Work and Wealth (Ecclesiastes 5.1-20)

Introduction

I’m interested to know, how many of you, before this year, had ever heard a sermon on Ecclesiastes?

And how many of you had heard a series of talks to cover the whole book or a major part of it?

This is the fifth of eight talks on Ecclesiastes and it’s a bit deep and philosophical isn’t it? It can even be quite discouraging in places. It’s probably why few preachers choose to speak on it.

I feel a bit like the new teacher who was trying to make use of her Psychology A-Level. She started her class by saying, "Right. Everyone who thinks they're stupid, stand up!" After ten long seconds, a young boy stands up.  The teacher says, "Do you really think you're stupid?" And he says, "No, miss, but I hate to see you standing there all by yourself!"

Anyway, now we’re half way, let’s do a quick summary of what we’ve read up till now.

You’ll remember it was written about 3,000 years ago by Solomon, towards the end of his life. Picture the pathetic scene of an unhappy and lonely old man in a sumptuous palace with lavish treasures and a thousand women, but with no peace and no friends.

He’s lived for himself and shut God almost completely out of his life. But not quite completely. There are a just a few flashes now and then of openness to God, where he admits that he’s missing out spiritually.

And notice, every time he does start to talk about God he seems to cheer up. We’ll come to one of those moments today.

But mostly, in this book, Solomon describes how he looked for ultimate answers to ultimate questions anywhere but to God.

So right in the middle of our Bibles we find, to our great surprise, even embarrassment, a book with six ‘isms’ which seem totally out of place.

Together, they create a mood which is the polar opposite of everything else we find in the Bible.

The six isms are (in alphabetical order):

·         Cynicism – yeah right, nothing is as good as it looks

·         Defeatism – oh, what’s the use? 

·         Existentialism – just live in the moment

·         Fatalism – whatever will be will be and there’s nothing you can do about it

·         Hedonism – live for pleasure, party hard, you’re worth it

·         Pessimism – knowing my luck it’ll rain tomorrow

This is how life can turn out for someone who forgets the creator he knew as a child, only to conclude as death approaches that he has wasted his life. It’s back to the drawing board with no time to draw anything.

What’s chapter 5 about? Mostly it’s about work and wealth.

At the end, Solomon says, “Take pride in what you do, and do it well. And look, if you can find job satisfaction – that’s great. Then when you get home from an honest day’s work, you can appreciate some nice food and a good drink, in a place you can call home. But ultimately having a job is a gift from God who loves you and wants the best for you.”

But Solomon, remember, is debating in his own mind about whether life is worth living and whether you can find lasting happiness. In the middle section of this chapter he makes the case for “no, it’s not and no, you can’t”.

The difference in Solomon’s experience between “life is boring” and “life is great” is his attitude towards God. In v8-17 he sounds dejected. In those ten verses, when he says everything is meaningless, he doesn’t mention God once. He is out of the picture.

But in v18-20 when Solomon cheers up and says, “You know, life’s good”, in three short verses he mentions God four times.

Let’s drill down a bit deeper into the middle section where Solomon is sounding off about life being meaningless…

By the way, before we do, have you ever thought about how silly it is to say that life is meaningless?

The Indian Christian speaker Ravi Zacharias once spoke at a University campus in the USA on “Man’s Search for Meaning”. During the Q and A, a student raised his hand and said “Ah, but everything in life is meaningless.”

Ravi Zacharias looked at him and said, “You cannot possibly mean that.” He said, “No, I did mean that.” So he asked the young man to stand and said, “This won’t take long. I take it, sir, that when you say ‘everything in life is meaningless’, you believe that your assertion is meaningful.” There was a pregnant silence. Then, hesitantly, he answered, “yes.”

“OK,” said Ravi, “if your statement really is meaningful then everything in life is not meaningless, and you yourself have demonstrated that your assertion is false. If, on the other hand, everything in life is indeed meaningless, your assertion was meaningless too and therefore, in effect, you have said nothing. You may sit down.”

Everything is not meaningless! It just feels that way when you spend your whole life looking for the next thrill, forgetting God, and then getting to the end only to realise you’ll be soon forgotten and all you worked for will be obsolete within a generation.

How the Other Half Live

We often think about the distribution of wealth as being about the wealthy and the needy. The winners and the losers. The haves and the have nots. The well-off and the ripped off.

But in the Bible there are four categories, not two. It’s more nuanced. So in the Bible there are two kinds of rich; good rich and bad rich. And there are two kinds of poor; good poor and bad poor.

