Ec 2:1-11

7 August 2005

“Qoheleth, a Disciple for Our Time”

            As I was thinking about today’s sermon, I came across this little gem:  “Everything has the potential to draw from us a greater love and life.  Yet our desires are often fixed—caught—on illusions of fulfillment.”

            The book of Ecclesiastes is a peculiar piece of work!  It presents us with a man who has done it all.  He has seen it all.  He has lived a life that most people only dream of.  This guy knows what it means to live large!

            When I was a young man, I was both attracted and confused by Ecclesiastes.  I wondered about the narrator, about Qoheleth.  “Qoheleth,” by the way, is the Hebrew word which is translated as “the Teacher” or “the Preacher.”  Most 21st century commentators refer to him in that way.  I’ll also use the Hebrew word for him.

He says stuff that doesn’t appear anywhere else in the Bible.  He seems to contradict himself, to go off in all directions.

            Besides today’s reading, we also find words of wisdom like this:  “I know that there is nothing better for [everyone] than to be happy and enjoy themselves as long as they live.  Moreover, it is God's gift that all should eat and drink and take pleasure in all their toil” (3:12-13).  Okay, I think I can live with that!

And then there’s this in chapter 9:  “Go, eat your bread with enjoyment, and drink your wine with a merry heart; for God has long ago approved what you do…Enjoy life with the wife whom you love, all the days of your vain life that are given you under the sun.”  Okay…  “Whatever your hand finds to do, do with your might; for there is no work or thought or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol, to which you are going” (vv. 7, 9a, 10).  What?  By the way, in case you didn’t know:  Sheol is the land of the dead!

            Qoheleth seems to be saying, “Go on; have fun!  Party!  God’s given you the green light—for all the good it’ll do you!  That’s what I meant by being both attracted and confused by his teachings!

            In ancient times, some of the rabbis wanted this book kept out of the Bible.  Qoheleth’s lack of a consistent, harmonious message was one big part of that.  Some people feel that the very end of the book was added on later as an appendix, in an effort to smooth out the rough edges.  Case in point, from the next to last verse:  “Fear God, and keep his commandments; for that is the whole duty of everyone” (12:13b).

            Still—pious, reverent sayings tacked on at the end can’t change what is possibly the strangest book in the Bible.

            I’ve borrowed my sermon title from Stephen Curkpatrick, who has published a letter to Qoheleth, calling him “a disciple for our time.”[1]  In a way similar to Job, Qoheleth points out the flaws in the nice, tidy explanations that often pose as faith.  And he does so with a vengeance!  Consider, if you will, the utter scandal of a Biblical writer who takes as his motto, “All is vanity!”  Everything is meaningless!  That sentiment appears throughout the entire book.

            We see it in today’s text.  A quick autobiographical sketch is followed up with this:  “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” (v. 11).

            That phrase, “chasing after wind,” appears several times in the book.  Considering his motto—“all is vanity”—it makes sense.  I say that because the Hebrew word for “vanity” is lb,h, (hebel), which literally means “vapor” or “breath.”

            Qoheleth is a model for those who realize that all their striving for position and possessions ends up being as useful as a handful of wind.  He is the man of means—who sees how meaningless it is.  He is the man of substance—and understands how unsubstantial it is.

            Still, having said all that, Qoheleth avoids the soul-sickness that afflicts so many in our world today.  He isn’t overwhelmed with the world weariness, the ennui, the “affluenza” (not influenza, “affluenza”) that so many of us come down with.  He’s finally able to see through the illusion.  That is why he’s “a disciple for our time.”

            So how does Qoheleth keep his head on straight?  As he says, “my wisdom remained with me” (v. 9).  It’s important to understand that he doesn’t blindly buy in to the politically correct message of empire, be it promoted by politician or priest.

            I said I borrowed my sermon title from Stephen Curkpatrick, who has written a letter to our author.  Despite Qoheleth’s bad reputation, he salutes him.  “Your probing reflections are more clever than we imagine the [Bible] to be.  Your subtle mocking of…simplistic values is refreshing.”  He doesn’t mock simple values; he mocks simplistic values.  There’s a big difference!

