The length of our days is seventy years--or eighty, if we have the strength; yet their span is but trouble and sorrow, for they quickly pass, and we fly away. Psalm 90:10
By Rev. William Dohle
Numbers matter in our world...and they especially matter today.
Today is my 40th birthday. To be honest, it's a really scary number to be at. I remember when my dad turned 40. I thought he was so old! I thought, "Over the hill!? You bet!"
Now I've reached that number too!
Numbers matter in our world today! And they're everywhere!
The number of children you have(or don't have). Your Social security number. The figure that is your annual household income. Your age. Polling numbers to help politicians determine their stances. Accounting numbers to make sure you're not going broke. Tax numbers to determine how much of your income goes to the government.
All these numbers matter.
Even at church...numbers count!
This blog has seen 120,000 views in its five year life. I have zero subscribers, but 250 "friends" on Facebook. It's emailed out to a number of people throughout the country.
We look at the number of people giving at church to determine the number we will use in our budget to determine the number of programs we will have to cut to arrive at a certain number.
At pastor gatherings, collegues will ask each other, "So, how many people do you have in worship?"
(A number we always round up on!)
Each year ELCA Churchwide asks its congregations for numbers...how many people baptized, confirmed, died, or removed from the membership list.
People even say that the church is dying... based on the number of worshiping people in the pews.
Numbers matter in our world today.
Problem is, though, that numbers don't matter as much as we think they do. In the end, it doesn't matter how many people attend if just one person changes their life because of it. In the end, our numbers only aid the living. They cannot help the dead. Nobody writes on a tombstone, "He Kept His Numbers Up!" or "What great financial figures he had!"
Instead what is spoken of are things that can't be counted! Things that can't be numbered.
Maybe that's why few people actually read, follow, or remember the first few chapters of Numbers because it is, honestly, all one big number came.
"Take a census of the whole Israelite community by their clans and families, listing every man by name, one by one. You and Aaron are to number by their divisions all the men in Israel twenty years old or more who are able to serve in the army."
Anyone who's worked "The Census" knows how incredibly difficult (and sometime tedeaous) it is counting people...but the Bible does just that.
The number form the tribe of Reuben was 46,500.
The number from the tribe of Simeon was 59,300.
The number from the tribe of Gad was 45,650.
(Feeling sleepy yet??)
And, if that wasn't enough, in the following chapter, the number of soldiers are explained.
The leader of the people of Judah is Nahshaon son of Amminadab. His division numbers 74,600.
The leader of the people of Issachar is Nethanel son of Zuar. His division numbers 54,400.
And so on... eleven divisions are counted all around the Tent of Meeting. And at the end...
These are the Israelites, counted according to their families. All those in the camps, by their divisions, number 603,550.
Now that you know these numbers, is your life different? Is it changed? Do you have a new drive to love your neighbor and do good even to those who despise you? Will you think about these numbers day and night, meditating on their meaning?
No... you probably won't. (Or at least I hope you don't.) Why? Beacuse these numbers mean NOTHING! That's right... NOTHING! Oh sure, they meant something to the people at the time. Moses and the Israelites benefited from knowing these numbers. And I'm sure that people since Moses have looked at this first census of the people as a model of how to do their own census.
But... the numbers themselves don't mean anything to us today.
And neither will our numbers!
As much as we fight and argue about how many people are in worship or what our financial figures are. As much as we debate how to draw more people in and get our numbers looking better. As much as we concentrate our efforts on the numbers, truth be told, they don't really matter.
As much as I stress over being 40 years old, truth be told, it's just another year. Another number to add to all the other numbers. As one woman told me after worship, "Just think! If you live as old as my dad did, you'll have another 63 birthdays just like this one!"
Numbers don't mean anything. Life does. Life is what happens in between the numbers. The dash between our birth date and our death date that marks everything that we've ever done in our lives.
How will our dash be? How will others be helped by what they saw in our dash? How will our days be lived so that others might see us and know the love of God within us?
How will we live between the numbers?
The people of Israel were more than a number that was counted and recorded and kept for us to read. They were a people with individual names and different lives. They were distinct and unique and original.
And so are we!
Let's live our lives counting the days in wisdom but letting that number help us live life outside of our numbers!
Teach us to count our days, we pray O Lord, that we might live life to the fullest, taking advantage of every day you have set out for us. Amen.
p.s. Speaking of numbers...this is the second devotion written this week to catch up for the last weeks I haven't had one! :)
No comments:
Post a Comment