Ecclesiastes: Chasing After Wind
January 20, 2013 | Anita Retzlaff
Grace and peace to you from God the Father of our Lord and Saviour Jesus the Christ. It is a privilege and a joy to have all of you from St. Martin’s with us this morning. We have marked the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity together as congregations for quite a few years now. This is the first time that we have actually visited each other as congregations in each other’s space. Isn’t it peculiar that we don’t do this more frequently? As the body of Christ we say that we are united but we certainly stick to ourselves and our own Sunday morning routines. So, this is an historic day for our congregation and we welcome you here as brothers and sister in love. We have prepared coffee, baking and fruit for all of us to enjoy together after the service. Mennonites enjoy offering hospitality around food so please join us.
Patrick and I are the pastors here and we have embarked on a preaching schedule that is different for us. Instead of following the lectionary readings we are preaching through the bible: a book every Sunday. We started with Genesis in September and we will eventually end with Revelation in about a year from now. Today we have made it to Ecclesiastes, a short book in the wisdom tradition that takes a good hard look at what life is all about.
And I have to say: it doesn’t look particularly good at the outset. Life is hard and then you die. Many of you may know a slightly different version of that expression but I didn’t want to offend anyone. Life is hard, life is futile and then we all die the same death. “Vanity of vanities all is vanity.” Emptiness upon emptiness, all is emptiness. Wow! What a downer! Or hear this happy proclamation: “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, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun.” (2:11) This guy sounds really depressed or is he? Maybe.
There are times when we feel that our effort has been futile; that we have worked really hard for something and the results are less than gratifying. Either we didn’t end up with what we were hoping for or others did not recognize our contribution and we are disillusioned with life and with people. For some of us who think too much, who brood over things, it is really tempting to look at the state of our world and the reality of our day to day routine and ponder the questions: what is the point and what difference does my life make anyway. I suspect that most of us have had these thoughts at one time or another. What we find as we read through Ecclesiastes is a reflection on exactly this state of mind that dares to examine the purpose of our lives. Is our toil, our work, merely a dead end - literally? Is there any purpose to what I do or any significance to who I am? Will anything I accomplish make any difference at all?
Now you know, a person of faith should answer these questions in one way only. Why, of course my life makes a difference. God would not have given us breath if it wasn’t to make a positive contribution to life under the sun. “And yet,” says Qoheleth, the philosopher/author of this little book, “look around.” Check out the evidence. From ch. 4: “Again, I saw all the oppressions that are practiced under the sun. Look, the tears of the oppressed-with no one to comfort them! On the side of their oppressors there was power-with no one to comfort them! And I thought the dead, who have already died, more fortunate than the living, who are still alive; but better than both is the one who has not yet been, and has not seen the evil deeds that are done under the sun.” (4:1-3) A harsh appraisal of life! This is a man of faith talking: taking a hard look at the world. And we need look no further than the news reports on the civil war in Syria, the hostage taking in Algeria, the gun violence in North America, to see that this is the truth about life all around us and has been throughout all of history. However, this is only the partial truth. We will not remain in the mire of this depressing litany for much longer – I promise you.
There is a further point made in the poetic prose of Ecclesiastes that is worth considering and it is the question of whether or not we can truly gain any advantage in life. Is there at least something that we can acquire that will give us an edge and make us happy, provide a super duper experience of life? Our philosopher recounts that he made a test of pleasure, he made great works, built houses and planted vineyards, acquired slaves and personnel, gathered up gold and silver and all the delights anyone can imagine and of it all he considered his work to be vanity, emptiness, futility. He found no ultimate gain. “So I hated life”, he says, “because what is done under the sun was grievous to me; for all is vanity and a chasing after wind.” (2:17)
Life is random. The wise and the foolish both die, reports the author. Pay attention because everything that you will accumulate in your working life will likely be frittered away by those who inherit the fruits of your labour! Nobody will be thanking you forever. Worst of all, as the generations come and go we will be forgotten as though we have never been. Life is a rather big disappointment. No amount of hard work will make my life more worthwhile than yours or our deaths any easier than what death dishes up so don’t expect anything special. Yet, in the very starkness and hopeless sounding rhetoric of this poet there is a hint that despite an almost overwhelming dreariness and sameness there is hope and possibly, yes probably, good reasons for living.
