The Wisdom of Seeing What IS,
The Rev. Connie Frierson
Ecclesiastes 1:1-18
Reflections of a Royal Philosopher
The words of the Teacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem.
Vanity of vanities, says the Teacher,
Vanity of vanities! All is vanity.
What do people gain from all the toil
at which they toil under the sun?
A generation goes, and a generation comes,
but the earth remains for ever.
The sun rises and the sun goes down,
and hurries to the place where it rises.
The wind blows to the south,
and goes round to the north;
round and round goes the wind,
and on its circuits the wind returns.
All streams run to the sea,
but the sea is not full;
to the place where the streams flow,
there they continue to flow.
All things are wearisome;
more than one can express;
the eye is not satisfied with seeing,
or the ear filled with hearing.
What has been is what will be,
and what has been done is what will be done;
there is nothing new under the sun.
Is there a thing of which it is said,
‘See, this is new’?
It has already been,
in the ages before us.
The people of long ago are not remembered,
nor will there be any remembrance
of people yet to come
by those who come after them.
The Futility of Seeking Wisdom
I, the Teacher, when king over Israel in Jerusalem, applied my mind to seek and to search out by wisdom all that is done under heaven; it is an unhappy business that God has given to human beings to be busy with. I saw all the deeds that are done under the sun; and see, all is vanity and a chasing after wind.
What is crooked cannot be made straight,
and what is lacking cannot be counted.
I said to myself, ‘I have acquired great wisdom, surpassing all who were over Jerusalem before me; and my mind has had great experience of wisdom and knowledge.’ And I applied my mind to know wisdom and to know madness and folly. I perceived that this also is but a chasing after wind.
For in much wisdom is much vexation,
and those who increase knowledge increase sorrow.
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The Wisdom of Seeing What IS
Welcome to a new sermon series. During Lent Graham and I will be working our way through the Wisdom of Ecclesiastes. Lent is a time for taking on a discipline and stretching our spiritual muscles. Often people take up some special study or task or mission for Lent. Or sometime people give up some item or activity as a discipline. Lent is a time for growth and developing some spiritual muscle. How appropriate for Lent that we are going into one of the most difficult books of the bible. Ecclesiastes is not a book to be skipped thorough lightly. We don’t find Ecclesiastes in children’s story bibles. It doesn’t have a storyline to entertain us. It doesn’t recount historic or cultural events. There are no religious ceremonies, no temple or worship information or examples. Ecclesiastes isn’t searching for more information or handy tips on living the good life like Proverbs. It doesn’t contain simple problems or simple answers. Ecclesiastes is one human beings reflection on life and death. Ecclesiastes is a book about the search for meaning in life. So what better time for jumping into the deep than Lent.
Ecclesiastes has been called the most difficult book in the bible. But you know more about it than you think. Let’s do a little experiment. I’m going to say a phrase and you finish it. “Vanity, Vanity all is VANITY.” “Eat drink and be MERRY, for tomorrow you may DIE.” “To everything there is a SEASON.” “And a time for every purpose under HEAVEN.” “There is nothing new thing under the SUN.” “Cast your bread upon the WATERS.” The phases of Ecclesiastes ring in our ears. We know the questions this book asks in our bones.
Ecclesiastes has been called the most depressing book in bible. And more than that Ecclesiastes has been called the most pessimistic book in all of world literature. So this is a book to wrestle with. During Lent we are going to be like Jacob wrestling with the angel. We won’t let go until we get a blessing. The first thing we are going to battle with in Ecclesiastes is this. Ecclesiastes is not the most depressing and pessimistic book. It is realistic. This book asks the questions we ask in the dark of the night, that time between two and four in the morning. Who would write such honest questions? Well, a wise man would. The tradition is that King Solomon wrote Ecclesiastes. The tradition goes that King Solomon wrote the Song of Songs in his virile, passionate youth, Proverbs in his maturity and Ecclesiastes in his elder days. This book is the culmination of all of Solomon’s life and wisdom. Scholars actually believe a sage in the king’s court in Jerusalem wrote it about 400 BC about 500 years after Solomon. But the tradition of Solomon does reveal a truth about these three books. Of the three books, Ecclesiastes is clearly written from the viewpoint of someone who has lived long and hard and well. This teacher is a person who has tried, excitement, sex, possessions, gluttony, many children, hard work and long study. The Teacher of Ecclesiastes has tried all of those things to bring meaning to life.
But in our opening Chapter we have a terrible conclusion that all that stuff and all that doing and all that being is vanity. The author is setting the major dilemma of life in front of us so we better understand this word and idea of vanity, and not just vanity but vanity of vanities. The word, “vanity” or hevel in the Hebrew, occurs some 73 times in the Hebrew Bible, 31 of them in Ecclesiastes, twice in the superlative absolute construction, hevel-havalim, “vanity of vanities.” Vanity of Vanities means the most vain, the really, really most of the most-est. The English word “vanity” is a little misleading. We think of vanity and associate it with pride or excessive love or your image or narcissism. All of those thoughts are true. But the root word for vanity is the Latin vanitas, which is the quality of being empty. This kind of translation is closer to the meaning of the Hebrew noun here, hevel, which means “breath, vapor, void, futility.” So think of this line vanity, vanity all is vanity, and think of this line empty, empty all is empty or futility of futility all is futile, or vapor of vapor. I can’t grasp it. I can’t own it. I can’t see ahead. I reach and reach but I come up with nothing, empty. This is much darker and deeper than a shallow preoccupation with appearances. This kind of vanity is an emptiness of heart and soul. Hevel-havalim is a crisis of meaning.
