The kingdom of heaven is like…

There I was this morning, sitting at the dining room table with my daughters. As usual, my 1 1/2 year old was in the process of eating her eggs and using them as hair gel at the same time. Lucy, at the more mature age of almost-three, was busily multi-asking: eating toast while spilling her orange juice. Outside the window, the birds had started their breakfast at the bird feeders. Finches, chickadees, crows, a nuthatch, two woodpeckers and even a stray couple of pigeons. Then it hit me. Maybe the kingdom of heaven is like a bird-feeder. We could say church is like a bird-feeder, but since Jesus started this whole story telling thing, I’ll follow with his beginning.

Maybe... The kingdom of heaven is like a bird feeder. The seed is there for everyone to eat. There are no walls or barriers. It just sits there for anyone who is hungry. Whether you are hungry or not doesn’t matter, the food just sits there. Not every bird comes, but the ones who do come are usually quite a motley crew. There is the large assortment of chickadees. They can’t seem to decide if they’d rather eat or talk. Sometimes they just want to fly in circles and pick fights. Then there are the starlings. They can’t eat out of the small feeders, but enjoy scaring all of the smaller birds away so that no one can eat. They make a lot of noise, but don’t seem very useful to the bird kingdom. There are also the gold finches and house finches. They seem to be the quietest group. They usually play nice and even show a nice bit of color now and then.

The nuthatch likes to look down on the whole show from the tree for a while. Sometimes he will join in, but mostly he is just there to watch and inspect. The robins usually show up first, but like to leave when the riffraff arrives. The grosbeaks arrive when the warm weather of summer comes. They don’t come often, but when they do, you feel flattered to have them. There are still more; the hummingbirds, the sparrows, the pigeons, the sapsucker and the rest. One thing draws all of us. It doesn’t apologize for seeming to be the same every week; it doesn’t try to change and be what everyone wants it to be. It just sits there in the same place every day. If you are in need; take, eat, this is my body and blood broken for you.