“You are of more value than many sparrows.”
This is the promise that Jesus gives to anyone who has lost a sense of who they are and has lost their sense of belonging.
“Are not two sparrows sold for a penny?” Jesus reminds us. It is like saying, “Can’t you buy a baby chick at Tractor Supply for a couple of bucks?” Jesus continues, “Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father.” Even though we sell birds for so cheap, God the Father sends a wind to each one of them to keep them in the air. If God does that for a bird, how much more valuable are you?
“And even the hairs of your head are all counted.” Jesus declares to everyone who feels lost, as if they are not included or counted in this world. To those who have lost a sense of who they are and have lost a sense that someone cares for them, Jesus says that the Father knows how many hairs are on your head.
I tried counting, by the way. That is right, during one of my study halls in High School, in which I rarely ever did any studying; I decided that I would try to count all my hairs. That was the length I would go to avoid my math assignment. Starting at my forehead and placing singular hairs to the front of my head as I counted, I got all the way to 120, and I just gave up. Patience was not one of my inherent virtues as a teen. “This would be easier if I were bald!” I said to myself. There is no way I would have finished the task before 6th period since most humans have around 150,000 hairs on their head.
I did not have that kind of patience. I never found out how many hairs were on my head, but the scriptures say that God knows. God knows how many hairs are up there. And, what that means to me is that even though we may not know who we are, God knows. God knows how many hairs are upon your head, O child of the Most High. God knows who you are. God knows to whom you belong. You belong to God. Your future belongs to God.
This is such a powerful promise to those who suddenly feel lost in life. To young adults who have not found their place in this world, and who may not feel valued by anyone Jesus says, “Do not be afraid. You are of more value than many sparrows.” “Follow me.”
To caregivers who suddenly have no one who requires their care, who now feel lost in grief and without a purpose in life, Jesus reminds us that God does not let a sparrow fall to the ground; neither will God let you fall. God will lift you up again.
To the newly retired butcher, who has never been anything but a butcher and is now completely lost without his work, Jesus says, “It is enough for the disciple to be like the teacher.” Jesus still has a purpose for the one who has lost their purpose.
I cannot even begin to tell you just how important this message is to people who have lost their sense of purpose and value. This butcher was an actual butcher. He was raised in a butcher shop. He was homeschooled in the butcher shop. He married a woman who was hired help in the butcher shop. He slowly took over and inherited the butcher shop.
Even his jokes were butcher jokes. “Did you hear about the butcher who backed into the meat grinder? He got behind in his work.” He had one for the kids too, “Where did the butcher go to dance? At the Meat Ball.” Then, of course, there is this one, “Why did the butcher retire? He was cut off in his prime!”
That joke turned out not to be so funny. When his health forced him to retire from the butcher shop, he met me in the behavioral health wing of the hospital. The man tried to take his own life. He did feel cut off. He did not know who he was. He did not know what he was supposed to do. He was no longer a butcher. He no longer had customers with whom he could help or with whom he could joke. He felt cut off. He was cut off in his prime.
And, as we sat in that room together, discussing his lostness…if that is even a word…I told him about the earliest followers of Jesus. I described how they too felt lost.
You see, in the ancient world, people almost never asked the question, “Who am I?” They almost never felt as if they had no place in the world. In fact, most ancient people had their whole lives laid out in front of them as soon as they were born. If you were the first born, you would be raised to be the eventual head of the household, in charge of the family and its work. And, if you were born other than the first born, you knew your place. You listened to the father. You listened to your eldest brother almost like he was your father. You joked around and caused trouble with your cousins. You would likely marry one of your cousins of the opposite sex. And, you knew exactly what you were going to do in life. You would be doing whatever it was that your family did, be it raising sheep or fashioning things out of wood. In other words, the ancient person would hardly ever ask, “Who am I? What am I to be in this life?”
Notice that I said, “hardly.” The one time that a person was thrown into this sort of rare crisis where they asked, “Who am I,” and “To whom do I belong” is if you were thrown out of the family.
Many of Jesus’ early followers had the questions of “Who am I,” and “To whom do I belong” trust upon them because they were thrown out of their families as soon as they started following Jesus. When they followed Jesus, they listened to someone other than their fathers, thereby upsetting their fathers and older brothers. They did work that was outside of the family’s work, thereby finding worth elsewhere. In other words, they were thrown out of their families and thrown into these questions of self-worth.
This type of personal crisis for his followers was not unexpected by Jesus. Jesus taught:
“For I have come to set a man against his father,
and a daughter against
her mother,
and a daughter-in-law
against her mother-in-law;
and one’s foes will be
members of one’s own household.”
It is not like Jesus wants this sort of strife, but Jesus does clearly describe the very real consequences that Jesus’ earliest followers experienced as they started following the savior of the world. They lost their fathers and mothers. Their brothers and sisters turned against them. Many suddenly felt lost. They were forced to ask, “Who am I now that I am not what I used to be?”
To these lost ones, feeling as if their world had fallen, Jesus answered, “’You are of more value than many sparrows’ who your Father keeps floating in the air. God will keep you floating too.”
To these lost ones, who wonder who will care for them now that their family has abandoned them, Jesus answers, “even the hairs of your head are all counted.” You now have a new family with me.
As terrible as it feels to be lost in life, and it does feel terrible, (it feels like someone has taken a sharp plow to your life and ripped everything up), it is probably the most fertile time for Jesus to plant some seeds. There is a type of grace in having everything old plowed under so that something new and better can grow.
And, in that fertile soil of the plowed up soul, Jesus plants little seed of himself.
You do not know who you are? Well, Jesus just planted himself in you and covered the seed up so that it can grow. Jesus says, “it is enough for the disciple to be like the teacher.” It is enough to be like Jesus. Life is enough when we follow Jesus.
Who are you? A follower of the one who loves the world.
Who is your family? Our family consists of those who take up their crosses and follow Jesus to places of love and serving the neighbor. It is a wonderful new life, filled with love, where there is a place for each of us. It is a place where those who have lost their old lives will find their true life following the one who loved them to the point of death on a cross.
“Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.” Jesus says to you. Are you feeling lost? Are you searching for who you are? Jesus has found you. He actually never lost you. Your new cross-shaped life waits. Your new life filled with the love of God and the love of neighbor waits.
As the old song “His Eye Is On The Sparrow” goes:
Why should I feel discouraged,
Why should the shadows come,
Why should my heart be lonely,
And long for heav’n and home;
When Jesus is my portion?
My constant Friend is he;
His eye is on the sparrow,
And I know he watches me;
His eye is on the sparrow,
And I know he watches me.
I sing because I’m free;
For his eye is on the sparrow,
And I know he watches me.
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