1st Mennonite Church, Reedley, CA
10th Sunday after Pentecost
August 5, 2007
Ecclesiastes 1:2, 12-14, 2:18-23
Psalm 49: 1-12
Colossians 3:1-11
Luke 12: 13-21
It was a great challenge preparing for exploring this text. In seminary I experienced my first attraction to Ecclesiastes, or Koheleth in Hebrew. But it has been a few years since then, and it is easy to put down a text and forget. Of course, it is hard to forget the line oft repeated in this book, “Vanity, vanity, all is vanity!” Or some translations render it, “Meaningless, meaningless, everything is meaningless!” So, two weeks ago when I was vacationing in Puerto Penasco, Mexico with family, all I had was that line ringing in my mind. It goaded me while I sat near the pool in a landscape of luxury. How was I supposed to enjoy myself with Koheleth’s words ringing in my ears: Vanity, meaningless… this is all so empty? In a place many people might say represents the aim of life – our American dream of leisure and indulgence – I felt restless considering all the systems bent toward injustice that create the space and demand for resorts such as the one I visited. The guy down at the beach sipping Corona getting a tan was probably just thinking, “This is the life,” yet I was wrestling with the question, “What meaning is there in all this?” Many people listen to Koheleth and hear only the voice of a pessimist; I am prone to such thinking with words like “meaningless” and “vanity” breaking in my mind – wave after wave of hard and uncomfortable words working their way into my heart.
Revisiting this text was like getting to know an old friend all over again. Some of the same things I loved were still there, and new complexities opened up before me, inviting me to explore further. I’d like to invite you to enter in, sit down beside me and join the conversation I’ve picked up again with Koheleth after having been away a few years.
Koheleth:
Vanity of vanities, says the Teacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity.
Me:
What has caused you to say this?
Koheleth:
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 forever. The sun rises and the sun goes down, and hurries to the place where it rises. The wind blows to the south, and goes around 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.
Me:
So our work is pointless? What about all the great things we’ve accomplished? Look at the progress we’ve made! Things the world has never seen before! We’re creating a better world, better lives, aren’t we?
Koheleth:
All things1 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.
Me:
Hmm… so you’re saying that even with all our progress we’ve not created better lives? That our constant search for something bigger, better and newer is actually a sign that we are increasingly unsatisfied? We’re not becoming any more fulfilled? But how can that be? What about those who seem to have it all, those who we wish we could trade places with? What about those who do the truly great things? Surely, if nothing else, they’ve built a name for themselves.
Koheleth:
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.
Me:
I guess if we’re so insistent on the more and better out in front of us we aren’t really a people who values the past. Is that why some of us feel so disconnected? So lost? I mean, what is there to orient us in this life? If our work and striving does not define us, then what? What makes us human? What is the purpose of our lives? Knowledge? What about learning? What about figuring all this out? Knowledge is power, right? At least the power to give my life some meaning.
Koheleth:
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 the 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 (1:15-18).
Me:
I see that you’re right. I remember after class one night in college I scribbled something similar in my journal. I think I realize now that the more I know the more this world is difficult to live in. Things really don’t make sense. If you keep learning, eventually you come face to face with some scary questions… maybe even some irreverent questions. Think about something long enough and you’ll start wishing you had the courage to ask God to explain himself.
If life is so hard, and if we can’t think our way into nice, neat answers that dispel the complexities, maybe all there is to do is try as hard as we can not to think about those things. You know, distract ourselves. Toughen our skin by becoming numb to the difficulties. And the only way I know how to do that is to pursue everything that feels good. Stay away from the pain, seek pleasure. So, what about the pursuit of happiness? Is that it? That’s another option in our world.