He goes on, “You do not have time for theology divorced from life or piety, theology that does not ring true to people’s life experiences, and you make the point with [fitting] irony.  Most people, understandably, can only cope with small doses of your kind of realism.”[2]  This guy really appreciates the offbeat humor we find in the book of Ecclesiastes!

            Still, Qoheleth provides more than just biting, satirical humor.  By basically cutting through the crap, he provides wisdom.  Curkpatrick continues, “Living life one day at a time takes all our skill…You distinguish between living life in the present and living in a fiction about life, preoccupied with the future—that is, being somewhere other than where we are now.  This is a little like using a credit card…For you, Qoheleth, it is futile to try to find life elsewhere, other than where it is—right before us.”[3]

            This call to live life in the moment, in the here and now, has a certain…Zen-like purity to it.  The image of the credit card, which so often leads to the illusion that we can avoid payment altogether, is quite appropriate for us today.  So much of what we call “life” is spent waiting until tomorrow.  But “now” is all we have.

            Qoheleth has earned a bad reputation down through the ages because he doesn’t tread lightly.  He puts to the test all that society holds dear.  Qoheleth forces us to examine our assumptions—that is, if we’re willing.  And he is uniquely qualified to call us to do so.  At various times he himself has bought into the assumptions about what makes life worth living.  He puts himself out there as Exhibit A.

            Of course, our assumptions are about more than what makes life worth living.  We have our ideas about how to handle times of trouble.  That’s the flip side of the coin about those “illusions of fulfillment” I mentioned at the beginning.

            It sounds harsh, but the remedy for most of our soul-sickness (the world weariness, the ennui, the “affluenza”) is detachment.  That is, it’s the ability and the resolve to let go.  Detachment is very different from not caring.

            Johann Christoph Arnold, sounding much like Qoheleth, has addressed this very matter of letting go.[4]  “In my work as a pastor and counselor,” he says, “I realize more and more the importance of helping others to ‘let go,’ and to see that, in the end, all our human striving comes to nothing.  Too often people exert themselves in trying to solve a problem their way, and realize later that their preoccupation does nothing but worsen the situation.  In such cases it is better to leave it in God's hands and let [God] take care of it.”

            Arnold tells the story of his friend Hans.  When he was about twenty-four, he began waking up in the morning with a bloody tongue.  It turned out that he was biting his tongue because he was having seizures in his sleep.  He had been a construction worker, but now he couldn’t drive, use heavy machinery, or climb on roofs or ladders.  Eventually, anti-seizure medication allowed him to return to work.

            However, Hans’ condition worsened, and he lost consciousness while driving a forklift.  He almost killed somebody.  His seizures became so bad that he threw his shoulder out of joint.  The epilepsy required brain surgery.  Arnold says that his friend told him that he was at peace.  He had finally let go, knowing that whatever happened, he was in God’s hands.  (By the way, Arnold doesn’t tell us whether or not the surgery was successful.  I guess that’s beside the point!)

            We hear the story of “Monica, the mother of Saint Augustine, [who] lived in Hippo (a Roman city in northern Africa) during the fourth century.  Her young son, as yet unconverted, lived a life of depravity and sin.  In desperation over her son's waywardness, she went to her bishop.  His advice?  ‘Stop talking to your son about God.  Talk instead to God about your son.’”

            I think the words of Qoheleth ring true when it comes to the past, present, and future of our own lives.  So much of our effort has focused on taking matters into our own hands, rather than letting God rule in our lives and in our church.  For example, we in America have often depended, not on God, but on money.

            But is it possible that some of us are beginning to think like our friend in Ecclesiastes?  Is it possible that, oddly enough, the motto “all is vanity” can be seen as hopeful—and not despairing?

I believe that many of us, as God’s community, are learning to seek God, to seek God’s vision for the future—for we have nowhere else to turn but God.  Everything else is meaningless.  We’re detaching ourselves from our own agendas and seeking God’s way for our lives and our community.

But we haven’t “let go” for the last time.  We'll have to do it again and again.

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