423 On Being Small

   (Note: This blog entry is based on the text for “On Being Small”, originally shared on July 24, 2026. It was the 423^rd video for our YouTube Channel, Streams of Living Water (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB7KnYS1bpHKaL2OseQWCnw), co-produced with my wife, Rev. Sally Welch.)

   There are a lot of small churches trying to get bigger and reclaim their glory days. Maybe that’s the problem.

   The FIFA World Cup competition is over! Every national team in the world, and their fans, is mourning its ending except one. Spain.

   Millions more people are mourning the loss of spectacle, the common experience, and the distraction from our crazy dangerous world.

   No one is mourning the outrageous expenses associated with the tournament for airfare, housing, local transportation, entertainment, and souvenirs.

   How do you even plan your trip, coming from another country, when you have no idea how far your team will go. There were lots of fans from Argentina and Spain at that final game. How do they afford it?

   And the price of tickets! I saw on the news that the median, the median (!), price of the cheapest available tickets through all the games was $916.00! Per ticket!

   The median price for a seat at the FIFA World Cup final game was $10,835 on the secondary market!

   I saw a guy from another country interviewed on TV who was asked how he could afford all of that. He smiled, shrugged and said, “I’ll worry about that when I get home.”

   And now the financial hangover will come.

   The sad irony is that people will spend a lot of money chasing a temporary thrill for a sporting competition, but they will ignore the small thing that points them to the life that endures forever.

   That’s what is described in the reading from the Gospels in the Bible that will be shared in the vast majority of churches in the world this coming Sunday, Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52.

   Jesus is reminding us not to live by superficial things, but to put our minds on the things that endure. He teaches us about the already-here but not-yet-perfected reign of God by showing us what to look for: the small, the insignificant and the often overlooked things in this world. And why.

   He starts with a parable, an earthly story with a single heavenly meaning, told from a fishing boat near the shores of the Sea of Galilee in Matthew 13:31-32,

³¹ He put before them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in his field; ³² it is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.”

   Most Christian Churches in the United States are not growing from a small seed into a mighty tree. In fact, they are growing in the opposite direction.

   There are many reasons, but I think that this parable reminds us of what we are clearly doing wrong.

   We are not planting seeds, but instead something inert, like a penny or a button or a rock.

   We are not planting the kingdom of heaven, but a culture that is foreign to most people not raised in it. Not a transformed life but a friendly family. Not a future but a past.

   The kingdom of heaven, the place where God reigns in peoples’ lives, however, is like a mustard seed. It’s organic. And it will grow where it is planted in good soil.

   Jesus’ parable of the mustard seed was very encouraging to the Church in its early days. The Christian Church was small, it was vulnerable, it was under attack, but Jesus said that it would grow and reproduce, all by God’s action. It would grow and be a place of refuge and strength. It would grow because of their faith.

   We are a part of that parable. We are the heirs of all those who have gone before us for nearly two thousand years now, who have been called, equipped and sent by God with everything necessary to plant the seeds of faith.

   And God plants and opens the good ground for us. All people have to do is open their hearts, receive the gift, and be faithful to God’s call.

   I bought a big bag of mustard seeds for a quarter when I was a college student in Israel, and I brought them home with me. They’re pretty small, they’re about the size of sesame seed, but if they are planted in the right soil and nourished and watered, they’ll grow. And they grow into something many, many times their original size.

   They don’t need a lot from us. Most of what they need comes from God’s creation. In fact, you’ve probably seen mustard seeds growing wild around here, with no human interference.

   Some varieties in Israel, a place with a climate a lot like ours, can grow to 6-feet tall, taller than me. Birds, as Jesus said, can make nests in them.

   They’re a lot like us.

   What we need to grow is to be who God has made us to be, that is, to be who we are. To offer people a model for new, organic, non-counterfeit, transformed lives and the process that God can use to make it happen.

   Jesus makes the point with another parable as our Gospel text for this week continues in the next verse, Matthew 13:33,

³³ He told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened.”

   Many of us have baked things all our lives. Many others not so much, except maybe during the pandemic when we had a lot of time on our hands.

   You may remember that baking, especially bread, got to be so popular that there was a yeast shortage of both the active dry and the instant varieties!

   Yeast is necessary because it changes what’s around it. Yeast is alive!

   Is there a yeast shortage in the Church today?

