First Reading Jeremiah 20:7–13
7 O LORD, you have enticed me, and I was enticed; you have overpowered me, and you have prevailed. I have become a laughingstock all day long; everyone mocks me. 8 For whenever I speak, I must cry out, I must shout, “Violence and destruction!” For the word of the LORD has become for me a reproach and derision all day long. 9 If I say, “I will not mention him, or speak any more in his name,” then within me there is something like a burning fire shut up in my bones; I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot. 10 For I hear many whispering: “Terror is all around! Denounce him! Let us denounce him!” All my close friends are watching for me to stumble. “Perhaps he can be enticed, and we can prevail against him, and take our revenge on him.” 11 But the LORD is with me like a dread warrior; therefore my persecutors will stumble, and they will not prevail. They will be greatly shamed, for they will not succeed. Their eternal dishonor will never be forgotten. 12 O LORD of hosts, you test the righteous, you see the heart and the mind; let me see your retribution upon them, for to you I have committed my cause. 13 Sing to the LORD; praise the LORD! For he has delivered the life of the needy from the hands of evildoers.
Psalm Psalm 91:1–16
1 You who dwell in the shelter of the Most High, who abide in the shadow of the Almighty—2 you will say to the Lord, “My refuge and my stronghold, my God in whom I put my trust.” 3 For God will rescue you from the snare of the hunter and from the deadly plague. 4 God’s wings will cover you, and you will find refuge beneath them; God’s faithfulness will be your shield and defense. 5 You shall not fear any terror in the night, nor the arrow that flies by day; 6 nor the plague that stalks in the darkness, nor the sickness that lays waste at noon. 7 A thousand may fall at your side and ten thousand at your right hand, but it will not come near you. 8 You will only have to look with your eyes, and you will see the reward of the wicked. 9 Because you have made the Lord your refuge, and the Most High your habitation, 10 no evil will befall you, nor shall affliction come near your dwelling. 11 For God will give the angels charge over you, to guard you in all your ways. 12 Upon their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone. 13 You will tread upon the lion cub and viper; you will trample down the lion and the serpent. 14 I will deliver those who cling to me; I will uphold them, because they know my name. 15 They will call me, and I will answer them; I will be with them in trouble; I will rescue and honor them. 16 With long life will I satisfy them, and show them my salvation.
Second Reading Romans 6:12–23
12 Therefore, do not let sin exercise dominion in your mortal bodies, to make you obey their passions. 13 No longer present your members to sin as instruments of wickedness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and present your members to God as instruments of righteousness. 14 For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace. 15 What then? Should we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! 16 Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? 17 But thanks be to God that you, having once been slaves of sin, have become obedient from the heart to the form of teaching to which you were entrusted, 18 and that you, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness. 19 I am speaking in human terms because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to greater and greater iniquity, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness for sanctification. 20 When you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. 21 So what advantage did you then get from the things of which you now are ashamed? The end of those things is death. 22 But now that you have been freed from sin and enslaved to God, the advantage you get is sanctification. The end is eternal life. 23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Gospel John 14:15–21
5a These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions: 21 Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death; 22 and you will be hated by all because of my name. But the one who endures to the end will be saved. 23 When they persecute you in one town, flee to the next; for truly I tell you, you will not have gone through all the towns of Israel before the Son of Man comes. 24 A disciple is not above the teacher, nor a slave above the master; 25 it is enough for the disciple to be like the teacher, and the slave like the master. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul, how much more will they malign those of his household! 26 So have no fear of them; for nothing is covered up that will not be uncovered, and nothing secret that will not become known. 27 What I say to you in the dark, tell in the light; and what you hear whispered, proclaim from the housetops. 28 Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. 29 Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. 30 And even the hairs of your head are all counted. 31 So do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows. 32 Everyone therefore who acknowledges me before others, I also will acknowledge before my Father in heaven; 33 but whoever denies me before others, I also will deny before my Father in heaven.
