September 24, 2023
Jonah 3:10-4:11
Matthew 20:1-16
He was the oldest of the three ‘amakihi, so he thought he would get everything the first and the best.
In fact, he did get fed first after he’d emerged from the shell and was breathing deeply for the first time. Getting out of an eggshell sounds easy, but he didn’t find it so. Next to him the other two eggs continued to rock and creak for some time as he ate his first bug from his mother’s beak. It tasted wonderful.
I know you and I might not think so, but he thought it tasted wonderful.
Truly, though, he wasn’t born first by much. His sister emerged from her shell within an hour, and his brother was eating his first bug a half hour after that. Still, he was first. And if you’re the first born – um, first hatched – that comes with some benefits, right? First hatched, first fed – at every meal. First hatched, first flight lesson. First hatched, first singing lesson. First hatched, first… well, everything.
But his parents didn’t seem to have learned that rule.
When they came with bugs for their nestlings, they tended to put it in the first handy little beak. Our oldest little ‘amakihi didn’t like it, but in all the chaos of pushing about in the little nest he thought they were just careless and making mistakes. As they grew, he learned to get his beak in place just a little more quickly at mealtimes, but he thought his parents had figured out how to feed him first. And at singing lessons, he didn’t wait for them to say, “Who wants to sing first?” He just sang first.
Flying lessons, though, were different.
Flying, obviously, has to be taken seriously. ‘Amakihi may be small birds, but gravity pulls them just like it pulls you and me. Mother and father didn’t ask for volunteers or pay any attention to his volunteering. They called on the one who was ready, not the one who was eager.
It made him mad.
“That’s completely unfair!” he shrieked one morning when his younger sister took off before he did. He launched himself into the air, flapping madly (and angrily) and not very well, because he wasn’t paying attention to what he was doing, he was paying attention to what he was feeling. He landed rather painfully in a nearby tree and sulked.
The branch jumped a little bit as another bird landed near him. He looked up to see his mother.
“What’s not fair?” she asked.
“It’s not fair for you to teach the others before me. I was born first. I’m always first. I’m always supposed to be first. I’m first!” he said. And he cried angry tears.
She waited until the crying had settled down some, and said, “No, it’s not fair. And it won’t be fair. Not because being born first, you always go first – that’s not true, son, and it’s about time you learned that – but because love isn’t fair.”
It was a shock to hear that he wasn’t always going to be first, but it was more of a shock to hear that love isn’t fair.
“I love everyone in our family equally,” she said. “I love them equally even when they peck at me, like your sister did yesterday, or when they ignore me, like your brother did this morning. I love them equally when your father eats the bug I was following or when your grandmother tells me how to do something that I already know how to do. If I were being fair, I’d love your sister more when your brother annoys me, and I’d love your brother more when your father makes me angry.”
“And you’d love everyone else more when your oldest son gets mad and flies off in a huff,” said her oldest son.
She didn’t have to reply.
“Thank you for not being fair,” he said.
“You’re welcome,” she said. “Now, shall we work on that takeoff? And landing? And paying attention to where you’re going in flight?”
That little ‘amakihi family went right on being unfair – and loving one another each day.
by Eric Anderson
Watch the Recorded Story
I write these stories ahead of time, then tell the story from memory. Memory plus improvisation, that is.
Photo of an ‘Amakihi by Bettina Arrigoni – Hawaii Amakihi (male) | Palilia Discovery Trail | Mauna Kea | Big Island | HI|2017-02-09|12-21-50.jpg, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=74674240.
ordainedgeek 
I just love this — thank you so much. It is making my Monday morning!
I’m so glad!