   Are we alive? Does the Holy Spirit bring people transformed lives in Jesus Christ through what we do? Are we places where new life is not just possible but is on display?

   Or do we offer nothing but a tradition, a local dynasty, or museum dedicated to people who want their legacy to be preserved? And if so, why would people give up their old, sinful selves for that?

   Jesus offers two examples of what people would give up their lives for when they discover what new life in Jesus Christ is really about. He is speaking now only to his close disciples from a house, probably Peter and Andrew’s home in the fishing village of Capernaum on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, when our text continues with Matthew 13:44-45,

⁴⁴ “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which someone found and hid; then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.

⁴⁵ “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls; ⁴⁶ on finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it.

   That seems kind of hopeful, even optimistic, doesn’t it?

   How would a person come to know what the Gospel is in such a way that they are excited to find it? Does that happen in your church? 😊

   Maybe among Muslims who hear the Gospel and are able to overcome the real fear that their family and friends will, at best, disown and reject them and, at worst, will kill them if they receive the Good News and come to faith in Jesus Christ. Maybe among people who have never known that God could love them. Maybe among people who have lived their lives being afraid of God’s constant Judgement.

   That kind of Gospel would transform their world!

   How might that happen?

   I know of one model. It works by planting seeds. It’s the model I heard about from Lutheran Word and Sacrament Missionaries in Tanzania that the congregation I once served, and my family, helped to support financially.

   Sally and I have continued to support the mission he helped develop there and which continues to grow now through local leadership.

   The model begins with a local Tanzanian seminary that trains evangelists, missionaries, and pastors.

   An evangelist who has completed the training will be sent to the edge of the church’s presence in a region. They will start a Bible study under a tree. When there are enough people taking part, a missionary who has completed their training from the seminary will be sent there and the evangelist will move farther out.

   The missionary will start to build a simple, one room building as a multi-purpose room for worship, study, and distributing food and human services for the congregation’s members and the community where it is located.

   When the congregation grows and the facility is finished, a pastor who has completed their training at the seminary is called and comes to lead worship, provide pastoral care, teach, and encourage new leaders to attend the seminary.

   By then, the missionary can move to where the evangelist has been serving, and the evangelist can move even farther out, and the process repeats itself.

   That is how a missional church works. It is like a seed, like leaven, like the thing that seems small but grows organically through the faithful people of God.

   The Christian Church is not growing here or in the Global West or in the Northern Hemisphere in general, where there are plenty of resources.

   But it is booming in the Global East and in the southern hemisphere in places where the resources are few and the people struggle for necessities, where they sometimes are persecuted for their faith, and where they have no power.

   The Lutheran Church of Tanzania is the fastest growing Lutheran church body in the world!

   The Christian Church does better when we can’t depend on our own power but must turn to God. We do better when we don’t think about what we don’t have but look around for what we do have from God to share the Good News of God’s transformational new life in Jesus Christ.

   It is God working through us or it is nothing.

   Will our smallness be our strength, will it lead us to call upon God to restore our true selves?

   Or will we continue to be a consumer church pleasing people, giving them what they want, providing services, just looking for what will bring in church members but not for what will make them actual Christians?

   The difference between being a consumer church and a missional church, it’s been said, is the difference between “I go to church” and “I am the church”.

   Which one are we?

   We center our lives, our faith, our common ministry, and our future on the cross, God’s gift of God’s self, to reconcile us to God and to give us everlasting life by faith, through grace. Jesus gave his life and then took it back again in the resurrection, so that the power of the Holy Spirit might be present and at work within us, so that we may grow and produce other Christians.

   How does that work, and how are we doing?

   Our credible witness to family and friends who know us the best is often the primary means through which God plants the seeds of the Gospel from which the Kingdom of God grows. The Holy Spirit shapes them from within, like a pair of work gloves. The more we express the gift of faith for the sake of the world, the more God shapes us for evangelism while we await the harvest at the end of time.

   Jesus continues with what is at stake, in Matthew 13:45-50,

⁴⁷ “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was thrown into the sea and caught fish of every kind; ⁴⁸ when it was full, they drew it ashore, sat down, and put the good into baskets but threw out the bad. ⁴⁹ So it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous ⁵⁰ and throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

   How can a good God condemn anyone to eternal punishment?

   Nicky Gumble, a priest of the Evangelical Anglican church in England has said that that he believes that after God’s Final Judgement, people of good will will consider what has happened and say, “That’s fair.”

