6 Go to the ant, O sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise. 7 Without having any chief, officer, or ruler, 8 she prepares her bread in summer and gathers her food in harvest. 9 How long will you lie there, O sluggard? When will you arise from your sleep? 10 A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest, 11 and poverty will come upon you like a robber, and want like an armed man. -Proverbs 6:6-11
“Look to the ant!” This famous passage can be applied as a warning about laziness and the value of hard work. It can teach us about preparation like we find in the Genesis story of Joseph. Gleaning from divine revelation, he led the nation of Egypt to save during seven bountiful years for the seven bad years to come. Proverbs 6 can also make a great animated film about the triumph of devoted hard work and friendship over those whose only plan is to lazily feed off of the bounty of others’ preparations.
The ongoing heath crisis and cultural and legal events have sent many Christians into confusion and chaos. It has challenged and exposed my deeply rooted problems in American Christianity. Many are choosing to lash out in anger. Others turn to fear. While others double down on politics as their last hope to maintain life as they know it.
However, Augustine (354-430) has some great wisdom on Proverbs chapter 6 that turns the familiar passage used to prod lazy Jamestownians and Pilgrims off their 17th-century log couches into a ballad of spiritual preparation.
[The sluggard] has not imitated the ant. He has not gathered to himself grains while it was summer. What do I mean by “while it was summer”? While he had quietude of life, while he had this world's prosperity, when he had leisure; when he was being called happy by all, while it was summer. He should have imitated the ant, he should have heard the Word of God, he should have gathered together grains, and he should have stored them within. But there came the trial of tribulation, there came upon him a winter of numbness, a tempest of fear, the cold of sorrow, whether it were loss, or any danger to his safety, or any bereavement of his family; or any dishonor and humiliation. In winter; the ant falls back upon that which in summer it has gathered together; and within its secret store, where no one can see, it is replenished by its summer toils. When for itself it was gathering together these stores in summer, every one saw it: when on these it feeds in winter, no one sees. What does this mean?
See the ant of God. He rises day by day, he hastens to the church of God, he prays, he hears a reading, he chants a hymn, he digests that which he has heard, he thinks to himself about all this, and inside he is storing up grains gathered from the threshing floor. You who hear those very things which even now are being spoken, do just this. Go forth to the church, go back from church, hear a sermon, hear a reading, choose a book, open and read it. All these things are seen when they are done. That ant is treading his path, carrying and storing up in the sight of those who see him. But in due time there comes the winter. For to whom does not come? There happens to be loss, or bereavement. Others perchance, who know not what the ant has stored up inside to eat, pity the ant as being miserable.[1]
You probably noticed a lot of people in spiritual drought during the COVID-19 shutdown. Augustine would look at them and say: “what did you store up during your time of plenty?” Think of centuries of believers under persecution who never knew how much time they had together or how long they would have their Bibles. They stored up as much as they could.
We are called to the same commitment.
Proverbs 6 then isn’t just a message about working physically. It can be a message about our spiritual life too. Like the ant, it is up to the individual. No one makes you do it (see verse 7). You are free to slack-off or free to use your time of plenty to save up for the next winter. Quit living pay-check to pay-check spiritually and start filling your root cellar with God’s produce. In times of want, others will wonder how you still seem well fed.
[1]Augustine of Hippo, “Exposition on Psalm 67,” quoted in: Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture, Old Testament: IX, J. Robert Wright, ed., (InterVarsity Press, 2005), 48.