How did a book like Ecclesiastes get in the Bible? Did someone make a mistake, do you think? I don't know about you but I find the beginning of the book a bit depressing. Some people find it quite disturbing as it reinforces the doubts that they may have already about God's place in the scheme of things. In fact this book could almost have been written by someone like Richard Dawkins, the way it questions whether there's any purpose or meaning to life.
As one of the wisdom books of the Bible, Ecclesiastes seeks to make sense of what we find in the world. But where other books speak with great certainty and confidence about God's role and, in particular, our understanding of God's role in running the world, this book wants us to stop and think, to question whether we've got it right. Perhaps the world isn't as predictable as we thought. Perhaps the conclusions of some theologians needs to be tempered by an awareness of the world as we experience it day by day. The book of Job deals with the same question, but here we have it in much greater clarity: the world is an unpredictable and sometimes frustrating place in which to live, where simple answers don't always work.
The author, we're told, was king over Israel in Jerusalem. Clearly this is meant as an allusion to Solomon, though most commentators agree that it was written well after the time of Solomon. But Solomon is the one who's chosen by the author to voice the observations and conclusions of one who has studied the world long and hard.
As we read through the book we hear two voices speaking. In the introduction and at the end, and for one brief moment in the middle, there's a narrator who introduces the teacher and sums up his conclusions. The rest of the time it's the teacher himself who speaks to us. This is important because the words of the narrator form a frame around the main body of the book and it's that frame that we're going to look at today.
It's pretty clear what the motto of the book is isn't it? In our version: "Vanity of vanities, says the Teacher, vanity of vanities!" It's actually a word that has no single translation. That's why one version uses vanity while others use meaningless, or futility, or nonsense, or vapour. The word has the idea of something that's fleeting, momentary, impossible to take hold of, almost nothing, like vapour or mist that's here one moment and gone the next. As he looks at the world his conclusion appears to be that the things of this world are not worth striving for because they all pass away in the end.
In fact it'd be easy to take him for a pessimist wouldn't it. The introductory poem seems very pessimistic, doesn't it? At best you'd think he's a sceptic. But no, the Teacher is not a pessimist. He will come to the conclusion in the end, a conclusion that fits with the rest of wisdom literature - that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. But he wants us to get there by working through the ambiguities of life. He wants us to start by thinking about the world from the point of view of the humanist or secularist, the person who has no theological basis for considering life. What does the world look like if you take God out of the equation? Not as an atheist. Such a concept would have been unthinkable in the days of the Old Testament. But what if you thought of the world as a closed system, created by God, sure, but then left alone to run its own course; following the immutable laws of nature? What sense would you make of the world then?
In the end his conclusion is that such a search will be futile because without God there is no sense in the world.
But for that we'll need to wait. Today we're going to think about the way he frames the book with first the impermanence of human existence in 1:1-11 and the inevitability of death in 11:7-12:7.
Let's look at those passages in a bit more detail and see what we can find there.
He begins with the impermanence of human endeavour. "3What do people gain from all the toil at which they toil under the sun? 4A generation goes, and a generation comes, but the earth remains forever." "9What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done; there is nothing new under the sun." It seems that in the end nothing is achieved. History repeats itself over and over again. The one lesson we learn from history is that we never learn from history.
"15What is crooked cannot be made straight, and what is lacking cannot be counted."
God has made the world, sure. But it seems to have these quirks that can't be fixed. It's as though there's a built-in resistance to humanity as planners and standardisers. If you're the sort of person, unlike me, who likes to keep their office tidy you'll know that it's an impossible task. It's like painting the Sydney Harbour Bridge. No sooner have you got it done than it needs to be done all over again.
No matter what we try, the world continues on oblivious to our existence, almost as if we were never here. Of course for those of us who are engineers and architects this can be a bit deflating can't it? No matter how hard we try we can't control the world. One of the things I discovered soon after I left engineering was that all the work I'd done for the previous ten years was suddenly redundant. It had been superseded by something better. If you visit the sites of ancient civilisations you discover that no matter how great they were, now they mostly lie in ruins. My daughter visited Angkor Watt last month. That's a great example of an ancient city that's been taken over by nature, though the government of Cambodia are working hard to reclaim it from the jungle.
Next week we'll be thinking about the issue of work. Is work a good thing or a necessary evil? Why should we work? Is it worth the trouble? How can we make the most of it? Well, as far as this introduction to the book goes, work seems meaningless and a chasing after the wind. Anything you do has been done before. No-one will remember that you did it. It won't change anything. [How does that make you feel with Monday coming up? Well, don't resign until after next week at least.]