   I believe that, too. It seems right, and it is wise. It does not presume to know the mind of God, or that any human being would be more fair, or more merciful, or more just than God.

   How do we respond to what is coming?

   Jesus concludes this week’s gospel reading with what we can do, in Matthew 13:51-52,

⁵¹ “Have you understood all this?” They answered, “Yes.” ⁵² And he said to them, “Therefore every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like the master of a household who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old.”

   I think that that part is kind of funny.

   Have you ever been in a classroom and the teacher asked if there were any questions and no one raised their hand, because no one understood enough to even ask a question?

   Jesus asks the disciples directly, “Have you understood all this?”, and they respond “Yes,” when it seems clear from what follows that they didn’t understand any of it. Everyone thought all the other guys understood perfectly, I suppose, and didn’t want to look like the only one who didn’t get it.

   We don’t understand much more than they did, though  we act like we do.

   And then Jesus throws out that even more difficult conclusion. He says, “Therefore every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like the master of a household who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old.”

   What does that mean?

   That part’s not so funny, because Jesus is getting down to the hard foundation of faith and the Christian life.

   Jesus seems to be saying that only someone who understands Jesus’ teaching by following Jesus as his disciples understands who Jesus is.

   He did not come to cancel the Old Testament, but to fulfill it. We are still under the religious laws of the Old Testament and have been condemned by them. Forever. The good news, the New Testament is that Jesus is our Savior. He came to restore the living relationship with the one true living God, the God of Israel, of the Law and of the Prophets, for us on the cross.

   Those who follow Jesus must draw from both the Law and the Gospel, as the master of a household draws treasures that are old and that are new.

   Our explanation of what it means to be a Christ doesn’t have to be elaborate or detailed. It can just be our story.

   Jesus is also teaching us that being a Christian isn’t about what we do or don’t do. It’s about who we are, that then produces the behavior that is the visible sign of being a Christian.

   We aren’t perfect, just saved, saved by faith in Jesus Christ, by God’s grace, on the cross.

   Christians are like organic fruits and vegetables. We have flaws, but offer something more important than our appearance. We are producing and spreading the seeds of faith, or we are seedless. 😊

   There are lots of fruits and vegetables that look good but don’t have seeds. Seedless grapes and watermelon, bananas and pineapples, cucumbers and tomatoes all can be seedless.

   They taste good. They are pleasing and nourishing for one generation, they are convenient, but they are temporary. There will not be another generation.

   We don’t see actual tangerines much anymore. The have thin skin and are hard to peel. They are too tart for some people and have lots of seeds.

   Instead, you probably buy the more convenient seedless tangerines called “Clementines”, often marketed as “Halos” or “Cuties”. Buying them, instead of actual tangerines, is a consumer decision.

   Many churches are consumer churches.

   A consumer church is like “Cuties” or “Halos”. Churches can easily focus on what pleases people, not on what pleases God. They expect very little of their members or of those who want to become members. They are sweet, but they have no seeds. No seeds mean no growth.

   But in a missional church, in a tangerine church, more may be asked of you to get to the substance of why you are there. And in the end, the Christian life you live may not be as sweet as you had imagined it. But it will be real. It will contain the inconvenient seeds that are the means for growth. Those seeds are what makes more Christians. who grow to be like trees and bushes that in turn bear more new life, and on and on.

   We don’t grow by trying to be like what we were in the past. We grow by sharing the good news of new life in Jesus Christ, a life that begins now and moves toward the future God has called, equipped, and sent us to be!

   Among all the things that we can be, be the mustard seed, be the yeast. Don’t worry about size. Be the quality that God has made you to be. God will take care of the quantity.

   Among all the produce, be the one with seeds. Be like the tangerine. It may be harder to peel the fruit, and the outcome may be tart rather than sweet, but it brings joy now and eternal life in the world to come.

   And in the end, you will bear much fruit.  And it will grow into a mighty Church.

422 Living With Weeds

    (Note: This blog entry is based on the text for “Living With Weeds”, originally shared on July 16, 2026. It was the 422^nd video for our YouTube Channel, Streams of Living Water (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB7KnYS1bpHKaL2OseQWCnw), co-produced with my wife, Rev. Sally Welch.)

   There are a lot of challenges to growing your own food. One teaches us about living as Christians in this world. Today, we’re going to find out what it is.

