I like birds.  I like feeding birds.  I’ve been on a big bird feeding kick lately.

I’ve always fed birds at the house.  Recently I found myself getting up from my desk or chair in my office and looking over toward the house to see if there were any birds at my feeders.  Doing that had a couple of interesting results.  First, I convinced myself that it was time for a new pair of glasses (it looks like I’m gonna be a new pair every year kinda guy now!) and that I was spending a lot of time looking for birds that I couldn’t enjoy that well.

So….since I can’t spend a lot of time sitting outside and getting nothing done, I decided to put a feeder outside my office window.  You know the type, suction cups and an acrylic tray with a canopy?  You don’t? Well it looks sort of like this.

Nobody's here for lunch right now!

Much to my surprise and pleasure, I haven’t attracted the hordes of house sparrows that make a mess of my back yard feeder.  Apparently it’s just enough out of the way to attract more solitary species like the Tufted Titmouse and the Whitebreasted Nuthatch.

These are both birds that, at least at my feeder, come one at a time, take one seed and then fly off to open it and eat it.  Then back they come.

By contrast the house sparrows (a scourge of nature in many ways) make a ruckus and a mess and spend as much time chasing other birds off as they do getting food from the feeder.

At the risk of being unkind, I’ve seen people that treat God like the sparrows do.  In the interest of being there first and getting the most, they have a tendency to run others off.  It’s understandable, on some level all of us animals have been patterned to care for our own needs.  We need to get what we need to get while the getting’s good or we might not get anything.

That may be so for a lot of things, maybe even bird seed included.  But I don’t see that to be a primary trait of God. God, it seems, does a better job than I do of seeing that the feeder doesn’t go empty.

The God of my worship and experience, as represented in the life, teaching and ministry of Jesus is a God that sees that there’s plenty to go around if we can be trained to understand what’s enough, and how to be satisfied with enough.

I have to believe that’s at the heart of several of Jesus’ parables and miracles.  The Feeding Miracles in all of the Gospels couldn’t have happened if greed had taken over the mind of the group.  I just don’t see Jesus putting up with that.  Jesus also makes a point in the Matthew and Mark about God’s provision for the birds of the air and the sin of worry and anxiety (See Matt. 6:25-33 and Luke 12:22-34).

I think I’m going to try and approach my spiritual life like a nuthatch or titmouse for now.  I’m gonna take the nugget before me, crack it open, inwardly digest it (I couldn’t help myself on that one, sorry!) and return to the source of my nourishment time and again and trust that there will always be something tasty in God’s tray set before me by grace and in abundance.

My office windows look out, at roughly ground level, on the yard between the church and the rectory (where the rector and his family live).  I get to see the seasons pass before me. There’s much to learn from squirrels and birds if we pay attention.

Over the past couple of days, I’ve been watching young house sparrows and grey squirrels explore the world around them and learn about making their way in it.

I feed the birds intentionally.  The squirrels, not so much, but I feed them nonetheless.  Watching both species at my fancy ‘squirrel proof’ feeder is a real treat. 

The sparrows represent a scarcity mentality at its most fervent.  There are four feeding spots at this feeder. One would think that it would accommodate at least four sparrows at once.  Wrong!  Every time someone gets to the feeder and a second bird alights there as well, sparrow one freaks out and chases him off.  While that’s happening someone else flies in and snatches a seed or two while the vying is going on.  Pretty soon the feeder starts to sway a bit and birdseed winds up all over the place.  Interestingly enough, those who get to feed most peaceably and to their heart’s content seldom perch at the intended spot at all.

Sometimes we humans, even Christian ones are just like that.  We see abundance before us and expend more energy making sure that we get our share than we have to.  I like to think I’m pretty gracious with the wild bird mix in that feeder, but the frenzy mentality takes hold every time.  If I’m honest with myself, I’m often times more like a sparrow than one who trustsdeeply in Grace–God’s unmerited favor towards me.

Life in Christ is not competitive in the way of winners and losers.  We are called to an assured posture of God’s provision for us.  It seems to me that Jesus had a thing or two say about the first being last and the last being first.

God, give me the grace and courage to trust in you.  I suspect you care at least as much about feeding me and all of the rest of your Beloved as I do in feeding my sparrow friends.  Let my life and the lives of your faithful people reflect, demonstrate and proclaim that truth!