s part of keeping the Fourth Commandment: Honor your father and your mother.

   We don’t worship our ancestors, but we honor them. It’s a commandment!

   In fact, honoring your father and mother are at the top of the list among the 10 Commandments that have to do with how we treat one another.

   Martin Luther, the 16^th century Church reformer, describes the meaning of this commandment in this way, “We are to fear (note: respect) and love God, so that we neither despise nor anger our parents and others in authority, but instead honor, serve, obey, love, and respect them.”

   So, honor your father this Sunday. It is the expression of a deeply held relationship that comes from our life’s defining relationship with God, as we see Jesus explaining as our Gospel reading continues, in Matthew 10:32-33,

³² “Everyone therefore who acknowledges me before others, I also will acknowledge before my Father in heaven; ³³ but whoever denies me before others, I also will deny before my Father in heaven.

   Philip Dick, the science fiction writer whose highly esteemed written works like Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and Ubik were turned into popular movies, such as “Minority Report”, “Total Recall” and “Blade Runner”, once said, “Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away.”

   What is reality?

   Our relationship with God is our relationship with reality that is beyond our understanding. The one true living God alone is worthy of our worship.

   Who do you worship?

   It might not be what you think.

   Martin Luther observed, “A god is that to which we look for all good and where we resort for help in every time of need... whatever your heart clings to and confides in, that is really your God."

   It could be our money, our reputation, our acceptance, and even our family. That is why not making God just first in our lives but everything in our lives is so necessary and so hard. The world, even things that are important, is always trying to pull us away.

   Jesus does not exempt us from that struggle. He does not protect us from it. But Jesus is present with us in the struggle.

   In fact, it is that struggle that makes us who we are, because it helps us realize that we need a savior and that we have a Savior in Jesus Christ!

   Jesus shows us as he continues, in Matthew 10:34-38,

³⁴ “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.

³⁵       For I have come to set a man against his father,

and a daughter against her mother,

and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law;

³⁶       and one’s foes will be members of one’s own household.

³⁷ Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; ³⁸ and whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me.

   How do we know who we are? By knowing Whose we are!

   Following Jesus Christ is everything because God has made us for it. But following Jesus is a narrow way, a sometimes difficult way.

   As G.K. Chesterton, the English author, in his 1910 book What’s Wrong With the World, said,  "The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried."

   The doors to the hearts of people who don’t know Jesus, who are still in the world, are locked by sin, by ignorance, by pride, affluence, fear, and many other things. How do we find the key to unlock the human heart?

   Jesus is the key that opens all of them, but God always uses some means to make that happen, and often it is through us.

   But sometimes we are the problem.

   When people who are not Christians come to visit our worship services, we might as well be speaking another language. Our church culture locks them out.

   Do we share an actual Christian experience, or are we only using religious language? Do we offer a path for people who are outside the faith to help them move past our in-group jargon? Do we have any expectation that they will encounter the life-transforming power of God?

   New people want to be engaged. They want to be a part of receiving the real transcendent power of God that cannot be found anywhere but through God’s Church.

   I’m not concerned about the Christian Church. It is the Body of Christ, and nothing will prevail against it as a whole.

   I certainly don’t think that it needs to be torn down and rebuilt. But it does need some fundamental renovation in many places.

   What needs to change? Here are four things that, in my opinion, most need to change:

   First, when I retired, my family and I spent almost a year as church nomads. We went to a different church almost every week. Most were Lutheran churches, many were churches of Sally’s denomination, the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)/UCC denomination, and some were other kinds of churches. In many of those churches I could see why someone would want to join them. They had a great preacher, or a wonderful small groups ministry, or a wonderful choir, band, youth program, music program, school, or social ministry. But there was not one where I could see how someone would come to faith in Christ. There were no expectations or preparations for people to come from zero to faith. There were no mechanisms for it. That needs to change.

   Second, church culture is as foreign to people who were not raised in the church as any other unfamiliar culture. Hymns and songs, colors and seasons, candles and Bible readings, sacraments, jargon, and more lock people out. Will they stay long enough to use the key? Will they learn that Jesus is the key to everything? Will they learn the fundamentals of the Christian faith? Will they learn the creeds and what they mean? The answer is not to abandon Christianity to save your church. When we expect little of visitors, we get little. The early Church required three years of instruction before a convert could receive communion. People tend to live up to expectations. If ours are low, that needs to change. 

   Third, people stay and join and remain members of churches for many reasons. Do we offer life transformation, a greater purpose in life, a truly loving Christian community, and the path to receiving eternal life? Or do we merely offer a political and social organization that uses Christian language, a museum that needs members to pay the bills? Or do we care about reaching people with the good news of Jesus? Are we, as has been said, telling people about Jesus like beggars telling other beggars where to find food? Are we consumer churches or missional churches? Do we understand that we have something that no other community group can give? If not, that needs to change.

   Fourth, we expect little of ourselves. In the Christian denomination of which I am a part, there is a sort of fatalistic view of the future. In accord with that view, we have a very low view of much of what is fundamental for the Christian faith, including stewardship. “Stewardship” is the belief that God has given us our time, our talent, and our treasure to manage for God.

   How are we doing?

   Let’s just look at one aspect of Stewardship: treasure, because that’s the most difficult. And yet Jesus taught more about money and the use of it than any other subject except the Kingdom of God.

   Martin Luther said that people go through three conversions. The head, or the conversion of a person’s beliefs and intellectual understanding of what is means to be a Christian. The heart, or the spiritual transformation to new life in a living relationship with the one true living God. And the purse or wallet, the application of the faith by entrusting your money to God’s purposes, which Luther said was the hardest conversion. 😊 It’s hardest because it  requires that we decide who or what will be our God. As Jesus said in Matthew 6:21,

²¹ For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

   Our Gospel reading from Matthew 10:24-39 today reminds us that God is not the most important thing in our lives. God is everything in our lives. God reforms everything about us, God renews everything, empowers everything, defines everything.  We are good stewards, or managers, of our money in response to what God has already done for us, not to earn it! We live for God, not the approval of the world.

   Jesus concludes this week’s reading with Matthew 10:39,

³⁹ Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.

   We have a message to bring to people in our time who want to find themselves. They are going to have a rude awakening. But those who lose their life in the eyes of the world for the sake of Jesus will find it.

   The key words here, the ones that we proclaim, are “for-the-sake-of-Jesus”. That’s an expression of our most real, deepest defining relationship.

   This is a hard lesson for us to hear, especially in a week that we celebrate a holiday rooted in one of our most important relationships, the one we have with our earthly father.

   We need repentance and renovation. We need to take up our cross and follow Jesus. We need to change a few things.

   And we can start today, right where we are. It’s not about conforming to the world. It’s about changing what is inside of us. It’s about a change in attitude. It’s about being transformed by the one true living God and living what we value the most, a better life, a true life, in a living relationship with Jesus!

   Jesus doesn’t have the answer. Jesus is the answer.

   So, yes, this week’s Gospel reading from Matthew is a hard one to hear but also a very good one to live by, because in it are the very words of eternal life.