This is not an academic question for the teacher. This is a life question. But just to bring this closer to our time I’ll tell you about two people who exemplify this question.
On is a man we will call “Ted.” Ted was a very successful. He is in upper level management and has worked really hard, night and day and weekends. So a thank you his boss gives Ted and his wife an all expense paid vacation to Las Vegas. So they fly to Vegas. They see shows and gamble and eat at buffets and great restaurants. They even go out to Boulder Dam. It is great. But after a couple of days, Ted gets a little antsy, a little anxious, a little bored. So while his wife is shopping he signs and mopes and then he opens his computer and punches in bordom.com. But that takes him to a bunch of dating sites. Well actually the sites are about two or three steps below a dating site. Ted doesn’t want any trouble in his marriage. So he punches in boredom busters.com and that brings him to silly videos. After watching prate falls for about fifteen minutes, he turns off the computer and longs to go back to work on Monday.
Or think of Annie. Annie is a woman who has always loved to cook. So she opens a catering business and it really takes off. She’s making money, catering interesting events and loving being her own boss. But for the last several months, the excitement she felt at the start has evaporated, and she moves mechanically through her days, doing her work, but without joy.
These are people who are asking the same question as the Teacher in Ecclesiastes. What do I gain from all my work? Nothing is new. All things are wearisome. I am tired. My eyes aren’t satisfied with seeing. My ears aren’t filled with hearing. These people are asking the same question as that old Peggy Lee song “Is this all there is?” Many people don’t ask that question because they are afraid of the answer.
Ecclesiastes drives home some essential truth and a habitual problem we have. We expect too much from the things we do and the stuff we have. We ask things and activities to fill the place that God fills in our souls. For example, we ask food replace love. We ask work to give us meaning. We ask clothes to give us an identity. We ask our houses or cars or boats to give us importance. We ask our finances to give us safety. We are asking too much of the wrong things. Food is great but it can’t give us love. Clothes can be warm or cozy or fun but they don’t tell us who we are. Things don’t give us direction. Money doesn’t make us safe is a world where we will all die.
We often pour ourselves into things or projects with such gusto and hope. We work really hard. I cook a meal hoping it will bring all the love I crave into my home. Then the meal is very nice, but its over and done. By 9:00 pm the meal is really just a pile of dishes in my sink. We blow all of these things all out of proportion. The stuff of our life is like balloons that we blow up, huffing and puffing and struggling. But in the end we are forced to let them go. The air leaks out and we are left with one of life’s most ironic raspberries. None of the things give us quite the satisfaction we had hoped for, because these things can’t give what is the essence of God with us in our lives.
This Vanities problem is quite personal to me. As some point in my early 30’s I gave up trying to mesh together my own personal religion and philosophy. I realized I just wasn’t smart enough to do it. I really just drifted into becoming an agnostic. But agnostism led me to a crisis that felt exactly what Ecclesiastes 1 describes. I realized that my life without God was so empty, so futile, so short, and so meaningless. The teacher of Ecclesiastes trod the same path. He tries all sorts of work and pleasure and treats that give immediate gratification but in the end he concludes, “Remember your creator in the days of your youth, before the days of trouble come.” The factor in life that imbues it with life or that spark is the divine. The key to significance starts with God. God provides a baseline of meaning. Faith provides the mesh that holds us in this giant universe. I was led to a life of faith because I couldn’t stand the bleakness of the first chapter in our scripture today.
Faith is the subtlest of shifts in the universe. We stand at the brink of this existential question of existence and meaning. And we puzzle and puzzle, but all is vanity. This puzzling is trapped inside our human limits and it goes round and round. I believe that God wants to interrupt this futile circle of thoughts. The way out of this circle is to pose one new element. That element is “GOD IS.” Let the thought that God is settle into your soul for a bit, then take the next step out of that futile thought circle. Allow yourself to think, God is and God creates. This allows a further shift from our own limited view to a catching a glimmer, a dim reflection that God is and God creates. Take a walk in the woods. Look at a snowflake. Look at the power of water or cloud. The natural world is a powerful force. Then take one more step out of that futile circle to God creates us. Now there is a snowball effect. We pick up speed. Instead of living inside our minds of pure and sterile wisdom, we start to interact and allow God to interact with us. Perhaps we can take the brave leap and step into the story of God and humanity in the bible. It is messy and dirty and sometime confusing. But this history also has triumph and praise and worship and forgiveness and comfort. Step a little forward now into the Jesus event. God comes down for us. And you have a purpose and you have work to serve each other and you have joy in the gift of life and you have an identity as the person God loves. This is the spiritual homecoming to which bareness of Ecclesiastes 1 will eventually lead.
Ecclesiastes starts with the deepest questions. The good news is that we don’t have to be fearful of the answers. We can just recognize what is. Vanity and Vanities of Vanity describes WHAT IS without God. But neither you nor I need to live without God. We are invited to live in God.
Amen.