We find in ch 9 & 10 that chance and uncertainty rule us as much as any planning we might do. (Eccl 9:11-12 NRSV) "Again I saw that under the sun the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to the intelligent, nor favor to the skillful; but time and chance happen to them all. 12For no one can anticipate the time of disaster. Like fish taken in a cruel net, and like birds caught in a snare, so mortals are snared at a time of calamity, when it suddenly falls upon them." (Eccl 10:5-9 NRSV) "There is an evil that I have seen under the sun, as great an error as if it proceeded from the ruler: 6folly is set in many high places, and the rich sit in a low place. 7I have seen slaves on horseback, and princes walking on foot like slaves. 8Whoever digs a pit will fall into it; and whoever breaks through a wall will be bitten by a snake. 9Whoever quarries stones will be hurt by them; and whoever splits logs will be endangered by them."
Murphy's law has been around for a long time hasn't it? So how do you deal with the unpredictable nature of the world?
There's also the natural rhythm of the world that we're at a loss to do anything about. The sun rises and the sun sets in a fixed fashion, day after day. Time never stops. There are only 24 hours in a day. That's all you get. And at the end of the day if you haven't done what you set out to do, it's too bad. You can't do anything about it.
As we'll see when we look at ch 3, there's a time for every matter under heaven. Sometimes we have a choice but often we don't. Often we find ourselves caught up in the events of the day with no control over them. Life rolls on irrespective of our attempts to control it.
And what about wisdom? Surely if we apply wisdom to the world it will help us. Well, the conclusion of the teacher is that even wisdom doesn't help, because even wisdom is limited by our human frailty.
And what about God's place in all this?
There's an interesting linguistic tool that the writer uses when he's describing the things that are done by people. Look at vs 12&13. "12I, the Teacher, when king over Israel in Jerusalem, 13applied 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. 14I saw all the deeds that are done under the sun; and see, all is vanity and a chasing after wind." See how he uses 'under heaven' and 'under the sun' there? Mostly it's under the sun that he talks about. Only a few times does he use 'under heaven'. So is that important do you think? Why do you think he might use those two phrases?
Well, it seems that he uses 'under the sun' when he's talking about his observations of the world from a purely human perspective. 'Under the sun' has that idea of the world as a closed system, a system where all you have to go on is what you can observe. This is the world of the pure scientist. This is the world of those who rely on human endeavour to explain and control what goes on in this world. 'Under the heavens' though, brings a broader perspective, a perspective of a world that's part of a greater system, a system in which God is sovereign. This is a world that only occasionally creeps into the discussion, but it's a world where God's wisdom is seen to be at the same time greater than human wisdom and yet unsearchable, unknowable except by fleeting glimpses and grasping guesses. God's wisdom is such that even though we can see his hand at work we still can't work it out: "He has made everything suitable for its time; moreover he has put a sense of past and future into their minds, yet they cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end." (Eccl 3:11 NRSV)
The book finishes with the second half of the frame, with a summary statement that reminds us again of our frailty. "12:1Remember your creator in the days of your youth, before the days of trouble come, and the years draw near when you will say, "I have no pleasure in them"."
Eric Bogle summed up the sad reality of life in that song we began with: "From the moment we're born we start to die." Age catches up on all of us. Don't I know it!? And even those who are young and in the peak of health need to remember what a fleeting life this is. Enjoy it while you can, because the days are coming when your body won't be able to keep up with your mind. And ch 12 has this wonderful series of metaphors that so beautifully describe the pain of growing old. We don't have time to look at it now but you might like to read it later. Those who are getting on a bit I'm sure will relate to the description of "when the guards of the house tremble, and the strong men are bent, and the women who grind cease working because they are few, and those who look through the windows see dimly..."
But you know even as he finishes on what seems a fairly fatalistic note, he's aware that God is in control of all that happens. God is not just the creator and the one who controls what happens by his wisdom. God is also the sovereign Lord who will judge humanity according to their attitude to him. So he warns the young "Follow the inclination of your heart and the desire of your eyes, but know that for all these things God will bring you into judgment." He reminds his hearers that when "the silver cord is snapped, and the golden bowl is broken, and the pitcher is broken at the fountain, and the wheel broken at the cistern, 7... the dust [will] return to the earth as it was, and the breath [will] return to God who gave it."
Life is confusing. The world is uncontrollable despite all our human efforts, all our technological advances. We often wonder whether there's a purpose to it all. But here's the conclusion of the Teacher: God is the one who brings us into being, who gives us breath and who determines our life span. God is in control.
But we also need a New Testament perspective if we're to approach a book like this without despairing entirely. Paul sums it up beautifully in his letter to the Romans: (Rom 8:19-24 NRSV) "For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God; 20for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 21that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. 22We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now; 23and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. 24For in hope we were saved."
Our perspective is not a closed system but a world where God is in control, bringing history to an end and with a new world prepared for us where the futility and frustration of this world will be gone and God's perfect order will prevail.
In the meantime we continue to live in a world that is often difficult to understand, where sometimes we just have to trust that God is in control, even if it seems that things are upside down, even if we find we can't straighten out the things that are crooked in this world. But we do that always conscious of the fact that God is overseeing all that happens around us and all that we do and say. We continue to fear God because that is the beginning of wisdom.