   I have grown many plants in our garden, but there is one kind that I grow better than any other: weeds! 😊

   It has always mystified me that it is so hard to keep the weeds from killing the grass in the soil in the back of our house, but I can’t stop the grass from growing between the slabs of concrete in the front of our house.

   Many people ask this about the Christian life. Why does it seem that good people suffer while evil people thrive?

   The short answer to that question is in the comedian Gary Shandling’s response to the ruthless coach of the Dodgers, Leo Dorocher, when the Dodgers were located in Brooklyn, New York, 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.”

   Where is the finish line? And when will it appear?

   The finish line is when Jesus returns for the Last Judgment of all people, and there will be a new heaven and a new earth. The finish line is the end of time.

   Both of the Christians Church’s primary historic statements of belief say something about the end of the world as we know it and the beginning of the new.

   The Apostles’ Creed says, “…and he (Jesus) will come to judge the living and the dead.”

   The Nicene Creed says, “He (Jesus) will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end.”

   There will be signs that the end is coming, but no one will know when it is coming.

   Before we get there, however, there are going to be some very hard times.

   Jesus is teaching from a boat on the Sea of Galilee to a large group of people in the text from the Gospels that will be read in the vast majority of churches in the world this coming Sunday, Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43.

   He tells them that the good and the bad in this life live side-by-side for a reason.

   This Gospel reading answers one of the most important questions that people ask about the Christian faith. That is, “If God is good, and if God is all powerful, then why is there evil in the world?”

   Jesus’ teaching begins with a parable, an earthly story with a heavenly meaning, in Matthew 13:24-28a,

²⁴ He put before them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to someone who sowed good seed in his field; ²⁵ but while everybody was asleep, an enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and then went away. ²⁶ So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared as well. ²⁷ And the slaves of the householder came and said to him, ‘Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? Where, then, did these weeds come from?’ ²⁸ He answered, ‘An enemy has done this.’

   Jesus tells us that evil was not God’s plan for the world.

   God created a perfect world where human beings had a perfect relationship with God, and with each other, and with everything that God had created.

   But human beings were created above everything else for a personal relationship with the one, true, living God, and to be good managers, or “stewards” of everything God had made.

   In order for human beings to say “yes” to their relationship with God, in a way that meant anything, they first had to have the ability to say “no”.

   The devil, the enemy of God, lied to the first humans, Adam and Eve, and persuaded them to say “no” to God. That’s how the weeds were sown in the field. That’s how evil entered the world, and continues to enter the world. The world is the way it is because an enemy brought evil into it through us.

   What can we do? Nothing.

   We need a Savior.

   Jesus continues in Matthew 13:28b-30,

The slaves said to him, ‘Then do you want us to go and gather them?’ ²⁹ But he replied, ‘No; for in gathering the weeds you would uproot the wheat along with them. ³⁰ Let both of them grow together until the harvest; and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, Collect the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.’ ”

   Jesus will come in the Last Judgement, and there will be a separation of the mature wheat from the mature weeds.

   Who will be the “wheat” that is saved and who will be the “weeds” that will be destroyed? Jesus explains the answer only to his disciples.

   Jesus leaves the crowds at the Sea of Galilee and goes into a house, probably the house of Simon Peter and Andrew, in the fishing village of Capernaum, and the disciples ask Jesus to explain the parable.

   The text for Sunday concludes with the explanation in Matthew 13:36-43,

³⁶ Then he left the crowds and went into the house. And his disciples approached him, saying, “Explain to us the parable of the weeds of the field.” ³⁷ He answered, “The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man; ³⁸ the field is the world, and the good seed are the children of the kingdom; the weeds are the children of the evil one, ³⁹ and the enemy who sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are angels. ⁴⁰ Just as the weeds are collected and burned up with fire, so will it be at the end of the age. ⁴¹ The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will collect out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all evildoers, ⁴² and they will throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. ⁴³ Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Let anyone with ears listen!

   The children of the kingdom are the good seed, sown by God, that grow up to be useful plants that reproduce and are taken to God. The children of the evil one that are the weeds, sown by the devil, and they will be destroyed.

   People don’t decide to accept Jesus into their hearts, they don’t make a decision for God. We can’t. We are sinners, we are cut off from God by our sin.

