The Price of a Sparrow: Reflections on Holy Scripture III

By Deacon Stephen A. Olenchock

The Price of a Sparrow is the third of three books of reflections on the Holy Scripture, each a stand-alone book whose short chapters can be read randomly. There is no order; just let the Holy Spirit guide you to the chapter that you may need to read at that moment. Multiple references from the Book of Genesis through fourteen chapters of the Old Testament are followed by references to the gospels of the New Testament and sixteen chapters, concluding with the Book of Revelation.

As in Thank the Holy Spirit and Blessed Are You Who Believe, the reader is invited to enter on an exciting journey into the Holy Scripture. As the reader, place your own lives into the reflections, and make each experience your own. Please be sure to read the referenced passages in the Holy Scripture, because the word of God inspired those texts. The author would be honored if you would then read the plain language reflections that he has put into the book. Understand, inspiration for these reflections came from the Holy Spirit through me, your writer, and are now given to you, the reader.

Each of us is worth more than the price of a sparrow, yet not one of them falls to the ground without God's knowledge. How much more does God love each one of us!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Jul 2, 2021
• ISBN: 9781098099152

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Price of a Sparrow

The Book of Psalms 71:1–24

The Gospel of Matthew 10:26–33

The Letter to the Romans 5:1–13

Years ago, we tried to find time once a week to be volunteers at the local children’s hospital. It was a way to assist in the needs of our local community and the greater tristate area, because patients came there from throughout West Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania.

As a volunteer, we did what we could to offer comfort to the children, many of whom were without visitors, even family, because of distance, other siblings who needed help, and the need of the parents to keep their jobs for income. We might bring the children age-appropriate movies, help them with doing a craft, or take them for walks around the floor. My favorite way of helping was to rock babies so that their mother could get some rest or a meal. Yes, I let my inner calm work its magic!

We would try our best to bring smiles, comfort, and peace to whomever we encountered. That included trying our best to comfort parents or relatives who were often distraught or worried about their child’s hospital stay, or especially about their baby’s prognosis. The parents who could be there found themselves temporarily living in a new city and being there alone. Oftentimes, we just sat quietly with the parents and listened.

On one such evening, a couple of us went into a room to say hello, and we met the father of a newborn. He was very tall, a broad and husky man, with a very deep voice. I looked up to him, way, way up. In his large hands, he held a little peanut of a newborn baby. It was a beautiful tiny girl who, like a Chihuahua puppy, could have fitted in just one of his hands.

The contrast could have not been any starker: large and strong, tiny and frail; totally independent, totally dependent. It was enough to take one’s breath away. The father’s eyes were filled with pride. He was holding his daughter, his child. His love was palpable; this was his baby girl. We could tell that he was bursting with all the hopes and dreams that a new parent would experience for his child.

The father held up his baby and greeted us, Hi, we just got out of PICU! PICU is the pediatric intensive care unit. He said that we just got out of PICU, not she. In PICU, only patients have beds. The parents and relatives must stay in a waiting room and enter the unit for only short and defined visits.

After talking with the father for a while, it was obvious that he too was in PICU with his daughter. He was there with her, not physically there all of the time, but his whole being was focused on her stay in the unit. All of his being, mentally and physically and emotionally, was with his child twenty-four hours a day. He even told me that, when waiting to enter the unit, he could hear her voice. He heard when she cried, and he knew that the cry came from that new child that was his.

Even from the other side of the door.

All of this love and attention comes from a human being. He has the ability to understand that he must care for his child. He has pride in his child, and he wants to love and protect his child. He can even hear her voice among the voices of all the other babies and know that it came from his daughter. All of this comes from a human being.

How much more might we expect from our God, the God that created each one of us? In the passage from the Gospel of Matthew, we learn that even two lowly sparrows are sold only for a small coin, yet not one of them falls to the ground without the Father knowing it. Even the hairs on our human heads are known and counted by our God. But our God loves us and cares for us and knows our needs so personally and intimately that God knows even the number of hairs on our head or when a lowly sparrow falls to the ground.