GOOD NEWS ABOUT SPARROWS
When you stop and think about birds, what comes to mind, most often, are the song birds, those birds that are pretty or ones that are majestic. Around here the Blue Jays, Cardinals and Hawks are the ones that will cause me to stop and watch, ones that I admire for their beauty. On the other hand there are those birds that I consider ugly, like the Turkey Buzzards, the Crows and the common Sparrow. Despite their appearance, those ugly buzzards at least perform a service; they can take a road kill and have it gone in a matter of hours. As for the Crows, if I could keep them from stealing the dog food and putting in the dogs’ water dish I might be able to tolerate them a bit more. Interestingly, in Alaska we call Crows dumpster Chickens, because of their size. And because of their importance to the Native Americans there, Crows are protected. But when it comes to the common Sparrow, there is very little to like.
As for looks, the Sparrow wins no awards. They’re known to be scavengers emptying the bird feeders, stripping the newly sewn grass seed from the lawn and will even peck at the crops in our gardens. When it comes to the mess they leave behind, well I don’t need to go into detail about what’s required to clean up the windows on the car or the mess they leave on the sidewalk, front porch or anywhere else they perch. Sparrows, for all intents and purposes, are a useless bird, hardly worth our time to even notice them. Yet, this is the very bird Jesus uses as an example in our gospel lesson for today.
Pastor Don Friesen tells a fascinating story about a sparrow that somehow got into the rafters of St. Helen’s Parish Church in the English town of Brant Broughton. At the time of the intrusion, they were recording a guitar recital for a later broadcast on the radio. The chirping bird didn’t exactly chirp with the beat, so the pastor, Rev. Robin Clark, and I’m not making this up by the way, asked the congregation to leave and then asked a friend to bring his pellet gun over to the church to shoot the intruding sparrow. One would think that no one would even take notice of the event, but you’d be wrong. The killing of the sparrow became front page news in Great Britain.
The London Daily Telegraph ran a clever headline that said, “Rev. Robin Orders Death of Sparrow.” Editorials and letters to the editor flowed, chastising the cruel and unusual punishment for this lowly bird. People who hadn’t darkened the door of a church in decades suddenly remembered Psalm 84 in which it’s declared that even sparrows are welcome in the house of the Lord (84:3). It’s quite the contrast to how we would expect people to react to the situation. I guess in some ways this helps to add attention to Jesus’ statement here in Matthew’s gospel. It helps us to understand the level of importance we hold in God’s view.
So let me ask you this, “is there any passage in the Bible that’s more reassuring than this one from today’s gospel reading: “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father’s care. And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.”
I like the way some unknown author has put it into a little poem: Said the robin to the sparrow: “I’d really like to know; Why these anxious human creatures rush about and worry so.” Said the sparrow to the robin, “I guess that it must be, that they have no Father such as cares for you and me.” And another unknown poet put it like this:
“If God sees the sparrow’s fall, Paints the lilies short and tall,
Gives the skies their azure hue, Will He not then care for you?”
Joni Tada, wrote: “I glanced at the bird feeder and smiled. I could understand Jesus noticing if an eagle or falcon or hawk fell to the ground. Those are the important birds He created, the kind worth attending to. But a scrappy sparrow? They’re a dime a dozen Jesus said so Himself.
“Yet from thousands of bird species, the Lord chose the most insignificant, least-noticed, scruffiest bird of all. A pint-sized thing that even dedicated bird-watchers ignore.” And when you stop and consider all this, it should help to calm our fears. We, at all times should feel significant and noticed. If God takes note of each humble sparrow who they are, where they are, and what they are doing, I know God keeps tabs on me.
Even in Bible times the Sparrow was humble bird. Sparrows were considered food for the poor, and because they were so cheap, the poor could offer them in sacrifice to the Lord if they couldn’t afford a lamb, goat or a bull. According to Jesus, you could buy two sparrows for a penny.
Harold Rose notes that you couldn’t even get a copper coin for two sparrows now. Indeed, “you couldn’t get a copper coin for a million sparrows. A sparrow is about as worthless as birds get. They’re dirty, they usually have fleas and they reproduce abundantly. They have no song, they’re not colorful and they’re not pretty. “Sparrows are some of the most plentiful, common birds in the world,” notes David Dykes. “Where you find people, you’ll find sparrows. They only live in populated areas because they’re scavengers of leftovers.” Concerning Jesus’ choice of sparrows as an example of God’s watchfulness, Dykes writes, “Sparrows . . . were cheap and common. It would make better sense if Jesus had said God knows when every eagle falls, because eagles are such majestic birds. But Jesus was making a point that God cares for the most common, unnoticed birds. Naturalists tell us that there are approximately 70,000 bald eagles in the U.S., Canada and Alaska. But who cares enough to count the sparrows? The answer is, God.
