Cousin Steve was the family champ. Any time there was a family get together, the younger members of the family would eventually congregate somewhere where we had plenty of room and were away from the older members of the family. It wasn’t that what we were doing was forbidden, just mildly disgusting to some. Unless, or course, we were gathered for a funeral. Then it was forbidden. But mostly, it was just mildly disgusting, particularly to the women of the family. Which was kind of funny. Steve was the grand champion, but it was my sister, Debbie, who was always running neck and neck with him.

          We would gather up the tools for our contest, each of us taking just one, or maybe two of the necessary tools. We would wander off, in twos or threes, calmly so as not to be suspicious, until we were behind a barn or out building of some type. (If it was at Steve’s house, it would be behind the outhouse. Their outhouse was almost as big as their house. I never understood that. And, no one really liked having the contest there. The outhouse was far more disgusting that the contest.) A board would already be laying on the ground to signify the starting point and another board would be located downrange a bit to mark the farthest effort. Usually, a small table of some type would be nearby for us all to place the tools we had wandered off with for the contest. Slices of watermelon, brimming with seeds. As many as fifteen cousins locked in combat in a round robin tournament to see who could spit a seed the farthest and straightest. Wind and humidity were always taken into consideration. This was for bragging rights. It was important.

          It also isn’t done any more. You have to have watermelon seeds to have a watermelon seed spitting contest. Now, with seedless watermelon, what do kids do at those terrible family reunions? Compare phones? It is a part of childhood that is gone. Some people, particularly adult women, would say good riddance. Seedless watermelons are easier to clean up. You don’t have the occasional vine popping up in the backyard. Or, in the case of Steve’s family’s outhouse, A vine growing through a crack in the wall. Aunt Edith didn’t like that at all. Seedless watermelon is just better all around.

          Except they don’t taste as good. I don’t know what it is, really. Just…bland. You can tell it is watermelon, it just isn’t as tasty. If you are under thirty years old, you don’t even know what I am talking about. Watermelon tastes to you like it always has tasted, because it has always been seedless. A real watermelon with real, black seeds, is sweeter, crunchier and way more fun. But, somewhere along the way, some plant scientist (either a female scientist or a male scientist who was sick and tired of hearing his wife complain) came up with a watermelon that only had those weak, sickly looking white seeds in them, the last vestige of the glory that was watermelon in the summer.

          It isn’t just watermelon. When I was a kid and we started getting oranges (usually right after Thanksgiving through Christmas) they were thin skinned, seedy balls of yum! Oh, I loved them. So did my sisters and mother. But, there were those pesky seeds. You couldn’t have contests with those seeds, either. Cold outside, you were stuck inside. That contest would actually be disgusting. My sisters would complain as they demurely put the offending seeds into their hands to throw away, or into a tissue to be quickly wadded up. It always struck me as hypocritical to watch sister Debbie do that, since I knew that at some point that coming summer she would be inhaling great gulps of air and curling her tongue just so to propel a watermelon seed to new and unheard of distances. I just swallowed the orange seeds. Why spit them into my hands? But then, some plant scientist started figuring it out. A seedless orange, with a thicker skin, would be so much better. People in the North could have oranges year round because the skin would slow rot. Without seeds little children could eat them without the fear of choking. And, the thicker skin would make it easier to peel. Seedless oranges, referred to as ‘naval’ oranges, were better in every way.

          Except they don’t taste as good. Go to the store and buy a bag of Clementines. Okay, they aren’t really oranges, but that are double first cousins. Thin skinned and seedy, they sell faster than the naval oranges, and they sell because they are better. Many more Clementines in a bag than in a bag of navals because, even though they will start to rot quicker, they are eaten much faster than the bigger orange.

          Then there are grapes. Big, juicy seedless grapes. The area where Marsha and I came from in Ohio is world famous for its grapes. Acres and acres of vineyards, planted on the rolling hills, all supporting a thriving wine industry. The soil and the weather are perfect for the grapes. When I was growing up, those vineyards supplied most of the grapes for Welches, but as time went on and the wineries moved in, the final resting place for all of those grapes changed. But the grapes are fantastic. I had two different vineyards I would go to and buy grapes at their roadside stands when the grapes were coming in. Marsha didn’t like it to much when I would come home with a peck basket full of grapes. (once a season would have been fine, but I brought them home weekly) Those grapes had seeds in them. Why would I want seeds in grapes when you could go to Walmart and get seedless? (again, a woman’s perspective) I asked a vintner one day (that is a person who oversees the growth of a vineyard, constantly testing for taste) why the locally grown grapes all had seeds. He told me that the seeds made the wine and jellies taste better and sweeter and more ‘fruity.’ That says something to me.

          There are reduced seeded tomatoes and cucumbers and probably other things, as well. I don’t really eat apples, so I don’t know if they have removed those seeds. Peaches and plums have their one seed, so that has never been a real issue. But, seeds have been genetically removed from some fruits in order to make them easier to deal with. It is so common now that it was big news when Alan Coverdale came into the office the other day with the exciting news that he had gotten hold of real watermelon, seeds and taste and all. WHERE, I wanted to know! Ninja Express in Wabash. They brought him some to his table. By the time I got there it was no more. Apparently, the seed police put a stop to such traitor like activity. It is all more convenient, but it isn’t better.

          This has put me to thinking. Stay with me here. In Christianity, we are to plant seed, the seed of the Gospel of Christ. This is what the parable of the sower and the seed is all about. This is our job as Christians. We are to love and, as an outgrowth of that love, we are to go into all the world and share the Gospel. But, that has become a chore. Just like eating a good piece of watermelon or a good orange or a good bunch of grapes. The seed gets in the way. So, we get rid of it. Sowing the seeds of Christ and the Gospel…well, it kind of gets in the way of the fun things of Christianity. The fellowship, the like mindedness, the music, the worship. There is so much about the church experience of Christianity that is really enjoyable. That sowing seed thing is like a speed bump. Maybe, well, maybe we take the seed thing out. We will still have our fellowship, be around people of like mind, we will have our music and our worship. Maybe have a preacher who preaches a mildly challenging sermon and we will get out in time to get to Bob Evans. It will all be good, even without that seed thing.

          Except it is not as good. Without the sowing of the seed, the fellowship begins to suffer. The like mindedness begins to corrode because we become caught up in earthly (churchy) things. We begin to argue about the music. We conflict on how we should worship. The only thing the people agree on is that the preacher is boring and preaches way to long.

          It is the sowing of the seed that makes the church. Without the sowing of the seed, the church dies.

          As it happens, throughout America today, churches are failing and closing everywhere. Denominations are beginning to condemn the Bible. Society mocks Christianity while lifting up Islam. Have you considered the reason for that? Society as a whole does not approve of terrorism or the way Islam men treat the women or the harm they can do world wide. But at least they stand for what they believe. Christianity, not so much. The world respects Islam. The world does not respect Christianity.

          The seed makes all the difference.