   But God makes the decision for us. God opens our hearts. Then we repent and believe. We experience the forgiveness from God and the total restoration of the living relationship with God, or “faith”, for which we were intended from the beginning of Creation, a relationship that we messed up. We become a new Creation by God’s grace at the cross. We are born again. We serve God, and our neighbors, and we multiply.

   But the weeds still try to choke us out.

   How do we live with weeds?  

   We take a longer view of life. We know where the finish line is, and we tell the world that we are all getting closer to it every day.

   We live as good managers, or stewards, of what God has given us.

   God’s harvest is coming, and we are getting ready.

   Billy Graham once said that he had never seen a hearse pulling a U-Haul trailer.

   It’s been said that we can’t take our wealth with us to heaven, but we can send it on ahead.

   Martin Luther, the 16^th century Church reformer once said, “I have held many things in my hands, and I have lost them all; but whatever I have placed in God's hands, that I still possess.”

   The time, the treasure, and the talent we give to God for the work God does in His Church is the expression of our thanks for what God has already done for us on the cross. It is stored for us in heaven so that our heart may with God.

   Fortune cookies used to come after every meal in Chinese restaurants in the United States, even in our favorite Thai restaurant, because some Westerners thought all Asian restaurants were the same. 😊 But fortune cookies didn’t come from China. They originated in a Japanese restaurant in San Francisco!

   It’s hard to find them. Maybe it’s because there are more really good Chinese restaurants now. Maybe it’s because American’s tastes and sophistication have improved. Maybe it’s because we don’t find them useful.

   Fortune cookies contained “lucky” numbers and wise sayings.

   But our lives are not lived by fortune cookie wisdom, but by the Empty Tomb of the resurrected Jesus who gave his life for you and for me and then took it back and rose from the dead.

   All cultures have sayings that pass on wisdom from generation to generation. Like, “The early bird gets the worm,” to say that the earlier you start, the better the outcome will be.

   And it’s true, the early bird gets the worm. But the second mouse gets the cheese. 😊

   I thought of that when I read was what was described as an “ancient Chinese proverb” attributed to the philosophers Confucius or Mencius. It says, “A gentleman would rescue a man trapped in a well, but he would not jump in himself.”

   I think that it’s a way of saying that it is good to be heroic, but it Is reckless to put both the rescuer and the one in need of rescue in jeopardy at the same time. It would risk creating two victims with no one to help them.

   And yet, that’s exactly what Jesus did.

   Jesus jumped into the well with us when we were drowning in Sin. Jesus took on human flesh to be our Savior. Jesus came to make a way to restore the relationship with God for which human beings were created.

   Jesus was fully God and fully human, he gave his life and he took it back again, but he suffered, unbelievably, from whipping to humiliation to lingering pain and public ridicule. Nothing was taken from Him, but he gave everything, including His life for our sake.

   It was reckless, but it didn’t create two victims. Or even one. It created zero victims.

   Instead, Jesus cloaks himself in honor and majesty, and we are set free from sin, death, and the power of the devil. Jesus rose from the dead and is alive and among us. And Jesus will come again to judge the living and the dead. And Jesus will separate the wheat from the weeds. Forever.

   How can that be? How can a good God condemn anyone to eternal punishment?

   Nicky Gumble, a priest of the Evangelical Anglican church in England who wrote an internationally popular course for people who are new to the Christian faith called “Alpha” teaches that he believes that after God’s Final Judgement, people of good will will consider what happened and say, “That’s fair.”

   I believe that, too. It seems right, and it is wise. It does not presume to know the mind of God, or to presume that any human being would be more fair, or more merciful, or more just than God.

   Meanwhile, how do we live with the human weeds, planted by an enemy of God?

1.    We don’t give up on them. We continue to pray for them, do good to them, and we bless them when we are cursed by them. We continue to show God’s love when they show us hate. When they mock us, we share the good news of the power of God to transform every life and make it a new Creation.

2.    We seek to be humble. We aren’t always so sure that we know who are the wheat and who are the weeds. We are saved by Grace alone through faith alone, not by works. We are not better than anyone else, just saved.

3.    We are in this world, not of the world. This is our not our home and feeling a little uneasy here is the way it should be. Wheat points to God.

4.    We seek to maintain our Christian character and integrity in this world so that our witness will be believable to the weeds. We seek to live in accord with Paul’s counsel in Romans 12:2,

² Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect.

