(Note: This blog entry is based on the text for “Way to Sow!”,
originally shared on July 10, 2026. It was the 421st 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 11th 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!”
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,
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.”
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 19th. 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!
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 11th 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!”
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,
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.”
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 19th. 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!
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