Not enough hours in the day. Ever said that? Sure you have. And maybe you were faced with an impossible task that you weren’t sure how you were going to get done. There just aren’t, you argued with yourself or your boss or your co-workers or the elements of the universe, enough hours in the day! And you were right. There weren’t enough. You didn’t get done, or you got it done and weren’t satisfied with it, or you got an extension, or you just bailed. There aren’t enough hours in the day. Frustratingly true.
Or maybe you were in a moment of sheer bliss, of joy unknown, maybe you were enjoying yourself to such an extent that you almost forgot that there was a deadline, there was an end point, a gotta run other places to be and other people to see kind of moment and you didn’t want it to interrupt the beautiful moment you were enjoying. There aren’t enough hours in the day, you sigh, as you head off in different directions.
That’s just kind of our lot, isn’t it? Not enough hours, not enough days, not enough life. That is just the way it is, and we make do as best we can. Right? La Donna went off for family weekend with Maddie at Wittenberg today. I wanted to go too, but I’ve got a wedding. So we do a divide and conquer kind of thing. She goes with Maddie this year and I get to go to DePauw next weekend for Rhys’ family weekend. Except I can’t stay because I’ve got to come back for some big shindig here at Aldersgate on Sunday the 28th (can’t think of what it is at the moment). (Just kidding Marlane!) Plus, Maddie texted La Donna to say that she shouldn’t come before 11am since she has stuff to do and then she will have to leave by noon tomorrow because the sorority recruitment days are starting and Maddie is on the team or something. Whew. Not enough hours in the day.
So, do we have a remedy for this? Does our text for the week fix all our time problems and allow us to just relax into the lives we’d really like to be able to live? Are we handing our Harry Potter “Time Turners” in church on Sunday that will allow us to fiddle with the time and space continuum? Uh. No. Sorry. But maybe there is something here we should pay attention to. Take a look.
Proverbs 3:1-6 My child, do not forget my teaching, but let your heart keep my commandments; 2 for length of days and years of life and abundant welfare they will give you. 3 Do not let loyalty and faithfulness forsake you; bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart. 4 So you will find favor and good repute in the sight of God and of people. 5 Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not rely on your own insight. 6 In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.
“For length of days and years of life and abundant welfare they will give you.” That’s that one that caught me. For length of days. Is this a promise of longevity? That if we ... what? Not forget the teaching? Keep the commandments then we will have longer days? That would be great. Wouldn’t it? Longer days and many years. Now, this is a message that would sell really well out there in the world.
Except we know it isn’t true. Or isn’t true in the way we might first think it is true. I’ve performed too many funerals for keepers of God’s commandments to state that it is a prescription for longer lives. I’ve sat with families as days slipped away in the care of their loved one and known that their days aren’t any longer than mine or anybody else’s for that matter; including those who wouldn’t know a commandment if it wore kilt and played the pipes in front of them. (Yeah, that was my nod to the failed attempt at independence for my beloved Scotland - course I don’t know which way I would have voted anyway. There weren’t enough hours in the day to debate it.)
So, what does it mean, then? If it isn’t about giving you more hours in a day or more years in your life, then what is it promising? Most of the commentaries say it is promising eternity. It’s about heaven, they argue. It’s about the Kingdom of God and the invitation to dwell there forever.
And who can argue with that? Or better yet, who wants to? That is a promise that has sustained God’s followers for centuries. The idea that eternity in heaven, however we want to depict that realm, is on offer to those who keep the commandments has invited folks to live godly lives throughout history.
Proverbs is about wisdom, divine or holy wisdom that shift the focus from the dog eat dog, just getting by, only in it for myself kind of wisdom to something higher, something broader, something deeper than what we sometimes settle for in this world. The ability to surrender to a higher presence, to set self aside and seek the good of all or at least some more, is indeed keeping the commandments of God. And the motivation of heaven is and has been a powerful one.
Yet, I’m not sure that Proverbs chapter three is talking about heaven. It seems much more about this life, this world, this walk than it does about some someday yet to come. The result of following this wisdom, of keeping these commandments is that we will become people of good repute. That’s not a heavenly quality. That’s a now kind of thing. We want to find favor with God and people. We want to be known by God and people We do.
The other promise is that we will find straight paths. God will make straight our paths. Which doesn’t, I don’t think, mean that God will run interference for us, keeping the bad things out of our way, smoothing out the potential bumps in the road, keeping the corners, the intersections to a minimum. No, that isn’t the promise. Rather that when we choose to walk in the wisdom of God instead of our own wisdom, we will find contentment. We will find joy, even on the bumpy parts, even as we stand at the intersections agonizing over which direction would honor God more. The joy is in the attempt to honor. The joy is in the desire to be where God is, to walk in God’s way, to be filled up with the fullness of God.
Which, not to make a circular argument, is how it all starts anyway. By filling ourselves up with the fullness of God. Proverbs tells us to wrap ourselves in loyalty and faithfulness. To mark ourselves as those who love like God loves. Loyalty is the translation of hesed which is sometimes translated as steadfast love. It is an attribute of God. Faithfulness is also a God quality. So, we wrap them around our necks like a woolen scarf on a frigid day. We write them on the tablets of our hearts - whether android or apple. Windows tablets anyone? Windows might be better because through these attributes we see God, and we see God in what we do or say, how we life each day, each hour of the day.
There aren’t enough hours. Unless each one is filled with the Presence of God, the awareness of God. Unless each one is an opportunity to acknowledge God and God’s claim on our lives, God’s praise on our lips, God’s joy in our hearts. So maybe the promise is not for more hours in the day to fill, but more fullness for the hours we have, for the days we have. Maybe the promise isn’t an endless number of years in this life, but a life full of years of endless presence and joy. The abundant welfare promised in Proverbs 3:2 isn’t about safety or security or ease or comfort, but about the sustaining presence of God in all our doing, all our living, all our being. Our souls are cared for because we live in love, we live in presence. We live in joy.
Oh, look at the time. I’ve got to run. ... But at least I don’t run alone.
Shalom,
Derek
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