Br. Curtis Almquist SSJE

Matthew 10:24-33

What is going on with Jesus’ curious, rhetorical question, “Are you not of more value than many sparrows…?” Hmmm. Sparrows? It would have been one thing if Jesus had said, “You are of more value than gold, frankincense, and myrrh.”[i] But no, he says, “You are of more value than sparrows.”

In Jesus’ day, a provision was made for the poor in the sacrificial offerings they made at the Temple in Jerusalem. If one could not afford to sacrifice a lamb, then an offering of sparrows was an acceptable alternative. Two sparrows were sold for one Roman penny. Two Roman pennies made a farthing. A farthing was 1/64 of a denarius. And a denarius was the average laborer’s wage for one day. So a common laborer’s daily wage would buy about 130 sparrows.

Hidden in this metaphor, comparing us with this most common, everyday bird, is a word of comfort. When you look on the streets and in the media, the endless numbers of people who are living with appalling suffering and often with egregious injustice, and with every reason to be afraid, when you see these multitudes of people who are nameless to us – so many, and with such monochrome and harrowing suffering – they could appear to us not unlike sparrows, one suffering face indistinguishable from the next. But they do have such great value. Each one, individually, has an inestimable worth. Each one is known and loved eternally by God. Like sparrows to us, they may seem indistinguishable; to God they are known and loved by name.[ii]

We should remember God’s eternal and personal love as we witness the masses of suffering people: how we pray for them and act on their behalf, on behalf of at least some of them. God knows them and loves them each by name. We among them.

Some day you also may feel like a lonely sparrow in a great flock as you face your own suffering – suffering that is piercing, or suffering that is frightening, or suffering that is endless. There may be for us all, sooner or later, a comforting reminder in this metaphor about the value even of sparrows: God knows and loves each us of all by name and sees in us something distinctive, precious, and of eternal worth.

[i] A riff on the magi’s gifts to the Christ child as remembered in Matthew 2:1-11.

[ii] Psalm 91:14, 139:1-3; Isaiah 43:1, 45:3-4, 49:16; Jeremiah 1:5; John 10:3, 14-15, 27.