Koheleth:
I said to myself, "Come now, I will make a test of pleasure; enjoy yourself." But again, this also was vanity. I said of laughter, "It is mad," and of pleasure, "What use is it?" I searched with my mind how to cheer my body with wine -- my mind still guiding me with wisdom -- and how to lay hold on folly, until I might see what was good for mortals to do under heaven during the few days of their life. I made great works; I built houses and planted vineyards for myself; I made myself gardens and parks, and planted in them all kinds of fruit trees. I made myself pools from which to water the forest of growing trees. I bought male and female slaves, and had slaves who were born in my house; I also had great possessions of herds and flocks, more than any who had been before me in Jerusalem. I also gathered for myself silver and gold and the treasure of kings and of the provinces; I got singers, both men and women, and delights of the flesh, and many concubines. So I became great and surpassed all who were before me in Jerusalem; also my wisdom remained with me. Whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them; I kept my heart from no pleasure, for my heart found pleasure in all my toil, and this was my reward for all my toil.
Me:
That seems like what most of us try to do. And does it work? Isn’t that living?
Koheleth:
Then I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had spent in doing it, and again, all was vanity and a chasing after wind,1 and there was nothing to be gained under the sun.
Me:
Then what is life all about?! You keep stripping everything away! Is there anything left?! Anything we can hold onto?!
I’m sorry. It’s just that… there are those out there who seem to say that all this life has to offer is despair. And it feels like you’re headed in that direction. Go on, I’ll keep listening.
Koheleth:
So I turned to consider wisdom and madness and folly; for what can the one do who comes after the king? Only what has already been done. Then I saw that wisdom excels folly as light excels darkness. The wise have eyes in their head, but fools walk in darkness. Yet I perceived that the same fate befalls all of them. Then I said to myself, "What happens to the fool will happen to me also; why then have I been so very wise?" And I said to myself that this also is vanity. For there is no enduring remembrance of the wise or of fools, seeing that in the days to come all will have been long forgotten. How can the wise die just like fools? So I hated life, because what is done under the sun was grievous to me; for all is vanity and a chasing after wind.
Me:
Sigh.
Koheleth:
I hated all my toil in which I had toiled under the sun, seeing that I must leave it to those who come after me -- and who knows whether they will be wise or foolish? Yet they will be master of all for which I toiled and used my wisdom under the sun. This also is vanity. So I turned and gave my heart up to despair concerning all the toil of my labors under the sun, because sometimes one who has toiled with wisdom and knowledge and skill must leave all to be enjoyed by another who did not toil for it. This also is vanity and a great evil. What do mortals get from all the toil and strain with which they toil under the sun? For all their days are full of pain, and their work is a vexation; even at night their minds do not rest. This also is vanity.
Me:
Koheleth, I can’t take anymore of this. There’s nothing left. There’s… nothing.
Koheleth:
There is nothing better for mortals than to eat and drink, and find enjoyment in their toil. This also, I saw, is from the hand of God; for apart from him1 who can eat or who can have enjoyment? For to the one who pleases him God gives wisdom and knowledge and joy; but to the sinner he gives the work of gathering and heaping, only to give to one who pleases God. This also is vanity and a chasing after wind.
Me:
That’s it?! You’re leaving?! But you haven’t given me an answer! First you say work is vanity and then you say I should enjoy work? What sense does that make?
I never said Koheleth was an easy friend to have. But if we’re going to know him, we need to take what he says seriously.
One of my favorite authors, Frederick Buechner, writes: “All theology, like all fiction, is at its heart autobiography, and that what a theologian is doing essentially is examining as honestly as he can the rough-and-tumble of his own experience with all its ups and downs, its mysteries and loose ends, and expressing in logical, abstract terms the truths about human life and about God that he believes he has found implicit there” (Sacred Journey 1).
Koheleth has seen it all and done it all in search of the answer to the question: what does it mean to live a truly human life as part of God’s creation? His life story comes to us as a theological memoir. Yes, it goes against the grain of the dominant wisdom found in books like Proverbs where things seem simple: the evil man falls while the good man prospers. Koheleth does not have to look long – nor do we – before we see that that isn’t always true. In fact, at times it seems it is rarely true. Koheleth offers a different voice of wisdom, one tested throughout the years of his life.
