|
Unless the Lord builds the House
Excerpts from an Exposition of Psalm 127 by Martin Luther
Psalm 127
A song of ascents. Of Solomon.
Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain. It is vain that you rise up early, sit up late, and eat the bread of sorrow; for to him who enjoys his favor, he gives while he sleeps. Lo, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb is a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior, so are the children of youth. Happy is the man who has his quiver full of them; they shall not be put to shame when they speak with their enemies in the gate.
Unless the Lord builds the house, its builders labor in vain. Reason and the world think that married life and the making of a home ought to proceed as they intend; they try to determine things by their own decisions and actions, as if their work could take care of everything. To this Solomon says No! Ho points us instead to God, and teaches us with a firm faith to seek and expect all such things from God. We see this in experience too. Frequently two people will marry who have hardly a shirt to their name, and yet they support themselves so quietly and well that it is a pleasure to behold. On the other hand, some bring great wealth into their marriage; yet it slips out of their hands till they can barely get along. Again, two people marry out of passionate love; their choice and desire are realized, yet their days together are not happy. Some are very eager and anxious to have children, but they do not conceive, while others who have given the matter little thought get a house full of children. Again, some try to run the house and its servants smoothly, and it turns out that they have nothing but misfortune. And so it goes in this world; the strangest things happen. Who is it that so disrupts marriage and household management, and turns them so strangely topsy-turvy? It is he of whom Solomon says: Unless the Lord keeps the house, household management there is a lost cause. He wishes to buttress this passage and confirm its truth. This is why he permits such situations to arise in this world, as an assault on unbelief, to bring to shame the arrogance of reason with all works and cleverness, and to constrain them to believe. This passage alone should be enough to attract people to marriage, comfort all who are now married, and sap the strength of covetousness. Young people are scared away from marriage when they see how strangely it turns out. They say, “It takes a lot to make a home”; or, “You lean a lot living with a woman.” This is because they fail to see who does this and why He does it; and since human ingenuity and strength know no recourse and can provide no help, they hesitate to marry. As a result they fall into unchastity if they do not marry, and into covetousness and worry if they do. But here is the needed consolation: Let the Lord build the house and keep it and do not encroach upon his work; the concern for these matters is his, not yours. For whoever is the head of the house and maintains it should be allowed to bear the burden of care. Does it take a lot to make a house? So what! God is greater than any house. He who fills heaven and earth will surely also be able to supply a house, especially since he takes the responsibility upon himself and causes it to be sung to his praise. … Here then we see how Solomon, in this one little verse, has solved in short order the greatest of all problems among the children of men, about which so many books have been written, so many proverbs and approaches devised, namely, how to feed our poor stomachs. Solomon rejects them all in a body, wraps the whole matter up in faith, and says: You labor in vain when you labor for the purpose of sustaining yourself and building your own house. Indeed, you make for yourself a lot of worry and trouble. At the same time by such arrogance and wicked unbelief as you kindle God’s wrath, so that you only become all the poorer and are ruined completely because you undertook to do what is his alone to do. And if with such unbelief you should succeed anyway in attaining wealth in all things, it would only bring greater ruin to your soul eternally when God lets you go blindly on in your unbelief. If you want to earn your livelihood honorable, quietly, and well, and rightly maintain your household, give heed: Take up some occupation that will keep you busy in order that you can eat your bread in the sweat of your face. Then do not worry about how you will be sustained and how such labor will build and maintain your house. Place everything in God’s keeping; let him do the worrying and the building. Entrust these things to him; he will lay before you richly and well the things which your labor is to find and bring to you. If he does not put them there, you will labor in vain and find nothing. …
Unless the Lord keeps the city, the watchman guards in vain. Now the blind world, because it does not know God and his work, concludes that it is owing to its own cleverness, reason, and strength that a community or dominion endures and thrives. Accordingly, they gather together great treasures, stuff their coffers, construct mighty towers and walls, provide suits of armor and vast supplies of provisions, enact wise laws, and conduct their affairs with courage and prudence. They just go ahead in their arrogance without even consulting God about any of it, like those who built the Tower of Babel. Meanwhile, God sits above and watches how cleverly and boldly the children of men proceed, and he causes the psalmist to sing in his praise, “God brings the counsel of the nations to naught.” Again, “God knows the thoughts of man that they are in vain.” And yet again, “He takes away the spirit of princes, and deals strongly with the kings of the earth.” He allows such cities and dominions to arise and to gain the ascendancy, for a little while. But before they can look around he strikes them down; and in general the greater the kingdom, the sooner. … If you will look at the history of the kingdoms of Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Greece, Rome, and all the rest, you will find there exactly what this verse says. All their splendor is nothing more than God’s little puppet show. He has allowed them to rise for a time, but he has invariably overthrown them, one after the other. As they gained a brief ascendancy, through human wit and arrogance, so much the more quickly did they fall again; not because they lacked manpower, money, goods, and all manner of resources, but because the true watchman had ceased to uphold them, and caused them to see what human wit and power could accomplish without his watchful care and protection. So it turned out that their cause was nothing but vain counsel and a futile undertaking which they could neither uphold nor carry out. … One of two things must necessarily follow when we rely on our own watchfulness: either arrogance or worry. If all goes well and is secure, we pride ourselves on our watchfulness; if things go wrong and are about to fail, we worry, lose heart, and become doubtful. Now God will tolerate neither of these, neither arrogance nor worry. We should neither worry when we are insecure, nor be proud when we are secure, but in free and true faith do our watching and perform the duties of our calling. We should no more be anxious when things go wrong than be proud when things go well. Now none but a believing heart acts this way. As David says when he speaks out against worry in Psalm 3, “I will not be afraid though many thousands set themselves against me round about.” Again, in Psalm 27, “The Lord protects me; whom shall I fear? Though war arise against me, in him will I be confident.” He speaks again against arrogance in Psalm 44, “I will not trust in my bow, neither shall my sword save me.”