What reassurance! God sees a sparrow when it falls. Another way of looking at this passage then, is that no matter what trial we may be going through, God is aware and God cares. The Master says, “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father’s care. And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So don’t be afraid . . .” I don’t know if you pass Lander’s Chapel down the street, but they have a great saying on their sign at the moment. It says, why worry when you can pray. What a wonderful statement to go along with our lesson for today. Why worry when we can pray!
I don’t know about you but I spend an inordinate time worrying. Oh, I may not be conscious that it’s stress that’s driving me. We could simply call it worry . . . or anxiety or concern, but at heart it’s fear. And I bet I’m not the only one here today who can make that statement. It reminds me of a scene in the 1980 comedy, Airplane. An elderly lady passenger is sitting next to the character Ted Striker as the plane is about to take off. “Nervous?” the elderly woman asks. “Yes,” Striker answers. Thinking this might be his first flight, the old lady asks: “First time?” Striker answers: “No, I’ve been nervous lots of times.”
I think all of us can relate; we’ve all experienced stressful times as well. It reminds me, of another old story about a very nervous airline passenger, years ago, who began pacing the terminal when bad weather delayed his flight. During his walk, he ran across one of those machines you used to find in airports selling flight insurance. This machine offered $100,000 in the event of an untimely death aboard his flight. The policy at the time was only three dollars.
The man looked out the window at the threatening clouds and thought of his family at home. For that price it was foolish not to buy such a policy, so he did. He then looked for a place to eat. He settled on his favorite food, Chinese. It was a relaxing meal until he opened his fortune cookie. It read: “Your recent investment will pay big dividends.” I think that that would be something to worry about. What is it, that makes us worry so much about things that are probably never going to happen? What, or who, can free us from the baggage of fear? Jesus assures us that the answer is God.
Dr. Charles Mayo of the famous Mayo Clinic said this about worry: “There is a growing mountain of evidence that worry is the chief contributor to depression, nervous breakdowns, high blood pressure, heart attacks and early death. Stress kills.” He then goes on to say, “I’ve never known a [person] to die from hard work, but I have known a lot who have died from worry.” It’s true, and we all know it. But Christ wants to set us free from all of our fears, whatever they may be.
Jesus does it in this passage that reminds us that we have a loving Father who is always with us, always mindful of our needs, always willing to grant us His peace, His joy. His eye is on the sparrow. God has such an intimate knowledge of us that He knows every hair on our heads. You may think you’re alone as you face your problems each day, but there’s One who is even closer to us than the air we breathe. He knows our needs. And He cares about us. We are His children, and just as we would never abandon our children, so God will never abandon us. Which means, us having this awareness of God’s unconditional love, should give us an enormous sense of freedom about living our lives. We should be able to live joyfully and peacefully, as if we had not a care in the world.
Thinking about sparrows made me think of an old baseball story. Some of you may remember the name Casey Stengel. Casey is best remembered as the longtime successful manager of the New York Yankees. However, he ended his baseball career as the manager for the lowly New York Mets. The Mets were then an expansion team and, at times, painfully inept, but they won over the hearts of New York as well as across the nation partly due to the unique character of their veteran manager.
As a young man, Casey spent six seasons as an outfielder with the Brooklyn Dodgers. He was then traded to Pittsburgh. When he played his first game back at the Dodgers’ Ebbets Field, the fans booed his first trip to the plate as a Pirate. Rather than being resentful, Stengel decided to win back his former fans. Seeing a sparrow caught on the outfield fence, he rescued the bird and gently tucked it under his cap. When the crowd reacted with boos and catcalls during his second at bat, Stengel called time, stepped back, and gave a sweeping bow to the crowd, allowing the bird to escape from under his cap. The jeers turned to cheers, and Stengel became an instant favorite once again. Casey Stengel wasn’t intimidated by the boos and catcalls. One could say that on the inside he was a free man. And as children of God we know that ultimate freedom in life comes from trusting our life to God.
