Jesus’ words to his disciples in Matthew’s gospel include some hard truths:

“Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. … Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.”

And yet even in this troubling passage, Jesus says we are more valuable than two sparrows sold for a penny, and even the number of hairs on our head are counted.

This captures the tension we live in as people of faith. We are deeply precious and so very valuable to God, not because of anything we have done or will do, but because God has said so. And when we live as though each and every person is just as precious and just as valuable, when we follow in the footsteps of Jesus, when we strive to live for God, we can expect to meet resistance.

We experience conflict within ourselves, with the people we love, and with the world. And we experience loss, the loss of relationship and the loss of life as we knew.

Faith does not mean that we get to avoid loss. Instead, faith gives us a way to live through our loss because our hope in Jesus does not disappoint. So much of that conflict Jesus predicts, the conflicts we experience within ourselves and with the people we love, so often it is based on the fear of all that we have to lose. And often what we hold onto so tightly does not actually bring us the life that we long for.

When we become too focused on ourselves and our own interests, when we cling too tightly to that which is nearby, God’s promise remains: we are still more valuable than all the sparrows. God still knows the number of hairs on our head. And God will continue to love us through communities like this one, so that we might begin to believe that we will survive the losses of life and that God will deliver us to life and love everlasting.