I began picking up pennies back in Montana. Livingston, Montana to be accurate. I began looking for spare change on the side of the road because of a woman named Edna. Edna had heard about my walk and had driven down the highway to find me. She invited me to breakfast and although I had already had breakfast, when you’re walking across America, you can have two breakfasts.

We drove into Livingston and parked in front of a diner that was housed in the old train station. Edna got out of the car and she was everything I loved about people. She had on a brightly colored flowered shirt, black pants, white socks and sensible shoes. And to top it all off she had a fanny pack fastened snuggly about her middle. I imagine she was in her 60’s although I’m never good at guessing ages. Edna loved Jesus. Not only did I know this because she told me…several times, but her spirit also authenticated it. Edna was one of those people you can’t help but be drawn to. She almost vibrated with joy. Edna was someone you wanted to keep close.

She was not what the world would call wealthy, but it turned out she had a valuable gift to offer me. Although I was not aware of it at the time, the stories she told over breakfast and later as we visited her church had much more value than the sum of the few words she spoke.

After we had finished breakfast together Edna drove us to her church to pray. Sitting in the front row of the church she told me a story about spare change. The story follows as best I can remember it.

Edna told me that her pastor once asked her why there was always spare change in her offering envelope? She responded to him quite matter of factly, “Every bit of money I find belongs to Jesus.” “Every bit?” Her pastor questioned. I’m sure he, like I, wondered whether a large sum of money would encounter the same sacrifice as the spare change. “No matter how big or how small.” Edna replied.

She continued her story with a small smile moving across her face. “One day,” she said, “I was walking down to my mailbox to get the mail. I was moving rather slowly as I had just had hip surgery and was making my way with a walker. After some time I finally made it the length of my driveway and arrived at the mailbox. I was about to turn around when I noticed three shiny pennies on the ground. ‘Oh no’, I thought to myself. ‘Three shiny pennies right here in front of me and I’m not supposed to bend.’”

“I slowly turned around and began to maneuver my walker and my recovering hip back to the house. When suddenly the words I had spoken so boldly to my pastor came back to me. ‘Every bit of money I find belongs to Jesus.’ ‘Every bit?’ He had questioned. And I had replied, ‘Yes, no matter how big or how small.’ My progress halted as I realized that those weren’t my pennies at all. Rather, they were Jesus’ pennies. Well, as you can imagine I turned around and headed back down the driveway in order to retrieve Jesus’ possessions.”

“When I got there my eyes moved from the pennies, to my walker to my hip and back to the pennies again. Knowing I wasn’t supposed to bend…doctor’s orders…I wasn’t sure what to do. And then a thought passed through my mind. I could balance myself on one leg, leaving my other leg straight out to the side I could ease myself down to the ground if I just held tight to the walker. That way I wouldn’t have to bend but I could still get those pennies. And so I began inching my way down.”

And so this woman, who was not young and I must admit looked neither flexible nor graceful, got up from her chair and began to illustrate exactly what had happened. There at the front of the church, directly beneath the cross of Jesus, with one leg sticking out to the side, Edna showed how she had reached down for something that society thought had very little worth. Edna had reached down, had risked her comfort because those pennies belonged to Jesus. It was not what they were but whose they were that mattered.

Let me repeat that. It was not what they were but whose they were that mattered. Edna continued, “Half way down,” she said with a grin, “I began to giggle. What in the world would my doctor say if I ruined a several thousand dollar hip replacement for the sake of three pennies.” Edna concluded her story saying victoriously, “But I got those three pennies, with no damage to myself and they were put in my envelope the next week.”

And so it was as a result of Edna and her story of spare change that I began to give more reverence to the pennies, nickels, dimes and occasional quarters that I would find in the dirt along the side of the highway. They now had worth because they belonged to Jesus. Every day I collected spare change, dropped by careless truck drivers, thrown there by those that didn’t see the worth of a few pennies, and left there because no one ever walks along the side of the highway.

The money I found never amounted to much, about. $.36 cents on an average stretch of road, $1.80 was my most profitable day. But somehow it seemed a discipline that mattered a great deal. Catching the glint of a penny in the middle of the road, I would wait for a break in traffic and run out to retrieve it. A coin languishing in a mud puddle was picked up, wiped off, and carefully placed in my pocket. An intersection was often a haven for spare change; strewn with garbage, the remainders of an accident, and always a thousand cigarette butts from those who believe that cigarette butts aren’t really garbage. Before I would cross an intersection I would look carefully out into the road. Then I would estimate the amount of time I would need to retrieve the spare change that was strewn across the intersection. When the light changed I would move as fast as I could, gathering the coins and placing them in my pocket keeping one eye on the stoplight to see when the walk signal changed back into a red glowing hand forbidding me to continue.

I would often chuckle to myself, realizing that people must have thought I was crazy. It was humbling at first. People stare at you when you pick up spare change. I’m not sure what they were thinking. Possibly they thought I was hard up for cash. Maybe some viewed me as eccentric. Most likely people just shook their heads wondering if I realized that the time it takes to pick up 75 pennies is hardly worth the 75 cents it amounts to.

But this discipline of picking up spare change dominated my days as I began to see the pennies as belonging to Jesus. Although they had little worth in my economy I believed God valued them and would in turn give them value. “Multiply this penny,” I often muttered under my breath, “Make it worth more than it is.” “Loaves and fishes” or Flour and Oil in pots,” were phrases maybe even mantras I muttered as I remembered the childhood Bible stories of God taking something little and multiplying it. “Grow it God. Multiply it. Give it worth.”

