I will be honest with you, it is exhausting trying to figure out where we stand in the world right now.
Every day, someone is yelling that religion has too much influence in public life, and someone else is yelling that it has too little.
It makes my head spin! I hear people arguing about laws and mandates and court cases, and the whole debate starts to sound like a giant tug-of-war.
We pull one way, the world pulls the other, and we all just end up with rope burn and a lot of mud on our knees. We want the instant, visible, public display of power.
We want to lay down the perfect Christian sod and demand that the world look green and perfect overnight.
But true, faithful public witness? It’s deep, quiet, and rooted. It’s about the seed.
The Loud and the Quiet Gift
The whole debate about gaining influence completely misses the point of Jesus’s ministry. He never focused on gaining power; He focused on demonstrating value.
Remember the story of the widow’s mite at the temple.
The rich people were walking in, dropping huge bags of coins into the offering boxes. They were loud about it.
They wanted everyone to see their sacrifice and their status. They were having a big, public moment of influence, showing off their wealth and their righteousness.
And then this poor widow came along. She gave two tiny copper coins—a mite. It was nothing. It wouldn’t have even bought a cup of coffee. It was her entire living, but it was a quiet, almost secret sacrifice.
Jesus watched all of this. He looked at the loud, public displays of the rich, and then He looked at the humble, quiet offering of the widow. And He said, “Truly, I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all the others.”
Why? Because the others gave out of their abundance, but she gave out of her poverty.
This is the key to true influence. It’s not about the size of the gift or the loudness of the display in the public square. It’s about the cost to us, and the sincerity of the heart.
What we need is to stop thinking of public influence as a political victory and start thinking of it as a sacrificial gift.
The Scars of True Authority
I mean, we are so worried about whether our Christian voice is being heard in the legislature or on social media, but are we listening to what Jesus modeled?
He didn’t seek a throne; He sought a towel. He didn’t demand political authority; He earned Deserved Authority through a life of service.
The Bible tells us about the prophet Daniel, who challenged people to name a single instance of wrongdoing in his life before he delivered his message. He had authority because his life was impeccable.
But Jesus’s authority was even deeper. It was the authority of love born from forgiveness.
Look at the beautiful story of The Forgiven Sinful Woman. She was a woman known in the town for her mistakes. She was scandalous. She came into the Pharisee’s house while Jesus was eating and knelt at His feet. She washed His feet with her tears and dried them with her hair, anointing them with expensive perfume.
It was scandalous. It was public. It was a messy public witness.
The people around Jesus were horrified. They were whispering, “If this man were a prophet, he would know what kind of woman is touching him!” In their minds, her influence was “too much” and “too dirty” for their religious gathering.
But Jesus defended her. He said her great love proved that she had been forgiven much.
That is what faithful public witness looks like now. It looks like a woman who is so overwhelmed by the grace she has received that she isn’t afraid to make a public mess of herself to worship and serve. It is a profound, personal act that has more power to change hearts than any law ever could.
The Quiet Work of the Seed
The desire for instant, political influence is like choosing sod. It looks good for a minute, but it doesn’t last. God desires a deeper, more authentic growth—the slow, quiet work of the seed.
If we want to have influence, we need to stop yelling at the world and start serving it. We need to stop fighting to keep people out and start running to welcome them in, just as the father ran to welcome the Prodigal Son home, symbolizing God’s unconditional grace.
The Kingdom of God is not about who we exclude; it’s about who we embrace.
Our public witness today is not measured by how many laws we change, but by how many lives we touch with the radical, humble, towel-and-water love of Jesus.
Let’s focus on tending our own hearts and being that deep, quiet seed of change.
That is where true, lasting influence is found.