Introduction
In
January 2004 a new American reality TV show first appeared called The Apprentice and it has been hosted
for the last fourteen seasons by a man named Donald Trump. You may have heard
of him. The UK version is hosted by Alan (Lord) Sugar. And on this show, as
many of you will know, between 14 and 18 eager contestants compete with one
another, desperate to avoid being fired, as they aspire to success, fame and
fortune.
But
the Canadian comic actor Jim Carrey, who has already achieved success, fame and
fortune once said this: “I think everybody should get rich and famous and do
everything they ever dreamed of, so they can see that it's not the answer.”
So
what is the answer? What are we all
looking for in life? What’s the goal? To be happy? To be fulfilled? Some of us
feel like we’re on one of MC Escher’s famous architectural drawings of steps
that lead nowhere. Many people feel like the further they walk, the less they
travel.
Background to
Ecclesiastes
King
Solomon was a man like this. He lived about 1,000 BC which was Israel’s golden
age. Its borders have never, before or since, been as extensive as they were in
Solomon’s day. Israel’s economic wealth, its cultural influence and its
military strength were all at their zenith during his reign. And he was top
dog.
As
we’ll see next week he was an exceptionally high achiever. He was
multitalented. Politically, culturally and spiritually, he left his mark - big
time. But above all, he was known all over the ancient world for his unparalleled
wisdom. He was an intellectual, a thinker, a sage who knew a lot about a lot
and spoke a lot of sense to people. He was before the great Greek philosophers like
Epimenides, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. And in fact, only Jesus Christ in
the whole Bible is presented as having wisdom greater than Solomon.
But
Solomon’s whole life was a restless pursuit of an answer those great questions behind
all teenage angst and responsible for every midlife crisis – What is life all
about? Why am I here? Who am I? How can I be happy?
Solomon
is the narrator of this book Ecclesiastes (he introduces himself in 1.1 and
1.12 as is David’s son and king in Jerusalem; that’s who he was).
And,
as we’ll see over the next couple of months, he talks in this book about the
many things he did in his quest for happiness and his ambition for greatness. But
he just keeps coming back to a point of weary dissatisfaction, if not despair.
“What’s the point?” he sighs again and again.
Now
I know what you’re thinking. This is all very well, but what is this strange
book doing in the Word of God? This is exactly what I thought when I first read
it as a new Christian. It seems to be more about fate than faith. It sounds
like the confessions of a burned-out secular humanist. It jars. This isn’t how
God speaks.
It’s
more concerned with earthly happiness than eternal holiness. It seems to almost
sneer at the whole positive thrust of
the gospel as good news of great joy. Ecclesiastes is never quoted in the New
Testament. It’s dark. It’s a bit
heavy. It’s like it was written by Eeyore in an exceptionally wretched mood on
a particularly miserable day.
But
no one ever doubted or disputed that this had its place in God’s word when they
put the Old Testament together. Furthermore, no one argued for its exclusion
from the Bible when the New Testament was added either. This absolutely belongs
in God’s inspired word, but you need to dig deep to unearth its riches - and
that’s what we’re going to do together all the way up to Easter.
Two Key Words
Let’s
just set the scene a bit. In v1, Solomon gives us a heading. “The words of the
Teacher” he says.
That
word “teacher” is our English translation of a Hebrew word “qoheleth.” I’m going to introduce you to
two Hebrew words this morning, both of which have a range of meanings much
wider than what we have in English - and this first one, qoheleth, is variously translated in different versions of the
Bible as the Teacher, the Critic, the Professor, the Philosopher, the Preacher
and the Quester…
If
you look at the footnote in your pew Bibles you’ll see it says “the Leader of
the Assembly.” And this is what it literally means, it’s someone who gathers
people round to listen.
I
think the very best translation is “the Speaker.” Like the Speaker in Parliament
who introduces a motion, chairs a debate between two sides and then gives the
conclusion at the end.
This
is what happened this week in Westminster. Various opinions were voiced in a
two-day debate over the referendum outcome and the Speaker presided over the
debate, ensuring every point of view was heard, before summing up and declaring
the result of the vote at the end; “the ayes have it” as he said.
When
you read Ecclesiastes all the way through, you can see that this is exactly
what’s going on. Solomon begins with a motion “Meaningless, everything is
meaningless.” Then he debates with himself throughout the book whether there’s
any purpose, whether he’s wasted his life, whether it’s all just pointless -
and he explores his own thoughts for and against, before concluding in the
final chapter with his verdict.