5.    We are the light, the salt, the leaven, the small thing that sets us apart from the weeds and, by the presence of God at work within us, transforms everything we inhabit.

6.    Many gardeners say that a weed is just a plant out of place. We look for the goodness in all people and help them find their place in the Kingdom of God.

7.    We aren’t overly concerned about our politics or our identity. We focus on what unites us in Jesus Christ. We have been given spiritual gifts to build up the Body of Christ, the Church. We bear the fruit of the Spirit that bears witness to our new life in Jesus Christ. We serve others as a means, not an end, as Paul counsels in Matthew 5:16,

¹⁶ In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.

   The FIFA World Cup will end this coming Sunday. I wonder what the Christian church in the United States has offered the tourists who have come here, and those who have read about us or who have seen us on their electronic devices during the tournament, that will last. What do we present to the world? Has their opinion of Jesus changed? Do they even have an opinion?

   Living with weeds means that we are good stewards, or managers, of the time, the treasure, and the talent God has first given us so that, in the end, all people might come to transformed new lives in Jesus Christ that is God’s will for all people, and enjoy his presence with their friends and family members, and all of God’s people in all nations forever.

   This is how we live with weeds.

421 Way to Sow!

    (Note: This blog entry is based on the text for “Way to Sow!”, originally shared on July 10, 2026. It was the 421^st video for our YouTube Channel, Streams of Living Water (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB7KnYS1bpHKaL2OseQWCnw), co-produced with my wife, Rev. Sally Welch.)

