God Loves Even the Fifth Sparrow

Our friend Gary joined us for our Free Store conversation on Tuesday morning.  Before he got started with the conversation someone remembered that he had run over some toes in an incident with a remote controlled monster truck the last time he was with us.  Although Gary apologized for any offense he had given not everyone was convinced of his sincerity.  So we teased him and laughed a bit before letting him start the discussion.

Gary began by asking us if we had ever really looked at a one dollar bill?  He pointed out that there were spider webs on it and then asked us if we knew where the spider was.  Eddie jumped up excitedly and rushed to the dollar in question and said that he had seen it which made us laugh.  As it turns out there is a spider at the right top of the bill on the side with Washington's head.  Gary said he was pretty sure this was done to make the bills more difficult to counterfeit although he wasn't sure if dollar bills were the target of many counterfeiters.  At this point he asked us to think about all the things in life and to ask, "What is counterfeit?" and "What is genuine?"

We talked about how we can be deceived by our senses and that there is a world beyond our senses that is even more real than the world we sense around us.  Eddie said that his grandmother used to tell him, "Don't believe nuthin that you hear, and only half of what you see" which made us laugh.  Gary said that it is easy for us to be fooled by our senses.  He talked about how ad agencies will use the method of bait and switch to sell us stuff.  This happens when a car is advertised with good looking models which gives us the impression that we will look like that by driving their vehicle.

At this point in the conversation someone said that some things can only be known by their effects.  We don't see the wind but we know it by its effects in the world.  This led someone to mention the devastating tornados in Joplin, MO.  Our friend Eddie said that a blind person could often sense things that other people couldn't.

Gary told us that God's love was genuine and that we were loved just because we exist.  He told us that authentic love is unconditional and that we can't earn it or do anything to either make God love us more or to stop loving us.  He mentioned that God cared about us enough to count the hairs on our heads.  At this someone said that wouldn't be too hard in Gary's case which made us laugh.  Gary went on to say that Jesus also talked about God's love even for the fifth sparrow.  He said that in the ancient world two sparrows were sold for a penny and that five sparrows were sold for two pennies.  Essentially the fifth sparrow was thrown in to sweeten the deal and had no real value at all.  He said that if God loves even the fifth sparrow then surely God loves us which we thought was both clever and encouraging.

As our conversation moved to a conclusion we talked about how authentic love is the most important thing in our lives.  Someone said they had heard about a Cowboy church in Texas that meets in a saloon.  At this Eddie stood up excitedly again and said that he had been to that church and that the preacher speaks from a mechanical bull in the center of the floor.  At this our friend that started the story said that he heard a clip of a sermon in which the cowboy preacher says, "There ain't no real bull in this place.  This is a no bull church that preaches a no bull gospel" which made us laugh.  Our friend Liz said that she thought it was just beautiful to realize that we can't do anything for God's love except be who we are.  That sounded very much like good news to all of us.