It’s
really important to understand this because, just like with Job, Ecclesiastes
investigates alternative views to God’s word. Job and Ecclesiastes both
conclude by saying that much of what has come before in each book is not what God thinks.
It’s
a bit like picking petals off a flower; “she loves me, she loves me not…” Have
you ever done that? It doesn’t work if you stop half way through! You’ve got to
get to the end, haven’t you, or you might get totally the wrong answer.
(Actually, in my experience this is not a scientifically proven method of
determining the amorous sentiments of females)…
The
other Hebrew word I need to introduce you to is the word “hevel” which occurs 38 times in Ecclesiastes and is translated here
as “meaningless.” Other versions translate it “useless,” “vanity,” “empty”, or “boring.”
It literally means “vapour” and this word carries the thought that life is fleeting
like a whisp of smoke; it’s confusing; you can see it but when you try and grab
it there’s nothing there.
Last
summer we had the Paris grandchildren round (I’ve only just recovered by the
way) and we were blowing bubbles with them in the garden. They would run after
these bubbles, big and shiny with all the colours of the rainbow – but no
sooner had they captured one and held it in their hands, they found it had
vanished.
That’s
“hevel.” Our days between birth and
death pass like the vapour of a breath on a frosty morning.
Circles
In
v1-11 Solomon starts out by sighing about the way life seems to go round in
circles.
When
I was growing up, recorded music looked like this (a 12” vinyl record). But the
records scratched and warped and you could only fit about 45 minutes’ music on
it and the technology was replaced by this (cassette tapes).
You
could record over what was on the tape and put an hour of music on it. But the
tape sometimes got chewed up in the machine so that technology was replaced by
that (CDs).
Now
you could have over an hour’s music perfectly reproduced and the plastic didn’t
scratch so easily or warp. But when this came along (iPod) you could put
hundreds of hours of music on it and the CD is now on the way to becoming
obsolete.
We
do advance technologically but Solomon is more interested in whether we progress
as people. The truth is, he says, that every generation goes round in the same
circles as the previous one.
Teenagers
often think they've nothing to learn from their parents, certainly I was like
that, but then they find out the hard way.
As
Geoffrey Stevenson said, “History repeats itself. It has to, because no one
listens.”
There’s
a story about an old time preacher on Hyde Park Corner talking about the
promises of eternal life. An attractive woman in her early twenties started to
interrupt him saying his ideas had had their day; what he was saying was just
naff and outdated. He just looked at her and said, “Young lady, you came into
this world in an old fashioned way, and you’ll leave it in an old fashioned way
too.”
“There’s
nothing new under the sun” Solomon says in v9, a Hebrew proverb that has been
adopted into the English language. Or as the French say, “plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.”
The more
it changes, the more it’s the same thing. That’s been adopted into English too.
Why? Because people know how true it is.
Our
generation, just like our parents’ generation did, busies itself with keeping
up with and overtaking the Joneses, trying to acquire ever more stuff, hoping
it will deliver the happiness we crave for. The next generation will do the
same.
People
say, “I feel like I’m just going round in circles,” or “I’m getting nowhere
fast.” People talk about life as a treadmill; relentless effort, but no sense
of progress. Or “I feel like a hamster on a wheel.” The daily grind. The French
call it “métro, boulot, dodo”
(meaning “commute, work, bed, commute, work, bed”). What’s the prize for
winning the rat race?
It’s
like “chasing after the wind” Solomon says in v14. We have many ways of saying
this in our day – because we experience exactly the same feelings 3,000 years
later as Solomon did. And people will be saying exactly the same things in 3,000 years’ time if the
Lord has not returned beforehand.
Jack
Nicolson starred in a brilliant, but quite sad, film in 2002 called About Schmidt. It’s about a man who
retires as a senior manager in a life insurance company. But after getting the
gold watch and a lovely send-off, he gets bored and feels a bit useless.
So
he pops in to see his dynamic young successor, who is all smiles. “Great to see
you Warren!” Schmidt, because he’s bored, says “If ever you need help with
anything, just let me know.” And the new whiz kid says how much he appreciates
it but diplomatically declines. And as Warren Schmidt leaves the office
building, he sees all his old office furniture and all his files, basically the
sum of his entire career, in the skip.
He
becomes overwhelmed with loneliness. He starts to neglect his personal hygiene,
sleeps in front of the TV, goes out with a coat over his pyjamas and eats
convenience food. I won’t say any more and spoil the end if you haven’t seen it
but it’s worth watching.