   We sow seeds so that they grow into what we need to live. How do we do the same, metaphorically, to effectively help others receive eternal life? Today, we’re going to find out.
   I will be glad when the FIFA World Cup soccer tournament is over. I’ll get my life back! 😊
   It is estimated that the decline in worker productivity worldwide during the World Cup will cost employers $17 billion. I know that my productivity has declined. 😊
   I’m pretty sure that I’ve watched more soccer games since June 11^th than I’ve watched in my entire life. And I’ve been interested! And I’ve cared who won!
   I cared when the USA team was eliminated. I cared when our other international team, Portugal, was eliminated.
   I cared when the team of Sally’s primary ancestry, England, won. I cared when the team of my ancestry, Norway, won. And now, they are going to play each other!
   Am I now a soccer fan, and will I be following soccer in the United States?
   Nah. Probably not.
   That probably has to do with not playing soccer growing up, and the artificially elevated drama of focused international competition. But, after watching all those games, I also think that there is something to the reasoning in an article I read on why soccer will never be an American sport.
   The reason is that soccer is built on cheating. You may have seen the games where players may or may not make some incidental contact with one another and then both players fall to the ground in what looks like bitter agony, hoping that a referee, looking at the right angle, will call a foul on the other player. Then, if no foul is called, they jump up as if nothing has happened, “miraculously” healed. 😊
   Americans do not respect or admire people who get away with cheating. It is a cultural value. American sports reflect our aspirations for America, our ideal of a level playing field, where all people are treated fairly and people win by hard work, skill, and developed talent.
   But I’m sure that being taught and/or seeing that “everybody does it”, is why everybody does it.
   Sports in America are, for most people, believed to be training grounds for building character. We don’t see fraud as intelligence, but as failure.
   Yet, we’ve seen heroism on the field in spite of the corruption in the system. There are people and values that we respect and cherish, and we try to learn from them and imitate them.
   And we who are both saints and sinners seek to bring people to a life transforming relationship by proclaiming and living the Gospel of the one true living God that brings God’s reign to all sinful hearts and all sinful systems at the cross.
   How does that happen?
   We see how in the Gospel reading that will read in the vast majority of churches in the world this coming Sunday, Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23.
   It begins with a parable, an earthly story with a heavenly meaning, told by Jesus about what happens when we share the Good News, and what we should expect as the result, beginning with Matthew 13:1-9,
13 That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat beside the sea. ² Such great crowds gathered around him that he got into a boat and sat there, while the whole crowd stood on the beach. ³ And he told them many things in parables, saying: “Listen! A sower went out to sow. ⁴ And as he sowed, some seeds fell on the path, and the birds came and ate them up. ⁵ Other seeds fell on rocky ground, where they did not have much soil, and they sprang up quickly, since they had no depth of soil. ⁶ But when the sun rose, they were scorched; and since they had no root, they withered away. ⁷ Other seeds fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them. ⁸ Other seeds fell on good soil and brought forth grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. ⁹ Let anyone with ears listen!”
   This is a parable about how the Gospel is spread and, it is about managing expectations in the process. 😊
   It mirrors an important lesson from our Gospel reading from last Sunday, in Matthew 11:16-17,
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.’
   Jesus compares his generation to children imitating the biggest public events that they saw in their culture: weddings and funerals, with dancing and mourning play. And, like those children, and sometimes even like us in our time, when his disciples brought the Gospel to that generation, they got no lasting response.
   But there is hope given in this week’s Gospel that sometimes, when we share the Gospel “seeds”, the word that the Kingdom of God has come in Jesus Christ, some of the “seeds” that are sown fall on good soil and bring fourth good harvests in the hearts of human beings.
   How does that happen?
   Well, someone has to be sharing the Gospel.
   Someone has to be sowing the “seeds” with the understanding that sometimes there will be no lasting response, and sometimes there will be a great response, as Jesus explains a little later in today’s reading from Matthew, in Matthew 13:18-23,
¹⁸ “Hear then the parable of the sower. ¹⁹ When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what is sown in the heart; this is what was sown on the path. ²⁰ As for what was sown on rocky ground, this is the one who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; ²¹ yet such a person has no root, but endures only for a while, and when trouble or persecution arises on account of the word, that person immediately falls away. ²² As for what was sown among thorns, this is the one who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the lure of wealth choke the word, and it yields nothing. ²³ But as for what was sown on good soil, this is the one who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and yields, in one case a hundredfold, in another sixty, and in another thirty.”
   Is this your experience?
   I looked for players on the FIFA World Cup team of my ancestor nation, Norway, to see if any of them were overtly Christians. I found one.
   Antonio Nusa has been very vocal about his beliefs. He has said, “I am a Christian. I always point to God when I have scored and when I enter the field".
   And Martin Ødegaard has stated publicly that faith is an important foundation for his life and his family.
   That’s about it.
   But even that much is rare among Norwegians. Most would be offended if they were asked about their faith. They would say that it is a private matter, and that it is rude to ask that question. Maybe that’s why contemporary Norway can be described as a secular country with a Christian tradition.
   And are we that far from the same description?
   Have you ever shared your faith with a person who needs to hear it? Or have you not shared it because you thought it was too personal, or even rude?
   Or, if you did, what kind of response did you get, and with what result?
   The Kingdom of God started with 12 disciples and grew from there.
   How does it grow? It’s like sowing seeds. Sometimes, as the result of factors beyond your control, you’ll see no lasting response, but sometimes you’ll see a spectacular response, and even more seeds will be sown as a result.
   Have you ever seen seeds being sown? It has been an almost universal human experience, until the modern age. Today, it’s mostly done by machines.
   In Jesus day, seeds weren’t planted. They were broadcast.
