Finding Contentment (Ecclesiastes 6.1-12)

Introduction

In over 30 years of preaching, I’ve never yet begun a sermon with a weather forecast. But, ladies and gentlemen, that all changes today!

As we head through March, I understand we can expect plenty of unsettled weather with some strong wind and rain over most of the country. The latter stages of the month should see things calm down with drier weather expected. And apparently, according to someone I talked to this week, there’s a heatwave on the way.

It was so good to walk outside on Tuesday, without a coat, and hear birdsong, and see spring flowers and buds appearing, and have the warmth of the sun on your face. It really lifts your morale doesn’t it?

But not everyone cheers up when the sun comes out. “Under the sun” is a phrase that turns up 28 times in this book of Ecclesiastes (and nowhere else in the whole Bible). Solomon is always talking about life “under the sun” and yet he goes through the whole book moaning about what a drag it all is.

“Ooh, everything’s so meaningless. I’m bored. I work all day for nothing. What’s the point? Life is so unfair. It would have been better to have never been born.” This guy is pretty heavy. He’s the bloke who lives in a palace of bling and yet says, “Start each day with a smile. Get it over with!”

That phrase “under the sun” is important though, it’s key, because it defines Solomon’s vision of reality. It’s a world view that is strictly limited to this earth and this life.

·         That’s it

·         There is no spiritual dimension

·         There is no thought of eternity

·         There is no room for God

·         Imagine there’s no heaven, and no religion too

Actually, you don’t have to imagine it; you can go there. It’s a place called North Korea…

But for Solomon, living under the sun which is how has spent most of his days, is just life on earth, going round in circles, then death, then nothing. This is where Solomon got to when he drifted away from God for years and years – most of his life – and he ended up disillusioned and miserable.

But not everyone comes to the same conclusion Solomon came to, we must be honest. Some people never go near a church, never pray, never think about spiritual things at all, live comfortably and say, “I’m very happy in life. I have no existential angst. I’m fine. I don’t feel the need for spiritual things. I don’t feel empty. Why do I need Jesus?”

Do you know people like that? The thing is, whenever we say this, we talk and act like our lives are going to go on forever, even though we know deep down they won’t. We may well live a few years longer than our parents, but the death rate is the same today as it’s always been; 100%.

We all have to face up to it – and this is why Solomon feels so wretched; he’s at the end of his life and he so wishes he could start again. If he could, he would put God right at the heart of his life. “I would have been happier” he says. “I would have been more at peace. I wouldn’t have made a pig’s ear of my relationships. I would be facing the inevitable satisfied that I had lived well and confident about what awaits me on the other side.”

And he would have been right to think that. Academic research that has been done that bears this out very emphatically.

Dr. Simon Dein from University College London, having reviewed a wealth of literature on human wellbeing, wrote this:

In the majority of studies, religious involvement is correlated with:

•    Wellbeing, happiness and life-satisfaction

•    Hope and optimism

•    Purpose and meaning in life

•    Higher self-esteem

•    Better adaptation to bereavement

•    Greater social support and less loneliness

•    Lower rates of depression and faster recovery from depression

•    Lower rates of suicide and fewer positive attitudes towards suicide

•    Less anxiety

•    Less psychosis and fewer psychotic tendencies

•    Lower rates of alcohol and drug abuse

•    Less delinquency and criminal activity

•    Greater marital stability and satisfaction

This is the way God has wired us; to live in relationship with him. Though our sinful nature rebels against it 24/7 we are incomplete without God; something is missing.

Instead of benefiting from all the things those studies identified, Solomon found that everything he lived for turned out to be like a wisp, a vapour; just when he thought he’d grabbed hold of it, it was gone.

Life passed him by. And now as an old man, looking back, trying to make sense of it all, he says, it was as futile as chasing the wind. In modern English we say “spitting into the wind.” “Pointless”, in other words. “Meaningless” as he repeats here no less than 33 times.

Enjoying Life

Let’s turn to today’s reading, chapter 6. It’s about contentment - and the lack of it. “I have seen another evil under the sun, and it weighs heavily on the human race…” says Solomon.

We all want contentment don’t we? We all want to enjoy life. Well, the word “enjoy” appears 4 times in the first six verses.

In v1-2 you’ve got people who appear to lack nothing. They’ve got it all; they’ve money, they’ve got every possible material comfort and they’re popular. All that is a gift from God, says Solomon, but he adds this important detail. Although God provides these things he doesn’t automatically give the ability to enjoy them.

Sometimes he does. Just a few verses back, in 5.19, it says God does give those with wealth and possessions the gift of being able to enjoy them. God gives contentment to some but he withholds it from others.

Contentment in life is not something we can obtain ourselves and it’s not a human right. Enjoying what we have is a gift of grace.

Do you thank God for the blessings you receive from his hand and that you are able to enjoy them? Both are a gift of God.

I think this is another self-portrait by Solomon; here’s a king who had all the toys, but none of the joys. Here’s a man who always thought about the gifts and never about the giver.

Ian Parkinson was speaking at New Wine a couple of years ago and he talked about a time when he was a curate in Middlesbrough and they had a visit from a Ugandan church leader. This was a guy who sometimes went weeks without being paid, he had a family that sometimes just drank water for a week at mealtimes because there was no food to put on the plate. He lived simply. He had suffered greatly.

Someone took a photo of this man with the home group which was hosting him (these were the days when you had to send a film off and wait a couple of weeks – remember that?) When they looked at the photo a few weeks later they were quite shocked.