The message of the Gospel is that we have no need to fear either life or death. We need fear neither tomorrow nor today. We can live faith-filled lives, lives bolstered by our knowledge of God’s love for us and God’s presence with us. This is the secret of achieving great things for God. We operate best in the world when our lives are built on a rock-solid confidence that the world is a nonthreatening place and that behind the world is a caring all powerful Creator who watches over us and will never forsake us. Claude Bristol once called it “the magic of believing.”
As a newspaper reporter, Bristol studied the religions of the world and watched them operate. In hospitals he saw some people die while others, who were just as sick, get well. He watched football teams win while others teams, who had the same resources, lost. He studied the lives of the great men and women of his time in all lines of human endeavor. As a result of years of study, he wrote a book called The Magic of Believing. Here’s what he concluded in that book: “Gradually I discovered that there is a golden thread that runs through all the teachings and makes them work for those who sincerely accept and apply them, and that thread can be named in a single word: ‘belief.’ It is the same element of fact, belief, which causes people to be cured through mental healing, enables others to climb high on the ladder of success . . . there’s genuine magic in believing.”
The great psychologist William James arrived at the same conclusion long before Bristol wrote his book. He said, “Our belief at the beginning of a doubtful undertaking is the one thing, notice that carefully, the one thing, that assures the successful outcome of our venture.” And long before William James, Jesus said the same thing in Mark 9:23: “Everything is possible, for one who believes.”
Of course Christ wasn’t talking about belief in belief itself. He was talking about belief in an omnipotent God who sees every sparrow and counts every hair. If we have even the smallest amount of such faith, faith like a grain of a mustard seed, we can move mountains (Matthew 20:17). And such faith isn’t something we earn. It’s a free gift from our heavenly Father.
The best things in life are free says the old proverb and, of course, that’s true. You can’t put a price on love, health or friendship. However, there is a sense in which you can earn them. To have a friend, it’s said, be a friend. Health is not attained by being a couch potato, we have to be active. Some of the best things in life are free, but must be earned. Not so with faith. It’s a free gift. The only way you can receive it, is to open yourself up to it. A simple prayer will do, perhaps the prayer uttered by a man whose son was having convulsions. He brought him to Jesus. Jesus’ disciples were powerless to help the boy. Jesus asked his father, “How long has this been happening to him?” The distraught father answered, “From childhood . . . if you can do anything,” he pleaded, “have compassion on us and help us.” And Jesus said to him, “All things are possible for one who believes.” Immediately the father of the child cried out and said, “I believe; help my unbelief!” (Mark 9:21-24)
I think that’s a good prayer for all of us to pray. Anytime our lives are in turmoil, anytime fear keeps us awake at night. All we have to do is learn to place our trust in the God who watches over sparrows. When we do, we can pray with complete sincerity, “I believe; help my unbelief!” That’s a prayer that God will answer.
“While driving to a speaking engagement in Southern California, a pastor passed through San Juan Capistrano. The line ‘When the swallows come back to Capistrano’ immediately came to his mind, and he began humming that old song. He recalled that for more than 150 years those golden breasted birds have spent their summers in the eaves of the old mission located there. They always arrive on March 19 and leave on October 23, never missing those dates. Not once have they varied over the years. Even leap year doesn’t change the times of their coming and going. And the swallows invariably start out before daylight on their southern flight.
How do we explain this unusual phenomenon? Nature’s guidance? Luck? Coincidence? I think you know the answer. The swallow’s Creator has put within those little creatures an instinct that tells them, with uncanny accuracy, when to head south and when to return. Their survival depends on this innate sense of timing. What meticulous care God exercises to guide the swallow and all the fowls of the air! But consider how much greater value we are to God than these tiny birds. The One who has so marvelously provided for our feathered friends is certainly interested in [the person] who is made after His own image.”
“Are not two sparrows sold for a penny?” said the Master. “Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father’s care. And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So we have no need to be afraid; we can take comfort in the knowledge that we are worth far more than many sparrows.” It’s good advice: why worry when we can pray.
Amen