LOVE MAKES A HOME

Proverbs 17.1
LOVE MAKES A HOME
"Better a dry crust with peace and quiet than a house full of feasting, with strife." (v1)

THE CHINESE HAVE A SPECIAL DELIGHT FOR outward show. At a wedding dinner, the bigger the crowd, the noisier the toast, the more auspicious the occasion. At a funeral, the longer the cortege, the louder the mourning, the more honoured the deceased. I suppose a large part of it is cultural. It has to do with the way we Chinese think and do things.

However, it can become an unhealthy preoccupation when the outward becomes more important than the inward. It is even more undesirable when the outward bears no relation to the inward, such as when friends and relatives entertain themselves at funeral wakes by gambling through the night. Solomon tells us that the inward is more important than the outward.

Never mind a dry crust of bread — not much of a meal — as long as there is peace, quiet and harmony in the home. What is the use of the most sumptuous banquet if the diners are at one another's throats? A parallel proverb is found in 15.17: "Better a meal of vegetables where there is love than a fattened calf with hatred."

Here we are presented with two kinds of meal ("vegetables" and "fattened calf"), and two kinds of relationships (characterised by "love" and "hatred"). Clearly, the relationship is more important than the meal. In other words, what we eat is not as important as whom we eat with. It is love that makes the home, not the food.

The simple, inward things matter. We need to learn that the simple things of life, when enjoyed together in love, mean more than the abundance of things acquired and consumed with anxiety, fear and suspicion. A dry crust or plain vegetables becomes a feast where love among friends, love between husband and wife, and love between parents and children, prevails.

Let us not be deceived into thinking that a home must have certain outward features or material luxuries for it to be happy. Newly wedded couples may do well to note this. The most elegantly renovated and furnished apartment is just the shell, or the hardware. The software is people and relationships. If we give attention to the inward, the outward will in time take care of themselves.

Does love make my home?