There’s an old saying, “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.” In general, that saying rings true, but sometimes trash is just garbage. Any time one cleans out the garbage can, one can be thankful for the people who pick up our garbage and trash. The pandemic made all of us aware of how much we depend on largely unnoted people who serve us. There are many people who smooth the way for us whom we may not notice. We rarely take time to express our gratitude to those who are “just doing their job,” but we really miss them when they are not on the job. There is a very sweet story about a three-year-old girl who every week waits for her friend, the trash man, to arrive. Every week she greets him with a special cupcake to celebrate their friendship. The picture of the big burly trash man & the tiny tot interacting with each other is a vision of sweetness & what a world should be like. The real treasures in life are people, not objects. Jesus seems to have known this. He welcomed people of all kinds & saw in them value others had missed. Some in his day were shocked by the people he included as friends & companions. I think it would be good to look around at the people around us & notice who is the neglected, unnoticed, underappreciated among us & find some kind of “cupcake” to indicate our appreciation & potential friendship with them. Among those that some people might call trash, it is probable we will find treasured friendships. It’s the kind of thing that Jesus & his people are known for. It is the kind of treasure that reaches from earth to heaven.