Have you ever locked yourself out of your house or is it just me? We were returning from a family outing and found that sure enough, all the doors to the house were locked and we couldn’t get in. All of a sudden our five-year-old grandson yelled, “Hey! I think I can go through the dog door!” At first all the adults tried to go through but each one of us got stuck. Finally we instructed him on how to open the front door and not stop to play on the way. Sure enough, his tiny little frame crawled perfectly though the flaps and we were in like flint. Sometimes little is better.

This is the underlying message for today’s passage. In ways, it reads like a recruitment poster for righteousness. Writing from the long-life experience of a man who was after God’s own heart, David assures readers that even though the righteous have little compared to the “overabundant wealth”(verse 16) of the evil, things will right themselves in the end.

Psalm 37 (Common English Bible)

Better is the little that the righteous have
    than the overabundant wealth of the wicked.
¹⁷ The arms of the wicked will be broken,
    but the Lord supports the righteous.
¹⁸ The Lord is intimately acquainted
    with the lives of the blameless;
    their heritage will last forever.

David sets up his argument in a series of opposites. The blameless receive an inheritance that lasts forever: The wicked die. The righteous are generous: The wicked borrow and don’t pay back. The blessed will possess the land: The cursed will be cut off.

¹⁹ They won’t be ashamed in troubling times,
    and in a period of famine they will eat their fill.
²⁰ But the wicked will die,
    the Lord’s enemies will disappear—
    disappear like the beauty of a meadow—in smoke.
²¹ The wicked borrow and don’t pay it back, but the righteous are generous and giving.
²² Those blessed by God will possess the land,
    but those cursed by God will be cut off.

If that wasn’t enough to make you want to join the righteous, David offers a beautiful word picture in verse 24: “Though they trip up, they won’t be thrown down, because the Lord holds their hand”. Who among us doesn’t resonate with an image of a loving father holding the hand of a small child?

²³ A person’s steps are made secure by the Lord
    when they delight in his way.
²⁴ Though they trip up, they won’t be thrown down,
    because the Lord holds their hand.

You see, the overabundance of the wicked in this world is a fleeting, temporary illusion. Whatever they have now will not last. The “little” that comes from doing good is eternal and enough to sustain us though times of famine and strife. In the end, the righteous will live in the land forever.

²⁵ I was young and now I’m old,
    but I have never seen the righteous left all alone,
    have never seen their children begging for bread.
²⁶ They are always gracious and generous.
    Their children are a blessing.

David ends his recruitment speech with a clear directive: “Turn away from evil! Do good!”.

²⁷ Turn away from evil! Do good!
    Then you will live in the land forever.
²⁸ The Lord loves justice.
    He will never leave his faithful all alone.
    They are guarded forever,
        but the children of the wicked are eliminated.
²⁹ The righteous will possess the land;
    they will live on it forever.

Friends, we are living in times when it seems like the wicked among us are living in luxury and power. It is easy to get discouraged to see them prosper while the poor and disenfranchised suffer. David speaks directly to us today. The Lord loves justice! Vengeance will be God’s. God will never leave the faithful alone. Of that we can be sure.

Would you rather have it all in this life or the next? How can we encourage one another to do good in the world? These are good things to ponder as we enter Holy Week.

Little is Better