“If your eye is generous, your whole being is full of light!” Jesus

It is baby Bluebird season in our back yard. We have had Bluebirds coming to our feeding station for the past 3 years now. I put out dried mealworms to keep them faithful. We also put up a bluebird nesting box, which they have ignored every year so far…but they do nest somewhere near…near enough so that when the young birds fledge we have them in our back yard daily. Before they learn to use the mealworm feeder by themselves (a Squirrelbuster Mini…which I had to resort to to keep from feeding all my expensive dried mealworms to the local squirrels) they come and sit in the branches we have mounted on the deck by the feeders, or on the rail of the deck itself, and wait for the adults to come and feed them. The fledglings do that vibrating thing with their wings and open their mouth’s wide, making that little cry they do, and the adults go to the feeder over and over and bring back a mealworm morsel to pop into the open mouth of the youngster. In a few days the fledglings will learn to use the feeder themselves and this part of the show will be over.

Jesus said, “Take a look at and learn from the birds. They don’t sow or reap, and they have no barns, and yet your heavenly father feeds them. Surely you believe he carries you more carefully than he does the birds!”

He says it in the middle of a long passage where he teaches his disciples, and us, to just get on with whatever God gives us to do…trusting our life and our well being absolutely to him. Jesus says, in several different metaphors “why worry about food and stuff? God knows what you need. Just be busy about God’s work, and he will take care of you!”

The passage begins, however, with advice on dealing with the poor and vulnerable among us, and the “getting on with it” has to be seen in that context.

In the baby bluebirds on our deck we have the whole story. The fledglings are busy reminding the adults that they need to be fed…you can see it in the vibrating wings and open mouths. In the context of scripture they stand for the vulnerable among us. And the adults are busy feeding them (though, by now, they have a new clutch of eggs to tend as well). They stand for the disciples of Christ, the children of God, who are busy caring for those in need, and living lives of trust in God. Living lives, doing what needs to be done, but trusting God to take care of them.

Consider…look at and learn from…the birds. Consider the bluebirds. Happy Sunday!