Lent 3 | COINS
“Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father.” Matthew 10:29
We talk about “compassion fatigue” and burn out, lacking emotional bandwidth, or simply reaching the end of our rope. We project our own human limits on the triune God. Surely, we imagine, God has bigger problems to tackle than ours — be they health related, family dynamics, money stresses, or job woes. This verse tells us otherwise. God cares deeply for us, knowing the hairs on our heads and each word before we speak it. God’s involvement in our lives knows no limits.
Jesus so emphatically wants to communicate God’s providence and omnipotence and loving-kindness that he points to the sparrows, two sold for a penny, of not much worth from our human perspective. And yet, these sparrows that we buy and sell for next to nothing — God notes the death of each and every one. How much more, therefore, does God regard each and every person?
How might we see ourselves, the people around us and around the globe, animals and all creation, if we considered daily their worth in God’s eyes? No portion of land or person, centimeter of earth or centipede, is unseen by our God. All are knit together and known by their Creator.
Questions for Reflection
What do you sell for “two pennies” that God cares deeply about? How might this knowledge shape your relationship to those two-penny creatures and things?
Are you mindful that God loves you so much that there is nothing about you unknown by God? Take time to remember that all your concerns are God’s concerns, too.
God, we give thanks for the sparrows sold for two pennies, the creatures so plentiful we often fail to notice them and for all the priceless people we encounter this day. We thank you, too, for your unfailing love for us. We give to you our deepest concerns and our greatest hopes, knowing that you will take them, honor them, and mold them into something beautiful for you and for us. Amen.
Thank you for journeying through Lent with us…
Receive our Lenten devotionals by emailing info@theologicalhorizons.org.
Thanks to Jill J. Duffield for allowing us to adapt from her book, Lent in Plain Sight: A Devotion Through Ten Objects. Read the book and join us for a virtual book club discussion at 4pm on Saturday, April 3.
