Yesterday, I found myself enjoying the afternoon sunlight – a welcome fall guest in my living room. Our west facing windows that have been drawn tight to shut out the blistering summer rays were finally flung open. Gladly received sunbeams flooded through the two large windows seeking out every dusty corner and consuming every sly shadow. My favorite time of day… my favorite time of year.
I was routinely taking the never ending rotation of shoes to their proper places and scooping up a few rogue Legos before dinner. Princesses were reunited in the toy cabinet, and the baby doll was given her missing bottle. Endless mommy cleaning… constant, endless, mommy cleaning.
Every misplaced item had found a home except for a few pieces of trash that I collected as I cleaned. Walking towards the trash can, I looked down into my hand at a broken car wheel, a juice box straw, and a penny.
As I stood there, I recalled a very similar afternoon many years before. I was 8 years old and the sun was streaking through my bedroom window. I was standing in a newly cleaned room with a trash bag in my hand. My momma who had come to admire my hard work asked,
“What did you throw away?
I opened the bag revealing scraps of paper, a misplaced Barbie shoe and a few coins…
“Rebecca Faith. When did we get rich enough to throw away money?”
My momma’s words echoed across twenty years as I look down at the contents of my hand – A broken car wheel, a juice box straw, and a penny.
I threw away the wheel and the straw and set the penny on the kitchen counter.
I felt exactly like I had 20 years before…keeping this penny seemed like more of an inconvenience than it was worth.
And then I heard the Lord say, “But it has value.”
I stood in the warmth of the fall light as He illuminated a picture of the Church.
I recognized the Church concerned with cleanliness and overlooking the people being swept up and tossed out with the trash.
He showed me a body of believers with a mission to have a place for everything between 10 and noon – So concerned with order that the inconvenience of sorting through the garbage of people’s lives and saving the people out of it was just not worth the hassle.
I saw the Church standing with trash bag in hand boasting of its hard work as God asks…
“WHAT did you throw away?!”
And the Church replies, “But look how spotless we are. Look how orderly our services are…”
And Jesus says, “The price that I paid was in exchange for that penny. That penny has worth because of me. When did you decide that that every single penny was not worth keeping? When did we get rich enough to throw away money?”
And we peek into the bag and realize… we missed it.
Because the pennies aren’t a distraction from the mission… they are the mission.
The purpose of the Church as always been to search out the lost.
So I picked the penny up off of the counter and put it where it belonged – in the company of other coins just like it… coins who when joined together are able to accomplish more…
And the same is true of us.
“For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.” Luke 19:10
And our purpose has always been to continue his…
