June 22, 2008
Text: Matthew 10:24-39; Romans 6:1b-11
Pr. Robert Goldstein
More Than The Sparrows

In the gospel Jesus is preparing his disciples for the frightening future they would face. They would be like sheep in the midst of wolves, he warns. They would be arrested and dragged into court and beaten. They would be hated by all because of him, a special kind of abandonment indeed.

Do not be afraid, he tells them. And then he invokes a powerful metaphor-about sparrows-about not one sparrow falling apart from God's love and compassion and powerful presence. "So do not be afraid," he says. "You are of more value than many sparrows." That's the good news . . .nothing separates us from God's love. There is no where we can go and nothing that can ever happen to us that pushes us out of the story, marginalizes us, removes us from God's amazing grace and radically inclusive love. When that love and grace live in an institution; when God's inclusive love is working in a community, lives start changing; life starts to overcome death, rebirth starts to happen, people start to live again, thirst is quenched, life is renewed.

That's what happened to author Anne Lamott in her little Presbyterian church in Marin City. She writes:

"One of our newer members, Ken Nelson, is dying of AIDS, disintegrating before our very eyes . . . but when Ken smiles, he is radiant . . .He says he would gladly pay any price for what he has now, which is Jesus, and us.There's a woman in the choir named Ranola who is large and beautiful and jovial and as devout as can be, who has been a little standoffish toward Ken. She was raised in the South and taught that his way of life-that he-was an abomination. It is hard for her to break through this . . . But Kenny has come to church almost every week for the last year and won almost everyone over. He finally missed a couple of Sundays when he was too weak, and then a month ago he was back, weighing almost no pounds. Still, during the prayers of the people, he talked joyously of his life and his decline, of grace and redemption, of how safe and happy he feels these days.

"So on this one particular Sunday, for the Hymn of the Day, we were to sing "God's Eye Is on the Sparrow." The pianist was playing and the whole congregation had risen-only Ken remained seated, holding the hymnal in his lap-and we began to sing, "Why should I feel discouraged? Why do the shadows fall?" Ranola watched Kenny rather skeptically for a moment, and then her face began to melt. She went to his side and bent down to lift him up-lifted up this white rag doll, this scarecrow. She held him next to her, draped over and against her like a child while they sang." And," Ann Lamott said, "that reconciliation and discovered love pierced me."

That, I believe, is what God meant when God created us. Even the sparrows were created to remind us of how deep God's love is for us, created so that we might look for the sparrows amongst us, especially ones with broken wings. Have you ever taken the time to look at a little bird closely? I know the rush of modern life might render that absurd or childish. Absurd it is, because it is of a different logic -the logic of wonder. And who better is qualified to wonder than the child, the child in all of us. But taking the time to observe the little birds around your house or in the park is not childish -it's childlike! Don't let the world squeeze that out. Hey, ride a tricycle now and then! To watch these delicate little birds eke out a meal, dodge cats and bigger birds, take care of their young, is a treat for your own self. They just live their lives -and, as theologian Karl Barth said, they are truly and absolutely faithful to God their creator because they live out their little course of life as best they can -winter and summer, rich and lean seasons.

In God's eyes we are more than these wonderful sparrows. We know a lot more -perhaps too much for own good. But God has given us more. We are not automatically faithful as they are to the creator who created us all out of the dust of the universe. But when our wings are broken, Jesus sees our pain. Jesus created a community, so ancient and yet so present now, to spread the word that we are forgiven, and healed even if our malady cannot be fixed by human skill. Because we are more than these wonderful little sparrows St. Paul asks, "Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?" What is Paul saying to us? Well, when you fell off your tricycle and grazed you knee, did not your mother come to you and kiss your wound to make it better? And didn't you somehow feel better?

God kisses the sparrow's broken wing. God, in the community of faith, kisses where you hurt too. And Paul is saying, "We know that. We already know that God loves us more than even the sparrows. So let us not look back, let us not regret our mistakes, let us not worry about the future that is truly in God's hands, which means, stop continuing to live in sin, in death thinking, death attitude and actions. But Paul is saying even more…

"Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?" is what grammarians called a hortatory subjunctive. Not it is not a command. Not merely a statement of some fact. Rather it is an appeal to our better nature in which the Spirit indwells. More clearly it could be restated as, "Let's not continue in our negative ways so that grace will always flow to forgive us. Let us instead live in that grace so good works and hope and love and peace and redemption and reconciliation may abound from that grace. Paul is exhorting us to grow in our faith, to reach for the sparrows in their faithfulness. For, baptized in Christ, always forgiven by grace, and always expecting to be, is short-sighted and even abusive. Rather Paul is inviting us to continue in grace so that the fullness of God may abound in us and through us.

And if we dare to so live, we will be little sparrows in God's eyes as little sparrows are so wondrously in ours. When Ranola dared to follow God's grace rather than abuse it, God gave her the strength to break through her death-existence and to pick up one of God's little sparrows. We too can move from death's use of grace, to grace's power to love. For we truly are more than the sparrows. Amen