If the summary statement in his writing is: Vanity, vanity, all is vanity, we should probably consider what this word vanity means. The Hebrew word is hevel. It can be translated literally – vapor, breath – or figuratively - vanity, unsubstantial, worthless, empty, fleeting. It seems like a wholly negative word, and by using it Koheleth seems to be saying life and everything in it is worthless. It does carry with it those connotations. Koheleth deeply expresses his unsettledness, restlessness, weariness. Appropriately, Ecclesiastes is read by Jews during the Festival of Tabernacles: their faithful practice in a world so unfaithful produces much anguish and skepticism; will God’s vision for the future, where all creation lives openly in love, ever come to pass? (Trepp 360-361) How long must the faithful wait and long for God’s reign “on earth as it is in heaven”? (Ps. 23)
However, there is more to this word hevel. There are many ways it can be used, and Koheleth employs them all and even pushes the word into new territories of meaning.
Consider “breath.” Another word for breath in Hebrew is ruach, often translated spirit. This connection brings us to the beginning, Genesis and the creation story where the earth was empty (another word related to hevel), and the ruach, the breath or spirit, of God hovered. We know this story: God’s breath creates the earth and everything in it. It is full, fruitful, very good. Hevel means empty or useless, not a good thing, but it reminds us of that other word, ruach, and its connection to Creator God and his relationship with us. Before ruach created, there was emptiness.
Koheleth repeats this phrase – hevel hevalim. All the things we try to set up as the meaning of life are in fact meaningless, empty. But they are empty because they are void of what ruach creates. They are not evil in and of themselves. Koheleth says that toil or work is hevel, but he also says that work is something to be enjoyed. He’s not contradicting himself. He’s asking us to look more closely at what he’s saying. Our culture is all go and no pause, has mistaken amusement and distraction for rest, holds up production and consumption as god, prizes efficiency above humanity, has made work something it was not created to be. And if it is not what ruach set in place, it is something we have set up in place of God’s creational design and it is hevel. Take a deep breath and let it out slowly: can you grab that and build on it? If we try to build on anything other than God’s foundational vision for humanity and creation, what we build falls apart. Hevel. Empty. It cannot hold us up. It is like an idol – having no substance, no power to create or save.
Another quality of breath is its fleetingness. It lasts but a moment. Breath is a symbol for life: God breathed into us in the garden and we came into existence. There are many examples in biblical literature where human life is described as but a breath. It is here today and gone tomorrow. Life is short. We cannot hold on to it. Take another deep breath, but this time hold it.
None of us can hold our breath forever. And the longer we hold our breath, the longer our bodies are deprived of the oxygen it needs and hold in what is toxic. For life to continue, we must release our breath. We must continue to breathe in and breathe out. Each breath is a gift given by God; he breathes into us and gives life. We must accept that gift as he gives it – not to hold, not to control, but to receive and release. The more we understand that God is a faithful giver, worthy of trust, the more we are able to accept his gifts as they come without trying to use those gifts to replace him, to become independent, master’s of our own destiny. If we do not use God’s gifts as they were intended to be used, if we do not live according to God’s vision for life, we are like people trying to hold our breath: we refuse what is necessary for true life and what we keep turns toxic and leads to our death. Breath brings life because it comes and goes; it is transitory.
Our technological culture fights against human mortality. We try to extend life as long as possible. Koheleth is not trying to depress us by reminding us that we won’t live forever. In fact, human limitation is not a bad thing. According to the creation story, the way we are made is very good. Our limitations are not the threat we sometimes think they are because we share relationship with God. He knows our limits; he created us and he sustains us. By stripping everything else away, Koheleth leaves us only God as the source and meaning of life. And it is within that life that we can enjoy God’s gifts of work, food and relationship without propping them up as idols. Enjoying God’s gifts according to his creational design is what human life is all about.