Because here he was in this group photo surrounded by about 20 people, all very comfortably off, certainly in comparative terms. When they passed the photo round someone asked “who looks the happiest person in the picture?” And it was this Ugandan pastor, just beaming from ear to ear. It wasn’t that anyone else was unhappy; it’s just that the joy of the Lord was on him. He radiated this almost supernatural happiness. His contentment was in God, his cup overflowed and he enjoyed his blessings.

We know poverty can be devastating, it can be crushing, but in a strange kind of way, those whose mind-set is not to be consumed by riches because it’s not an option for them, are often somehow liberated. It’s only when we step outside of our own culture that we see sometimes how compromised we can get serving mammon rather than God – certainly I felt that very strongly when I was in Ethiopia last year.

Visiting homes in some run-down neighbourhoods in Addis Ababa, and seeing the joy of the Lord on the faces of Christians living there, somehow put the inconveniences of our 10 year-old car and high-maintenance garden in perspective.

Listening to the budget and the debate that followed this week, it struck me that last year, our government in London borrowed £1,150 for every man, woman and child in the country just to give us what we demand as our present standard of living. And still we’re not satisfied.

So much for money and material possessions... We know deep down they can’t really give us the quality of life we want. But what about family? What about health? Surely they can?

But, Solomon says in v3 that he’s noticed after a lifetime of observation, that even if you have 100 kids and live to a ripe old age you can still be thoroughly miserable and die unloved and unlamented.

This is what v3-6 are about. What could be sadder than having no mourners at your funeral, and your family only hanging around long enough for the reading of the will? You’d be better off never to have been born says Solomon.

I’ve done enough funerals in my time to know that it’s relatively common for children, grandchildren, brothers or sisters to want nothing to do with the ceremony and not have a single good word to say for their deceased close relative.

Then in v7-12 Solomon says a few more things about contentment.

Firstly, back to the treadmill of work. “Everyone’s toil is for the mouth, yet the appetite is never satisfied.” In other words, we work to eat for the strength to go on working and eating.

A Yorkshire farmer was interviewed on TV about his working week. “What’s the hardest thing about life on the farm?” asked the reporter. "Milking cows” he said. “And the hardest thing about milking cows is that they never stay milked."

One of the most popular stories in Greek mythology is the myth of Sisyphus. He was condemned by the gods to pushing a rock up a hill, watch it roll down again and repeat the exercise every day. This is what work feels like for many people.

It’s all a bit depressing, isn’t it? So here are a few one-liners about jobs to lighten things up a bit.

-          The worst job I ever had was being a human cannonball at the circus. The boss fired me on my first day.

-          I left my job at the helium gas factory. I refused to be spoken to in that voice.

-          My friend refused to believe his dad had been stealing from his job with the Highways Agency but when he got home all the signs were there.

-          I don’t think I got that job at Google. They never responded to my telegramme.

-          My brother’s an underground sewer inspector but he's become disillusioned with his job. "It feels like I'm just going through the motions" he said.

If Solomon was a vineyard owner, I reckon he’d moan about the weather, and complain about the toil of picking the grapes, and gripe about working the winepress, and whinge about the tedious job of bottling it all. Every year, the same old cycle. That’s his tone in Ecclesiastes.

Compare that negative, godless outlook, to what Benjamin Franklin said. “Behold the rain which descends from heaven upon our vineyards, there it enters the roots of the vines, to be changed into wine, a constant proof that God loves us, and loves to see us happy.”

Ending

I’d better wrap this up. If I lack contentment, why is that? There are two possibilities; one is healthy and one is unhealthy.

1) Discontent can be healthy. This is when we compare our lives with what they would be like if we only walked in obedience with God, in line with what he wants for our joy and well-being.

For example, if a married couple are unhappy about their marriage their lack of peace might motivate them work it out, improve their communication, or mend whatever is broken. That leads to contentment and blessing.

2) Discontent can be unhealthy. This is when we compare ourselves with other people and envy what they have.

For example, that same married couple are unhappy in their marriage because they compare their spouse to someone else they think they would rather be with. That leads to discontent and misery.

I think this is what Solomon is saying in v9; “Better what the eye sees than the roving of the appetite.”

People sometimes imagine life would be better if their husband had Brad Pitt’s physique, or their wife had Rhianna’s figure, or if they had Michael McIntyre’s sense of humour, or Jessica Ennis-Hill’s sporting talent, or Stephen Fry’s intellect or Richard Branson’ money.

Is Richard Branson happy? Possibly. But someone once asked him, “How do you become a millionaire?” He said, “Start off as a billionaire and then go into the airline business!”

We live in an age which has more opportunity for personal dissatisfaction than any other time in history. Facebook presents us round the clock with pictures of beautiful people eating amazing meals, and living in perfect homes. Advertising is a strategy of creating discontentment to such a degree that we willingly part with our money to make us feel better again.

The prayer of a discontented person is “Lord, help me to have what I want.”

The prayer of a contented person is “Lord, thank you that I want what I have.”

But let’s end by looking at Jesus. No one was more content in life than him. The Bible says he was anointed with the oil of gladness.

Was he privileged, wealthy, comfortable, popular and upwardly mobile like Solomon?

In fact, he went from King of Heaven, enthroned in glory, adored by angels and crowned with honour to:

-          growing up under military occupation

-          a manual job in a sweaty workshop

-          no romantic relationships, no marriage and no children

-          not having his own home and often sleeping rough

-          being supported by the charity of a few devoted women

-          being deeply unpopular with the people who made the rules

-          rejection, betrayal and desertion by few friends

-          the denial of a fair trial

-          a beating and crucifixion, blame for the sins of the whole world

If Jesus was like me, he would have never left heaven. But not once in the Gospels does Jesus show the slightest hint of discontentment. Living in Christ is how you find contentment.

Let’s pray…

Sermon preached at All Saints' Preston on Tees, 12 March 2017