Whether you have a lot of money or no money is unimportant. Your prosperity doesn’t impress God and your poverty doesn’t earn you holy points either. God is not concerned about the size of our bank accounts. He is interested in the size of our hearts.

Money is morally neutral. It’s the love of money that is the root of all evil.

So Jesus applauded Zacchaeus (good rich) because he gave back four times more than he ripped off. Wealth and godliness can coexist.

But he criticised the Pharisees (bad rich) because they made a big show about putting a lot on money in the collection. They were so well-off they didn’t miss it.

What about the poor? Again, there are two kinds. Jesus commended the widow (good poor) who put two almost worthless coins in the offering because it was all she had. She had a generous heart.

But he roasted the servant in his story (bad poor) because he buried his single talent and lazed around all day instead of going to work and earning an honest living.

And the Book of Proverbs warns over and over against becoming a sluggard, refusing to work and bringing poverty on the family.

 Ecclesiastes 5 is mostly focused on the good poor and the bad rich.

In v8-9, the poor are getting fleeced and the rich are ripping them off while they accumulate more and more.

This is why bankers, in a season of hubris, can plunge a whole nation into years of austerity but keep their jobs and still go home with excessive bonuses. While the lowest paid get most squeezed.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies produced a report this week. It says, based on official forecasts, that the fallout from the 2008 financial crisis will still be being felt two years from now, 11 years on. And the pain will be borne most by low-income households with children.

3,000 years ago it was the same old story. That’s what v8-9 say. There’s nothing new under the sun. And Solomon (v9) is king - he’s top of the pile; he knows he’s doing very nicely out of the system so he doesn’t rock the boat.

In v10-11 Solomon reflects that people always want more than they have. He thinks about his own life – because he loved luxury – and he says that people who seek wealth are obsessive about it but it’s never enough.

He knows that having lots of stuff causes sleepless nights. He worried about thieves breaking in, about his palace having adequate security. “The abundance of the rich permits them no sleep” he says in v12.

According to Sebastian Dillon the three things that the rich worry about most are:

1. Will my friends and family ask me for money? (Basically am I going to be bothered by scroungers all my life)?

2. Does my spouse really love me? (In other words, if the money dries up will my trophy wife disappear the next day)?

3. Will I get sued?

Has anyone here heard of Minecraft? … Don’t ask me to explain Minecraft – ask them.

I was talking to a 9-year old boy at Saint Mary’s school before Assembly this week and he told me he spends about 20 hours a week playing Minecraft. I thought “wow!”

It reminded me Homer Simpson who once said, "It's not easy to juggle a pregnant wife and a troubled child, but somehow I managed to fit in eight hours of TV a day."

I don’t even really know what Minecraft is about. The lad tried to explain it to me, but I’m afraid after about two sentences I glazed over and lost the will to live. My expertise in computer games peaked in about 1981 with Space Invaders. Remember that? Bip… bip… Peoww! I almost got to Level 2.

Anyway, three years ago, the Swedish creator of Minecraft, Markus Persson, sold his business to Microsoft for $2.5 billion. He bought himself a $70 million mansion in Beverly Hills with every creature comfort – including 15 bathrooms.

Living it up in style eh? But soon afterwards, in a series of posts on Twitter he said this:

“The problem with getting everything is you run out of reasons to keep trying, and human interaction becomes impossible... Hanging out in Ibiza with a bunch of friends and partying with famous people, able to do whatever I want, and I’ve never felt more isolated… When we sold the company, the biggest effort went into making sure the employees got taken care of, and they all hate me now… Found a great girl, but she’s afraid of me and my lifestyle and went with a normal person instead.”

He announced the breakup of his marriage two days after his first wedding anniversary. He multiplied his wealth but lost his happiness.

In v13-15 Solomon thinks about people who lose happiness and wealth. He’s seen people blow every penny on rash investments or gambling - and he’s seen families left destitute.

The former boxer Mike Tyson (that’s the gentleman on the left) earned $400 million during his 20-year career. Now, you would think that $400 million ought to be just about enough to see you through wouldn’t you? But no! Apparently not. In 2003 he filed for bankruptcy. His debts amounted to the GDP of a small republic, including a $9 million divorce settlement and $17.4 million in unpaid taxes.

“I have seen a grievous evil under the sun” says Solomon; “wealth lost through some misfortune, so that when they have children there is nothing left for them to inherit.”

