You are worth more than many sparrows
One more morning sparrow, also with the new Daniel Smith watercolors my daughter gave me.
As I paint I am thinking of a few old words in a parable about sparrows and other passerines. (Passerines are birds like sparrows, those little birds you might see at a bird feeder. (Latin, passer = sparrow.)
“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.”
Words like those tell us something about the abundance of small birds in the place where those words were written. They probably tell us about religious rituals like sacrifices, and about food systems and poverty and wealth. Who could afford to keep birds all the time? Only those who had land enough to feed them. But “the birds of the air” are fed by another, and the poor can often find a small bird for a meal even if they cannot afford the large birds or bigger animals the wealthy can consume.
At times of famine countries have depended on passerines to feed people.
In many times and places people consider passerines pests, and blame them for fouling gardens or residences.
Sometimes we don’t even notice them. We might hear a thump when one hits the car or the office window and not notice that one has fallen to the ground, stunned or dead.
What might it mean if their creator does notice? And what if their creator notices but we do not notice, or do not care?
We would be like people wandering through a workshop or a museum unaware of the masterpieces around us.
I’d rather not be that way.
In the Garden one of the jobs of the first of our ancestors was to speak the names of the other creatures. And the Creator listened.
I don’t know most of their names, I admit.
But I want to learn them, and speak them.
Names matter to those who love.
Consider the sparrows. The market might not place a high value on them but their Creator does.
And you are loved even more than they are.
And so is everyone else. In the parable, no one is left out.
