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.