   The field would be minimally prepared, and Sowers would lift a big open bag of seeds onto their shoulders. As they walked through the field, they would reach into the bag, take a handful of seeds, and cast them onto the ground as they walked.
   The seeds would be cast broadly, or “broadcast”, like a video or audio signal is broadcast. Its success largely depended on the “receiver”.
   What happened next depended on the media on which the seeds fell, open ground where they got eaten by birds, rocky ground, thorns, or on good soil.
   What would happen to the seed that grew in good soil?  The rain would come, the sun would shine, the seeds would germinate and grow with no further action from the sower until it was time for the harvest.
   The seed would yield more grain, some of which could be eaten, some sold, and some saved to grow still more grain.
   The Kingdom of God comes in the same way, through no action of our own, but through the providence of God. All we do to grow the Church is to plant a “seed”.
   We are the instruments of God, good or bad.
   We are like salt, or light, or leaven. We are small, but all we have to do it to be true to who we are in the transformational power of the Holy Spirit. We only live in the character and integrity of what God has made us to be: a new Creation, God’s own people.
   Sally and I have a fig tree in our backyard that was here when we came. One fig tree. Now, though, we have “volunteer” fig trees all over the place. The seeds from the fruit of that tree have found their way into our bushes, along the sidewalk, and through our privet hedge. We have seen them all around our neighborhood.
   We don’t know what the results will be when we share our faith like seeds. We do know what they will be when we don’t share it.
   The good news is that the results of “sowing” don’t depend upon us alone.
   The Church grows and we reproduce by God’s agency within us. That’s how the Kingdom of God is planted and grows. Seed by seed.
   We can reject God’s call to do the work of evangelists, but God’s Kingdom grows when God works through the new Creation we have become by God’s gift of new life. We are that new creation!
   In John 15:16-17, Jesus says to his disciples,
   “You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name.
   To ask in someone’s name is to ask in accord with the living reality of that person. That’s what it means to live in the Kingdom of God.
   We do what God blesses through us, God’s people. The seeds are sown. They grow and bear fruit. They reproduce. The Kingdom of God grows. It’s not about us. We know that God’s harvest is here already and will be brought to its final perfection in the time to come.
   Maybe you’ve heard the story of the invention of chess? It’s been told in many varieties in many cultures. The story goes that when the inventor brought the game of chess before a great king, the king offered to give the inventor anything he wanted.
   The inventor laid out the chess board and placed a grain of wheat on the first square. “All I want is this grain, plus two grains on the second square, four on the third, eight on the fourth, and so on. Doubling with every square.”
   That’s all you want?, said the king. And he ordered it done.
   As the king’s servants started loading the grain it soon spilled over the board and then into the throne room and then the palace. Until the king said enough. Today, it’s estimated that the number of grains, doubled the 64 times, needed to fulfill the king’s promise would be 2,000 times the world’s entire production in a year.
   That’s how thing go viral.
   And that’s how we bring the gospel message those closest to us and to the world.
   This isn’t just mathematics. As we all know, not everyone comes to a living faith in God just because we share ours. Sometimes our sharing leads to no lasting response. But nobody comes to a living faith in God if we don’t share ours.
   People have to open their hearts as a fertile place to receive the seed of faith that God gives. But what “seed” are we offering?
   Some people say, “I don’t talk about my faith. I live it”. And that’s good. We need people to live what they believe. And that might work. People might sometimes connect the dots between what you do and Jesus Christ by themselves. They might.
   But it’s unlikely that you are showing your faith. It’s more likely you’re only showing people that you think you’re a good person.
   At some point, we have to connect the dots. We have to name the name of God in order for people to come to a living faith in God, and not to an expectation of good works by which they feel only the burden of never being sure they have been good enough.
   We have to show people the faith that produces good works, that Jesus changes lives, and that it will change theirs. We need a place where people can go from zero to Christian, and a process to get them there. How many of our churches do that?
   How do we make our message of redemption viral?
   First, we can’t change human nature. We can only appeal to a better one. The most important part of a healthy garden is the soil. Does it have the right amount of living material? That requires transformation.
   Second, we can only pronounce a work of healing when people pronounce a word of their own dis-ease.
   Third, we have to name the name of Jesus and invite people to know Him. Someone you know, a friend or a relative, might be ready to respond right now.
   Fourth, people can’t know the Good News unless they first understand the Bad News. That is the path to repentance and new life.
   We plant seeds by calling people to interrupt the patterns in their lives that are based on what the culture says, what makes them feel good, what has become now just toxic habits and interrupt them with patterns that are based upon what the Bible says, what leads to eternal life here and in the future, that is, what the Bible calls “to repent”.
   One of my favorite stories is a classic stewardship story from Garden Grove, in Orange County.
   Rev. Robert Schuller was raising money for the construction of The Chrystal Cathedral. The building was reportedly going to cost $16,000,000.00, a huge sum  of money now, and a staggeringly large amount then, especially for church construction.
   One morning, the pastor of a Lutheran church in Garden Grove opened his newspaper and read that a member of his congregation had given $1,000,000.00 to the Crystal Cathedral Building Fund.
   He called the member and asked if he could meet him for lunch.
   After some small talk, the pastor asked, “You know, you’ve been very generous to our church, and I’m very grateful and appreciative of your generosity, but I saw in the paper this morning that you gave a million dollars to Rev. Schuller’s church, and you’ve never given anywhere near that amount to your own church, and I wondered “Why?”
   The man looked a little surprised and said, “Because he asked me.”
   It often works the same way with sharing our faith.
   There are likely people that you know right now who just need to be asked, who need to hear you and your story from your heart, your transformed heart.
   The FIFA World Cup will end on July 19^th. Maybe the people of God could find a good use for the time we’ll have on our hands. The one true living God, working through our Christian culture and our values and our faith will show us the way and give us the means.
   It’s time to sow!