It was sometime in South Dakota when I began to understand that picking up spare change was indeed a small discipline that was whispering great truths to my heart. As I walked God was revealing a deeper meaning in these pennies. Each penny became symbolic of a person that the world viewed as worth-less. As I would pick up a penny I would look around to see whom it represented and begin to pray that they would understand that they were valuable to God.

I trained my eyes to look for them and soon those pennies that others would miss because their copper finish no longer shone, I would find. I learned to look for round rather than shiny and there was rarely one that escaped me. You can train your eyes to see things other people miss.

And to make a statement that there was absolutely no one that Jesus wouldn’t pick up and use. There became no penny I wouldn’t retrieve; next to the garbage can or even behind the toilet at a truck stop, each one was picked up, washed off and given a second chance. This ritual continued most days. I can’t say that I found them all but I certainly made a good effort.

Later in the trip Edna’s reverence for spare change began to teach me again. It was early December and the weather was not cooperating. I was bundled up in layers of winter clothing and the wind seemed to find its way through every seam. I was walking along some two-lane highway and I was praying about my finances. Having left the Pacific Ocean with only $400 dollars, seven and a half months earlier, I was always aware of my need for God to provide.

As I prayed I kept my eyes open for spare change. Pretty soon I had found several pennies, then I came across a few nickels and several dimes and then amazingly five quarters. Amazing it was, because to find even one quarter in a day was unusual. Anyway, I began to think maybe God was going to do a miracle. I was going to get rich right on the side of the road.

I took a few more steps down the highway and I noticed a penny. I looked at it hard and then for the first time in nearly 2000 miles I stepped over a penny. I thought to myself, "Why stop for a penny if God is giving me quarters?" Perhaps the next step might even find me picking up a fifty-cent piece. No, I was into bigger and better things now than pennies. And so I walked on, confident that God was going to bless me with more than just pennies.

But it was then that I heard The Voice. “If you don’t pick up everyone of my blessings I will cease to bless you." The Voice always says things I would never say to myself. I stopped in my tracks and listened again and the voice repeated its directive, “If you don’t pick up everyone of my blessings I will cease to bless you."

I wasn’t exactly sure what it meant, but I turned around and went back for that penny. I figured it had something to do with my willingness to step over the penny, thinking I was on to bigger and better things. I picked up the penny and held it in my palm as I began walking again. As I listened to the step, step, step of my shoes and as I turned the penny over and over in my hand, my mind began to wrap around what had just happened and I began to understand.

How quickly I had stepped over the pennies when I believed I was on my way to quarters. This is how we have been trained to think in our world isn’t it? After all, anyone will stop and pick up a quarter. You have to be crazy not to pick up a quarter. Two quarters and you’ve got fifty cents, enough for a soda in some places. Anyone will pick up a quarter. People will even go out of their way to pick up a quarter and it’s not humbling, but good stewardship to pick it up. After all, it has worth.

But pennies, pennies are different. Hardly anybody picks up pennies. They’re not worth much. You can drop one and most people will leave them where they lay. Many people think it’s beneath them to pick up something of such little worth. I’ve even watched people drop a penny, go to pick it up and leave it there because they see someone watching. We don’t want someone to know that to us a penny is important. No, it’s much too humbling. A penny has no worth to us.

As this truth began to sink in God revealed a harsh reality through these simple coins. In our world, people are just like these pieces of metal. There are people who are like pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters, all having different potential or value in the worlds’ eyes. And people like pennies are often stepped over as we make our way to the quarters, people that may benefit us in some one or another.

This is true, not only in the everyday working world, but sad to say it has invaded the lives of those who follow Jesus as well. We recruit those who have potential; rarely do we invite throngs of ‘needy’ impoverished people into our worlds. We’re afraid they’re not worth much and we wrongly believe they won’t add much to our lives. In fact most of us are very aware that the time it takes to pick up 75 broken people is hardly worth the result in the world’s eyes.
Maybe just maybe, this is why we don’t experience much of God’s blessing. Maybe we’ve stepped over one too many of his pennies.

As I read the gospels, as I read about the life of Jesus as he walked among us, I am abundantly aware that Jesus picked up the pennies. The pennies defined Jesus life. Not only did he have an affinity for pennies, but he also appeared to have an aversion to quarters. The people, who were worth something in this world, were the people whom Jesus was often frustrated with. And so I find myself asking, “Am I a penny or a quarter?”

I’m a quarter. I have worth in this culture. I’m educated. I have a home, usually. I have an income, most of the time. I’m a quarter. Most of us here in America are from the world of quarters. It’s not our fault we’re quarters. It’s not even a bad thing to be a quarter. Our failure comes in the fact that we struggle to realize that when we’re walking with Jesus it doesn’t matter what we’re worth in this world. When we walk with Jesus we’re all the same.

How many pennies have you picked up lately? How many have you stepped over? Do you have any pennies in your circle of friends? Have you trained your eyes to see them? And how do you treat the pennies? I have a sneaking suspicion that our treatment of pennies may be the criteria by which others judge how well we walk like Jesus.

Perhaps this is just a quaint little story about pennies to you. But maybe, just maybe it has more to do with your life than you think. Perhaps it’s not just a quaint little story at all. Maybe Edna was sharing a greater truth with me, with us, than she realized. Perhaps the discipline of picking up spare change impacts more than just our pocketbooks.

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