More than Many Sparrows

More Than Many Sparrows would be a good Christian rock group name.

I’ve thought about this phrase, used by Jesus, a lot over the years. I don’t have any serious biblical insight to give on it, but what I see in this phrase, where Jesus assures his disciples that they are worth more than many sparrows (Matthew 10:31), it has always reminded me of an adult reassuring a child.

Like what if Jesus had been on the earth in the 90s, maybe he would’ve said “you are worth more than many Pogs.” Remember Pogs? Yeah me neither. Just like nobody can remember the Macarena. In any case a sparrow is small but God has gifted it with flight and song and home. Jesus is saying look at this thing that I clearly care for, that your Heavenly Father clearly cares for, look how well I take care of it. How much better will I care for you? Because you are worth more than many sparrows. The gentleness and the simplicity of the reasoning is profound, which is often the case with Jesus.

But when we’re suffering it is hard to hear this. Because, realistically, sparrows of course die all the time. They get eaten by cats constantly. They don’t have peaceful lives. But in God’s creation they live lives of purpose and meaning because they are doing what God made them to do, and he cares for them, gives them what they need. But he also gives the cat what it needs, and sometimes that means getting a sparrow. Or even getting a sparrow’s house, a nest, knocked over and the babies spilled out so neighborhood cats and raccoons have a snack.

There are these beautiful cardinals that like to come hang out in our backyard. I notice them the most on Sunday mornings, usually while drinking my morning tea. And every time I think of this verse: you are worth more than many sparrows. But once I saw a cat in our front yard consume baby birds it had gotten from somewhere. I’m not usually horrified by animals acting in their natural capacity, but this really bothered me. Helpless baby birds. They must have been so terrified, as the cat is just munching down on them.

This seems to be part of the mystery at the heart of suffering. God is a good father, not a nice father. He has constructed the cosmos in such a way that we can look at the natural world and find comfort, and also terror. In Matthew 6 Jesus uses the analogy of birds and flowers to make a similar point. He basically says the same thing about the birds as he says in Matthew 10:

Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?

And the flowers:

And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith?

And we see here again that gentle simplicity of reasoning. But there is terror and indifference hidden behind it.

This is why Job begs for Jesus, without knowing he is doing so in Job 9:33-35:

If only there were a mediator between us, someone who could bring us together. The mediator could make God stop beating me, and I would no longer live in terror of his punishment. Then I could speak to him without fear, but I cannot do that in my own strength.

So much of Job’s struggle does not seem to be with what has happened to him so much as the fact that God is wholly other and he has no way to contend with him, or communicate with God. Which is why he is so blown away when God finally shows up. God doesn’t offer a single word of encouragement or explanation to Job yet Job is completely enraptured because God did what he wanted and had begged for. He isn’t worried about getting his children back, he’s worried about God and what this all means. God condescends to Job and he takes it as the greatest thing ever. Seems like if Job had access to Jesus maybe he wouldn’t have had much of a struggle with his suffering.

Don’t be afraid of those who want to kill your body; they cannot touch your soul. Fear only God, who can destroy both soul and body in hell. What is the price of two sparrows—one copper coin? But not a single sparrow can fall to the ground without your Father knowing it. And the very hairs on your head are all numbered. So don’t be afraid; you are more valuable to God than a whole flock of sparrows.

Jesus says something here that seems somewhat contradictory. He says fear only God because he’s the only one that can really hurt you. That is something Job really understood. Satan never comes into his theory of why this is happening, it’s always about God. Jesus is arguing here that fearing God actually removes fear. He says do not be afraid of those that seek to kill you, because they can’t kill you unless God wants you dead. And the comfort from being worth more than many sparrows isn’t that he will provide for them but that he knows when they die. So much more so does he pay attention to your death. Fearing God leads to an absence of fear of the dangers of this world, partly because he’s the only really dangerous thing in it.

He’s a good father, not a nice father. Sometimes its good to beat a dead horse, or in this case an imaginary lion:

“Then he isn’t safe?” said Lucy.

“Safe?” said Mr Beaver; “don’t you hear what Mrs Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.”

“I’m longing to see him,” said Peter, “even if I do feel frightened when it comes to that point.”

But it isn’t just in Lewis that we see God as scary. The Bible depicts God as very scary.

“So the LORD brought us out of Egypt with a strong hand and powerful arm, with overwhelming terror, and with miraculous signs and wonders.” -Deuteronomy 26:8

Overwhelming terror. Did only the Egyptians experience this terror? No, Israel was scared too. Wouldn’t you be after witnessing what God did to the Egyptians? God is scary and dangerous.

We are worth more than many sparrows, but I don’t think this is quite the gentleness I used to think it was. Jesus is the gentleness we need because he makes comprehensible an incomprehensible God. He is gentle and lowly. But God is also terrifying and wholly other as well. These contradictions are resolved in the cross, and that is the key to seeing suffering in our own lives resolved as well. God is a good father, but not a very nice one. Should we want a nice one, a god of convenience who fits into our American vision of Jesus? It seems like we should seek after the real God, the God that actually is there. In Him the terror and the beauty of existence are ultimately found and resolved, whether the resolution makes sense to us now or even in the depths of eternity.