Solomon
could have written the script of About
Schmidt. He’d say “Look, when I retire and get my gold watch, I’m not stupid, I know I won't be missed after a
week. Everything will be just as before. And what will I be left with one
second after my death? Nothing. All I worked for, all I built, all I
accumulated, all I achieved will be like that vapour, that bubble; reach out
for it and it’s gone.”
We
sit here today with an illusion of stability, but in fact we’re all spinning round
and round on a giant spinning top rotating at over 1,000 miles an hour and
hurtling round the sun at the speed of 18 miles a second. But actually we’ll be
exactly where we were today on 5 February 2018 and all the way round, some people
will be saying “stop the world, I want to get off.”
Life
is cyclical. Someone once told me that if you live in Teesside, the tap water you
drink has already been drunk and recycled five times by the nice people up
river.
As
Solomon says in v4-10, the sun will keep rising and setting - the planet will
keep spinning. The rain cycle will ensure the rivers will keep rolling into the
sea. The lunar cycle will guarantee that the tide will ebb and flow as before. And
all that will still be going on long after time has erased you and me and
everything we care about from the face of the earth. Who’s going to know about
me in three generations time?
This
is what he says in v11: “No one remembers the former generations, and even
those yet to come will not be remembered by those who follow them.”
People
often say, “Well, I hope to leave the world a little better than I found it...”
But do you think there’ll be fewer wars in 100 years? There’s just as much (if
not more) violence, injustice, famine and pestilence as there was 100 years ago
– and now we’ve got Justin Bieber and Pot Noodle as well!
So
there it is. Nothing lasts. Everything fades. Fashions becomes passé. You work
for years building up an awesome cassette collection but when your machine
breaks you can’t get a new one because the technology has left you behind.
That’s what it says here in v3. “What does anyone gain from all their labours
at which they toil under the sun?”
No
wonder he says it’s all so meaningless; honestly, what significance do we have
in the grand scheme of things?
Solomon,
like so many others before and since, set out with high hopes in life to
achieve, to change the world, to build an empire, to be a somebody – but as he looks back on it all as an older man now, he
admits that it amounted to so little.
Jesus
knew all about this. He asked, “What good is it for someone to gain the whole
world, yet forfeit their soul?”
Under the Sun
Nearly
30 times in this little book Solomon uses the expression “under the sun.” We’ve
already come across it three times in chapter 1. He’s talking about the
material world, where people never stop to think about spiritual realities. Solomon
is speaking to the general public, who never see beyond the mundane and
everyday, on their terms. “Under the sun” is what the New Testament calls “the
world”, it’s a secular outlook that has no spiritual interest or curiosity.
He’s
talking to people whose highest ambition is acquiring a suntan that others can
envy. Solomon’s the type who’s done the sunbeds, and done the luxury holidays,
and now looks in the mirror and sees an orange face or one with a complexion of
a prune.
And
as he thinks about all this, Solomon says in v15 “What is crooked cannot be
straightened; what is lacking cannot be counted.” He means that the world is so
crooked that nothing fits right. In the last 100 years, as the Western world
has turned against God, modern art has appeared. You can't even tell which way
up it is and people pay millions to own it.
Something has gone wrong, this is not how it
was supposed to be. The world is all bent out of shape.
And
over that same time, a new dramatic genre has emerged; the theatre of the
absurd. Fluid plots that don’t make any sense. All communication breaking down.
Logical construction and dialogue giving way to irrational, meaningless speech before
ending in silence with everything up in the air.
Solomon
says here that he world is so hollow, that nothing fills it. Life is like a
1,000 piece jigsaw of with only half the pieces, no picture and no shapes that seem
to interlock.
Ending
So,
as I close, Solomon chose this word “meaningless,” to sum up how life often
feels without God. What words would you choose to describe your view of life?
God
has built this quest for meaning and this sense of restless dissatisfaction in
to us all. It’s there to point us to Him.
It’s
why Romans 8.20 says, “the whole of creation was subject to futility...” (in
other words meaninglessness, emptiness).
But
almost every time someone gives a testimony in church about their new faith in
Jesus - maybe after an Alpha course or at their baptism - you hear one familiar
word; “purpose.” This is what I felt when I came to faith in Christ aged 17. Now
my life has purpose. I’ve got something to live for. I’m fulfilled. This is
what I was looking for. Now my life has meaning.
Let’s
stand to pray…
Sermon preached at All Saints' Preston on Tees, 5 February 2017
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