It is vain that you rise up early and go to bed late, and eat the bread of sorrow; for so he gives to his beloved in sleep. This says in effect, You are making your bread and sustenance harsh and bitter; and this is not the fault of your labor, but of your anxious and unbelieving heart. It refuses to believe that God will nourish you; instead, it is importunate and demanding, wanting to fill coffers, purses, cellars, and storehouses, and refusing to rest until it is assured of having more supplies on hand than it could consume in many years. He who has faith in God, however, is not anxious about tomorrow but is content with today. He does his work with joy and with a quiet heart, and lives in accord with Christ’s injunction in the gospel, “Do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will have its own troubles. It is enough that each day has its own evil.” Lo, the livelihood of such believers will not be harsh and bitter; for although they too eat their bread in the seat of their faces outwardly, they do it with faith and a joyful conscience inwardly. … They have enough; indeed, they must be well supplied and protected because they have committed all to God in accordance with Psalm 55, “Cast your burden on the Lord and he will sustain you” and 1 Peter 5, “Cast all your anxieties on him, and know that he cares for you.” At issue is not the matter of work, but only the matter of pernicious worry, covetousness, and unbelief.
Lo, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb a reward. Why even children, and whatever is born of woman, are not within your power; although they are a part of household and city alike, for if there were no children and “fruit of the womb” neither household nor city would endure. So the very reward and “heritage from the Lord,” about which you are so terribly anxious, are actually the gift and boon of God. (Even if all the whole world were to combine forces, they could not bring about the conception of a single child in any woman’s womb nor cause it to be born; that is wholly the work of God alone.) Why, then, are you concerned and anxious about acquiring and securing goods, when you do not even possess that for which you seek them? … He who creates children in the home and inhabitants in the city (all of whom are “fruit of the womb”) will also sustain and preserve them. … Christ touched upon this … when he said in Matthew 6, “Is not the body more than clothing, and the soul more than food?” It is as if he were to say: Since children and “the fruit of the womb” are not for you to worry about, why then do you worry about the matter of securing and keeping possessions? For who can ever explain how it is that all the children of men are brought forth out of the flesh of women? … None other than He alone, who gives children as a heritage and the fruit of the womb as a reward to his beloved.
Like arrows in the hand of a warrior, so are the children of one’s youth. Here he compares children and people with the arrows in the hand of a mighty hero, who shoots his arrows whenever and whithersoever he wills. Thus, we also see how God deals with us. Just look at how amazingly he matches husband and wife, in a way no one would expect; and how they attain to extraordinary stations in life for which they have not strive, so that men marvel at it. Generally, things turn out quite differently from what father, and mother, and even the person himself, had envisioned. It is as if God would confess this verse in deeds and say: I will bring to naught all the counsel of men and deal with the children of men according to my own will, that they may be in my hand as the arrows of a powerful giant.
Happy is the man who has his quiver full of them; They shall not be put to shame when they speak with their enemies in the gate. He desires that such youth, given by God, and recognized as such, may be many, for then the world would be well off. … Just as the giant who has his quiver full of arrows is well prepared and equipped, so the householder and the city to whom God has granted an abundance of such youth are well supplied. For there it is God himself who keeps the house and watches over the city. Such a great blessing however, will not be without persecution, for where things go according to God’s will there must also be onslaughts of the devil. The unbelief and covetousness of this world cannot tolerate godly life and teaching; therefore, such householders and cities will not be without enemies to revile and abuse them. But over against such attacks there stands this comfort, that they will ultimately emerge with honor and put their enemies to shame in the gate (that is, publicly). He mentions no armor or weapons but only the word, saying that “they will speak with their enemies in the gate,” as if to say: By their teaching they will stand, because it is true, no matter how sharply their opponents attack it.
| <<Previous |
Home
|
