Reversing the Lens of Matthew 6:26
Philipose Vaidyar
Prologue
What about the return journey? When you always travel forward on one route and come back on another, the scenery feels familiar but different. Yet if you return on the very same road you took earlier, everything looks new because your perspective has changed. What would happen in our story if we made a U-turn and walked back through it from a different angle of experience? The story would remain the same, and the teaching would not change, but our understanding might deepen. Let's get ready for a new shot
We are well-versed in the comforting logic of the Sermon on the Mount. “Look at the birds of the air,” Jesus tells us, “they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?” (Matthew 6:26). For generations, we have meditated on this verse to soothe our own anxieties, using the birds as a mirror to see God’s care for us. But recently, in the quiet of my garden, I felt the lens flip. Perhaps it is time we look at the birds not just to see how God provides for us, but to see how we might provide for them on behalf of the Creator.
This reflection began indoors with a handcrafted bamboo platter. A friend had picked it up during his travels and brought it to me, trusting my creativity to transform it into a meaningful piece of art for his home. He wanted birds; he wanted a verse. With focused strokes of black paint, I shaped the silhouettes of birds across the curved surface, framing the words of Matthew 6:26.
But while I sat in the shade carefully painting these black silhouettes, a real-life bird in the full-colored garden was weaving a masterpiece of her own. Tucked within the broad leaves at the head of a Nenthran plantain, very close to my house, a pair of Jungle Babblers were building a sanctuary. Thirteen months ago, I wrote at length about the noisy fellowship of these birds in our garden It is clearly their hatching season once again.
I didn't climb the A-ladder to inspect the fruit for harvest, but to answer a question of the heart: Was this nest abandoned, or was it a live home? As I approached, a bird flew away, confirming it was active. Inside, I found three eggs; by this morning, there are four. Four fragile spheres of life, pulsing with a future that has only just begun.
However, the "return journey" took a challenging turn today. Another plantain tree in the garden, despite being supported, succumbed to its weight and fell. As I moved to salvage the fruit, I found a second nest, almost complete, hidden within its fallen leaves. Was this another mother from the same community? The crisis is now twofold. The summer heat is intensifying, and I am not sure if the tree holding the four eggs can survive another month. If it falls, both the harvest and the home are lost.
The irony is sharp. I was being paid to depict birds on a bamboo platter, while being entrusted by the Creator to protect living birds in a tree I claimed to own. We often use Matthew 6:26 to claim our own provision on the receiving end. But standing between a fallen tree and a leaning one, I realized: if we are of more value than the birds, does that value not come with a mandate to be on the giving end of that provision?
If the Lord has provided for us so far through different ways, means, and people, why can’t we be the "incidentals" in the arms of a providing God? Why can’t we be the instruments through which He cares for someone else—even these birds? Faith is not just trusting God to provide for our needs; it is choosing to be the hands of God that protect the "lesser" things He loves.
I have removed the ladder and added new supports to the stem. I am choosing to delay the harvest of thirteen months of labor, even if the summer heat threatens the fruit. Sometimes the most profound theological application isn't found in what we take from the earth, but in what we are willing to leave untouched to let life begin.
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Between Bananas and Babblers
Philipose Vaidyar
Sometimes, in the quiet corners of a garden, life asks us to pause and choose—not between right and wrong, but between what we see and what we value.
Thirteen months ago, I wrote in lenght about the noisy
fellowship of jungle babblers in our garden. I had watched them closely then,
learning their rhythm, their quarrels, and their companionship.
(The blog link is here: https://pvarticles.blogspot.com/2025/01/the-guava-tree-chattering-jungle.html ) It must be their hatching season again.
A few days ago, I noticed a nest tucked among the bananas between the broad leaves at the head of a nenthran plantain in our garden, very close to our home. The banana bunch hangs full and heavy, ready for harvest. These bananas are not accidental fruit—they are the result of a year’s labor: bringing in the bulbs and planting it rightly, manuring the soil, watering through dry days, patiently attending the plant through changing seasons. Every cluster carries the weight of care, patience, and expectation.
Yet my eyes were drawn not to the fruit, but to a small
woven cradle hidden in green. I wondered—was it new, abandoned, or active?
Last evening, I noticed a pair of jungle babblers in a
nearby tree, alert and watchful. This morning, I placed an aluminum A-ladder
near the plantain. As I approached, one bird flew away, confirming what my
heart already suspected—the nest was active. I could not see clearly from
below, so I climbed. Inside lay three eggs. Quiet. Undemanding. Full of
possibility.
The ladder has since been removed and kept away, though it
still rests elsewhere in the garden—a silent witness to that close encounter.
Is the whole bunch of bananas more valuable than three unseen lives?
Are those three eggs—warmly guarded by their mother, tiny, fragile—less
important than fruit that represents a year of labor, care, and patience? Dry leaves
coloured babblers often go unnoticed while rustling among leaves on the ground.
The jungle babblers themselves are ordinary in color,
blending almost perfectly with the earth and dry leaves, yet extraordinary in
purpose. Life stirs in hidden ways, asking for attention we often give only to
what is visible, tangible, or productive.
Over the past few days, I have also been painting on a
handcrafted bamboo basin—picked up by a friend during his travels. His family
felt I could do a better job and turn it into a meaningful wall hanging with a
message. So I worked carefully on bird silhouettes across its curved surface
and almost finished the piece with the verse:
“Look at the birds of the air… Are you not of more value
than they?” (Matthew 6:26).
How gently ironic that while I was shaping painted birds
into art, real birds were entrusting their future within reach of my ladder.
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Creation now places before me a quiet test—not of
productivity, but of compassion; not of ownership, but of stewardship.
Sometimes faith is not proved in grand declarations, but in
whether we pause long enough to protect something smaller than our plans.
Sometimes the question is not about what we can take, but about what we are
willing to leave untouched. Sometimes the most ordinary things—fallen leaves,
silent eggs, hidden nests—carry the future.
So I wait. The bananas hang. The nest rests. The mother
returns and settles again. The ladder is gone, but everything remains a quiet
witness to a choice between harvest and hatching, between visible reward and
unseen life.
I warmly invite you to leave your reflections in the
comments below. What would you do?
The harvest—or the hatching?
The fruit earned through a year of care—or the future hidden in three silent
eggs?
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