Enough
There is something rather beautiful about Proverbs 30.
It is attributed to Agur, not the wise Solomon. And Agur doesn’t begin by telling us that he has everything figured out. Quite the opposite. He begins with an awareness of his own limitations. There is so much about God and the world that he cannot comprehend.
And perhaps that is where wisdom begins: not with having all the answers, but with recognising that we don’t.
Then Agur makes a remarkably simple prayer:
“Two things I ask of you; do not deny them to me before I die: Remove far from me falsehood and lying; give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with the food that I need, lest I be full and deny you and say, “Who is the Lord?” or I be poor and steal and profane the name of my God.”
I love that.
He doesn’t ask for everything. He doesn’t ask for wealth or success or security beyond what he needs.
He asks for enough.
And he gives a reason. If he has too much, he might forget God and convince himself that he needs nothing. If he has too little, he might become desperate and do things he would not otherwise do.
So Agur is asking for a life that is not distorted by either excess or deprivation.
And that raises an interesting question for us: what does enough look like?
Because that question sounds very different depending on where we stand.
For someone who has plenty, enough might mean recognising that we don’t need to keep accumulating more and more.
For someone who doesn’t have enough food, enough might simply mean having food on the table.
And living as we do in a society where some have far more than enough while others struggle to meet basic needs, we can’t turn this into a simple message of, “Just be happy with what you’ve got.”
Agur’s prayer is not a celebration of poverty.
It is a prayer for a life that is not controlled by either having too much or having too little.
And then we come to Jesus sending out the disciples.
And Jesus gives them some rather strange instructions.
Don’t take a staff.
Don’t take a bag.
Don’t take extra bread.
Don’t take money.
Don’t take an extra tunic.
In other words:
Go with enough.
The disciples are sent out without all the things we normally associate with security and independence.
And there is something important about that.
They are going to have to rely on God.
But they are also going to have to rely on other people.
They will have to accept hospitality.
They will have to receive what someone else has to offer.
They will arrive at someone’s home not simply as people bringing something, but as people who need something.
And I wonder whether that challenges us.
Because we are often very comfortable with being the ones who give.
We like being the ones who have something to offer.
We like bringing Jesus to people.
But Jesus sends the disciples out in such a way that they have to receive.
They have to enter someone’s home needing something from them.
And perhaps there is something profoundly Christian about that.
Because how often do we approach people thinking, “I have Jesus, and you need Jesus”, without stopping to wonder whether Jesus might already be present in the person standing in front of us?
Perhaps the person we think we have come to serve has something to give us.
Perhaps the stranger has something to teach us.
Perhaps the person we think needs saving is also someone through whom we encounter Christ.
We don’t only bring Christ into the world.
We meet Christ in the world.
And that brings us back to this year’s Season of Creation.
Creation teaches us something similar.
We are not self-sufficient creatures.
We depend on water.
We depend on soil.
We depend on plants and animals and insects and countless organisms we barely notice.
We depend on one another.
The world was never designed as a collection of isolated individuals, each with everything they need.
Life is sustained through relationship.
Through giving and receiving.
Through abundance being shared.
And perhaps that is part of what Agur is asking for when he prays for enough.
Not simply, “God, give me the right amount of stuff.”
But:
Teach me how to inhabit this world.
Teach me how to receive.
Teach me how to give.
Teach me not to confuse abundance with security.
Teach me not to treat scarcity as someone’s personal failure.
Teach me to recognise that I need other people.
And teach me to recognise that other people need me.
Perhaps that is also what Jesus is teaching the disciples as he sends them out.
They don’t go carrying everything.
They go carrying what is necessary.
And they discover that enough is sometimes found in what we already have, and sometimes in what someone else is able to give.
So perhaps the question for us isn’t simply, “Do I have enough?”
Perhaps the deeper question is:
“How am I living with what I have?”
If we have more than enough, what does that abundance make possible for someone else?
If we don’t have enough, can we allow ourselves to receive without shame?
And wherever we find ourselves, can we learn to live as people who understand that we were never meant to have everything on our own?
Agur prays:
“Feed me with the food that I need.”
And Jesus says:
“Go.”
Go with enough.
Go willing to give.
Go willing to receive.
Go willing to discover Christ not only in the one who is sent, but also in the person who opens the door.
Perhaps that is what it means to learn the wisdom of enough:
to receive the gifts of creation, to share what we have been given, and to recognise that none of us lives alone.