Eugene Peterson who translated his own version of the bible called The Message has this to say in his introduction to the Book of Ecclesiastes: “It is our own propensity to go off on our own, trying to be human by our own devices and desires that makes Ecclesiastes necessary reading. Ecclesiastes sweeps our souls clean of all “lifestyle” spiritualities so that we can be ready for God’s visitation…Ecclesiastes functions not as a meal but as a bath. It is not nourishment; it is cleansing. It is repentance. It is purging. We read Ecclesiastes to get scrubbed clean from illusion and sentiment, from ideas that are idolatrous and feelings that cloy. It is an expose and rejection of every arrogant and ignorant expectation that we can live our lives by ourselves on our own terms. Ecclesiastes challenges the naïve optimism that sets a goal that appeals to us and then goes after it with gusto, expecting the result to be a good life.” (p.882-3)
In other words Ecclesiastes is a reality check….and it is not all bad news. “For everything there is a season and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to pluck up what is planted, a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to break down and a time to build up, a time to weep and a time to laugh…” and so goes this beautiful piece of the philosopher’s reckoning. For me it is warm comfort to know that there is a time in life for everything that we experience. Sure, sometimes it feels random and unpredictable, unfair even and at other times life seems boring and monotonous and routine. At the same time that there is a rhythm to the universe it is also true that there is nothing new under the sun. Life is life and death is death. Human beings think we should be able to change this into something that suits us a little better. That however is chasing after wind - foolishness.
As unfair as we think life is when we cannot control our environment we will never know the deepest mysteries of God’s ways. From the 11th chapter an evocative statement on human limitation: “Just as you do not know how the breath comes to the bones in the mother’s womb, so you do not know the work of God, who makes everything.” (11:5) The knowledge we gain in life may only make us more aware of the injustices that plague our world and even then we will die anyway. The journey to Sheol, the place of the dead, affords absolute nothingness. So in the mind of the ancients death is the end and all that follows is absence of life.
Ah yes, but now hear our poet speak further: “This is what I have seen to be good: it is fitting to eat and drink and find enjoyment in all the toil with which one toils under the sun the few days of the life God gives us; for this is our lot.” (5:18) Despite his obsession with the unhappy limits of human experience the writer of Ecclesiastes recommends that we should eat, drink and be merry and enjoy our daily activities. Enjoyment, not advantage, is the gift of God’s time line and a time for everything under the sun. It is a gift from God that we should enjoy the basic delights of everyday life. The message for us? If you are waiting for some profound experience to make your life worthwhile and special sometime in the future when you have accomplished this, that and the other thing, you might have already missed the boat! Live each day for itself. Find the joy in it with the people whom you love. And by the way, it is good to love as many people as you can. That is why it is right that we have St. Martin’s folk with us this morning.
Our rather grumpy philosopher goes so far as to say that some ways of living are better than others. I found 4 little bits of wisdom that we can all take with us:
- “Two are better than one,” he says, “because they have a good reward for their toil. For if they fall, one will lift up the other; but woe to one who is alone and falls and does not have another to help.” (4:9-10) So, even he would say that we all need community, each other.
- Further, Qoheleth recommends, be thoughtful: “in the day of prosperity be joyful, and in the day of adversity, consider.” (7:14) Enjoy the good times and don’t freak out during the bad times. Use your head.
- And be wise instead of foolish. Here is a quote for our times: “The quiet words of the wise are more to be heeded than the shouting of a ruler among fools. Wisdom is better than weapons of war, but one bungler destroys much good.” (9:17-18) I think of the dictatorships that have caused such catastrophe in our world over the course of history and up until this present moment.
- Obey the authority of the wise and live in awe of God.
This is the way to live. There is no prosperity gospel here. It is not a guarantee and will not make us wealthy, popular or age-resistant. It does not promise a care-free life. That is chasing after wind. We are invited to enjoy the gifts that God has given. Love God and your neighbor as yourself. That is a great message to take with us into this Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. Thanks be to God for the life that we have been given, together, under the sun! AMEN