From the Book of Psalms, we hear the song that God is our rock and our refuge, our secure stronghold. We hope and we trust in God from our very birth. And, for that, we should be filled with praise and sing to God’s glory each and every day. Even in our afflictions, as the Letter to the Romans tells us, the love of God has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit.

While talking with a friend, we discussed that she recently had a surgical procedure performed on her. She talked about her fears and her feeling of helplessness, no longer being in control of her own body. Then when she approached her anticipated surgery spiritually and put herself in God’s hands, she felt a sense of relief and a sense of freedom from her fears. In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus again reminds us to not be afraid. We are worth more to God than the price of a sparrow.

Throughout our communities, all around us, perhaps even in our own families, or families of people whom we know, there are people who are suffering, sick, lonely, or just feeling isolated from others. There are people who are fearful, worried, or anxious. Jesus told us to not be afraid.

As disciples of Jesus, and as members of our faith communities, we must concern ourselves with determining what we can do to help others to feel wanted, needed, and useful, even as they suffer and are fearful. They need our caring, encouragement, and conviction that their lives are just as worthwhile for the building of salvation in their suffering as they were when they were actively engaged in a full and busy life. They must hear from us and be convinced that, in their suffering, God cares for them and loves them.

But, before we can minister to others, we must hear and be convinced that each one of us is important to God and each one of is loved by God. We must believe that our own lives are worthwhile and necessary for continuing salvation history.

The Father loves each one of us so much that he knows everything about us, even the number of hairs on our heads, and God knows that we are worth much more than the price of a sparrow.

The Awe of God

The Gospel of John 20:19–31

The Book of Revelation 1:9–18

Dear God, make me consciously aware of your presence in my life.

Midway through my formation to become a permanent deacon, a young Benedictine priest—I will call him Father Mike—came to our group class for a weekend that was devoted to the topic of spirituality. The weekend was not just an academic lecture event but a lived and experienced time of contemplative spirituality.

During the course of the weekend, Father Mike gave us a short prayer, Dear God, make me consciously aware of your presence in my life. Then he told us to pray it, if you dare. What a curious thing to say.

But over time, I have come to recognize that through that prayer we are inviting God to make God present to us in a very real way. This can be frightening. We become vulnerable. Through that prayer, we are opening ourselves to experience the awe of God, today, at this very moment, in our lives. It is, as we read in The Book of Revelation, as if we should fall down at God’s feet as though we are dead.

What do I mean by the awe of God? This is not the feeling of pleasant surprise that we experience when we get an exam or term paper back and find out that the professor really liked it. That is a good feeling, of course, but not one filled with awe, just shock along with a good grade.

No, the experience of awe is more like the feeling that we might get when we look into the eyes of someone we love and recognize that he or she loves us back. Or the experience that we have when we see a newborn baby and we put her tiny little hands in ours. Something that is indescribable, yet very real.

At Easter, we hear the Easter Proclamation, the Exultet, chanted with these words, Rejoice, o earth, in shining splendor, radiant in the brightness of your king. All around us, if we look, if we really look, we can see the glory of the risen Jesus. If we spend just a little time to look up at the stars or pay attention to the budding leaves, the beauty of spring flowers, the joyful laugh of a little child, or the gentleness of a breeze, we can see the brightness of our King.

These are such common things in our everyday lives that we tend to take for granted; but Easter challenges us to stop and experience the risen Jesus who bought our salvation with his passion, death, and resurrection. Easter challenges us to regain our sense of awe in the ordinary everyday things in our lives, to look beyond the mundane, and to rediscover the presence of the risen Jesus in the world around us and the world within ourselves.

We are called to share in the sense of joy and love that the disciples experienced when the risen Jesus appeared to them and said, Peace be with you. The same Jesus who was tortured, crucified, buried, and who is now risen and in their presence.

Even the doubts of Thomas could not dampen their sense of awe when they exclaimed that they had seen the Lord. Yet, within each one of us, a little bit of Thomas is alive and well.