A Satisfied Life

I’ve shared several stories of the great and the good over the last few weeks. I’ve mentioned politicians, businessmen, sports stars, philosophers, recording artists, lottery winners – all of them thoroughly disillusioned by fame and fortune. I found many more and had to be very selective.

“I can’t get no satisfaction” sang Mick Jagger – and he was rolling in money, with unlimited drugs, fast cars and women in bikinis – all inclusive.

So what’s the key to a satisfied life? At the end of the chapter Solomon talks about living well and enjoying the simple pleasures of life. He says that’s good. But in v1-3 he gets to the heart of it all.

This is Solomon in one of his God moments. He says in v1, “Guard your steps when you go to the house of God. Go near to listen rather than to offer the sacrifice of fools... God is in heaven, and you are on earth, so let your words be few.”

He’s saying, “Watch this, this is really important. Take great care in how you approach God in your life.”

I think Solomon is talking about himself here in these verses; but not in the one who steps humbly into God’s house, who quietens down, who invests in his spiritual growth, who looks to hear from God. That’s who Solomon wishes he had been.

This is Solomon saying, “I’ve been a fool. I should have spent more time being still before God. I should have learned to slow down and tune in to the whisper of his voice. I should have just bowed in awe of God. What an idiot I’ve been.”

This is the greatest key to finding satisfaction in life; a healthy relationship with God.

Weary

I want to finish by focusing on one word; it’s a word I feel God impressed on me as I was praying over the passage and preparing this talk; the word is weary.

It’s not found in this chapter. He uses words and phrases like “meaningless,” grievous evil”, “never satisfied”, “what do we gain?” and “great frustration”.

But the word “weary” sums up the mood of this whole book. It’s got a slightly sad ring to it. It’s about tiredness, mental fatigue, jadedness. It’s when you’re burdened, weighed down.

For Solomon, as we’ve seen, the weariness is all about his despondency and regret for the wasted years of his life. He’s accumulated all his life but can now hardly bear to look at all his sumptuous wealth.

But I think the Lord wants to refresh weary souls today in several ways.

- First of all, I think there may be weary leaders here this morning. I’m thinking especially about leaders in church. You might think, “Well that won’t include me then.”

But I think up to about half of us here have some kind of leadership role; in Life Groups, in pastoral care, in administration, in prayer ministry, in youth work or in Messy Church, in Connect, in welcome, in worship, being on the PCC… if you’re the only person in church that arranges the flowers or washes the tea towels you’re a leader too and it wouldn’t happen without you.

Even Moses and Elijah, two of the most anointed leaders in the Old Testament, got weary at times. “Lord, what have I done to deserve having to lead this lot? I’m not doing this anymore” said Moses. “Lord, I’ve had enough, take my life!” said Elijah.

Are you weary? Has your love for what God has called you to do got burned-out?

- Secondly, I feel there may be some here today who are weary from living with long-term illness. You may have never asked anyone to pray for your condition. Or you may leap up to be prayed for every week. Sometimes an answer to prayer is instant. Other times it takes a long time.

Rob talked in Ablaze last month about laying the railway tracks on the Liverpool to Manchester Railway. There was one place on the line where the ground was soft. They laid tracks – and they collapsed. So they put some hard core underneath and laid them again – they sank again. They kept adding layers of hardcore until finally it hit the bedrock and at last the tracks were stable. For some of you today prayer might be like laying another layer of hardcore. For others, who knows?, it might finally be the day.

- Thirdly, some of you might be weary from living with difficult situations at work. Office politics, financial cuts, a terrible boss, a controlling colleague, a stressful environment… it’s gone on and on; and the attrition, the grinding down, has made you weary. It’s so hard to find the joy of the Lord (which is your strength) so you feel weaker and weaker…

- Fourthly, some here today might be spiritually weary. Every time you pick up the Bible and try and read it, it just feels dry. God’s not speaking to you through it like he used to. Or you might feel a bit detached and apathetic during worship. You used to love worship; it was like an oasis for your soul; where’s that gone? It’s become a bit of a drag. Or your prayer life has all but ground to a halt. God seems distant. Prayer is laborious. Your relationship with God has cooled.  

And fifthly, is there someone here who has not yet given their heart to Christ? You may feel like he’s been knocking on the door of your heart for years. Are you weary of resisting? Is this the day that changes?

Jesus said “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, [or heavy laden] and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light...”

Let’s pray…

Sermon preached at All Saints' Preston on Tees, 5 March 2017