Ec 11:7-12:8

24 July 2005

“Qoheleth, the Mortal”

            At the end of June, I announced my plan for a three-part series on the book of Ecclesiastes.  I preached the first one right before Independence Day.  But then two weeks ago, not even halfway into my sermon, I suffered what my doctor calls a focal seizure.  As a result, for today’s sermon to make any sense, I’ll need to carry some stuff over from that aborted message.  (But understand!  I still won’t guarantee that it will make sense…but I’ll do my best!)

            My intention has been for us to get to know—or at least, to become acquainted with—the strange, nameless character who narrates the book of Ecclesiastes.  Referred to as simply “the Teacher” or “the Preacher,” the word for him in Hebrew is “Qoheleth.”  That’s what most 21st century commentators call him.

            I’ve also intended to convey a sense of the…scandal that Ecclesiastes has caused at times.  I’ve mentioned how some rabbis argued that the book shouldn’t be included within the canon of scripture.  For them, it was almost sacrilegious.

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.  Read the book; you’ll see what I mean!

Still, it is true:  Qoheleth’s words do not fit everyone’s idea of proper, acceptable teaching.  A key reason for that is his repeated affirmation that “all is vanity”—everything is meaningless.  This favorite theme of his appears in today’s reading, as well.

            The word translated as “vanity” is lb,h, (hebel), which literally means “vapor” or “breath.”  This is very important.  For Qoheleth, it signifies “the temporary state of everything in life.”[1]  Jewish professor Rachel Dulin points out the various things that Qoheleth declares to be hebel, to be fleeting.  Included among them are actions (1:14), possessions (2:11, 6:2), toil (2:21), pain (2:23), jealousy (4:4), rules (4:16), and youth (11:10).

            That last one, youth, appears in today’s reading.  We see in chapter 2 that, as I tried to explain a couple of weeks ago, Qoheleth is a guy who has done it all and seen it all.  He has lived a life that most people only dream about.  And he has pronounced it “vanity and a chasing after wind” (v. 11).

            My point this week, though, is that Qoheleth is now an old man.  He’s drawing on his lifetime of experience in laying out his philosophy—and he does it with a fair bit of relish.  He pokes holes in the balloons filled with hot air, which pose as faith handed down through the ages.

            In speaking of the hebel—the vanity, the fleeting quality, the evanescence—of youth, Qoheleth draws our attention to the nature of time itself.  He speaks of time’s effects on us, creatures who are swept along with time.  Those effects of time include the good (lessons learned and wisdom gained, one hopes).  And they include the bad, which he describes in poetic fashion in chapter 12.

Today’s reading is a meditation on our mortality.  It’s been said, “We are all on death row; the day we are born, we begin to die.”[2]  Qoheleth’s words are a reminder of that fact.

            Something else I’ve wanted to emphasize about Ecclesiastes is the darkly ironic sense of humor within it.  As I said in my first sermon, we might call the narrator, “Qoheleth the curmudgeon.”  Some of the rabbis have been able to appreciate this.  In one of the commentaries (Qoheleth Rabbah 1:2), his poetic view of the aging process is described in a way that I personally find amusing.  It’s a look at the seven stages of a man’s life. [3]  (I’m guessing this is one case in which women are glad to be excluded!)

            “At a year old he is like a king seated in a canopied litter, fondled and kissed by all.  At two and three he is like a pig, sticking his hands in the gutters.  At ten he skips like a kid [a young goat].  At twenty he is like a neighing horse, adoring his person and longing for a wife.  Having married, he is like an ass (working hard for a livelihood).”

Now, that’s “ass” as in “donkey,” though some may prefer other definitions!  “When he has begotten children, he grows brazen like a dog to supply their food and wants.”  Maybe that’s where we get our phrase, “working like a dog!”  And in the seventh stage of a man’s life:  “When he has become old he is (bent) like an ape.”  All in all, not a very flattering portrait!

            Qoheleth gives these words of wisdom:  “Remember your creator in the days of your youth, before…” (12:1).  Before…  And then he launches into his litany of mysterious, poetic images.

Remember your creator before “the days of trouble come…before the sun and the light and the moon and the stars are darkened…in the day when the guards of the house tremble…when one is afraid of heights, and terrors are in the road…the grasshopper drags itself along and desire fails…before 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, and the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the breath returns to God who gave it” (vv. 1, 2, 5, 6-7).

As is common with poetic images, different people see different things in them.  Still, there’s a general consensus that what’s in view here is the decline of one’s physical abilities.  Some would say that Qoheleth pictures the onset of senile dementia, with the fear and paranoia that often go along with it.  He may even speak in a post-mortem fashion, portraying the mourners at his funeral.

So, what’s the point in reminding us of our mortality?  Why remind us that we’re going to die?  And why add, yet one more time, like a broken record—or should I say, like a CD that needs to be cleaned—“Vanity of vanities, says the Teacher [says Qoheleth]; all is vanity” (v. 8)?

Rachel Dulin says that we get “a glimpse into the haunted universe of a man who contradicted himself repeatedly—at times conveying [dejection] and depression, at other times exuding joyfulness and optimism.”  Qoheleth sharpens “the conflict between living life to its fullest and living under the futility of it all.”[4]  Isn’t that the story of all of us?  That’s true, regardless of how old we are.  Though I will admit—the more time goes by, the more it seems to be hebel, to be fleeting.

            Thomas Merton, one of the 20th century’s spiritual giants, once wrote a letter to a friend along these lines.[5]  He addresses a frustration every person has known, or will one day know:  the sinking feeling that one's efforts (in whatever arena they are) are not succeeding, or even worse, seem completely ineffective.

            “Do not depend on the hope of results,” Merton tells his friend.  ”[Y]ou may have to face the fact that your work will be apparently worthless and even achieve no result at all, if not perhaps results opposite to what you expect.”  There’s some stern advice!  “[C]oncentrate, not on the results, but on the value, the rightness, the truth of the work itself.”  That’s something to hold onto!

“All the good that you do will come not from you, but from the fact that you have allowed yourself, in the obedience of faith, to be used for God's love.  Think of this more, and gradually you will be free from the need to prove yourself, and you can be more open to the power that will work through you without your knowing it.”

And sounding very much like Qoheleth, Merton says:  “The great thing after all is to live, not to pour out your life in the service of a myth:  and we turn the best things into myths.”

The great thing after all is to live.  I’m really tired of business as usual.  I’m tired of it in our nation…in the church.  I’m tired of it in myself.  Am I alone in this?  Does anyone else here feel the way I do?  Does anyone else feel the way our friend Qoheleth does—that our entire life is vanity?

            That isn’t such a bad thing!  We find another writer who would’ve made a great student of Qoheleth in the epistle of James.  “[Y]ou do not even know what tomorrow will bring,” he says in chapter 4.  “What is your life?  For you are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes” (v. 14).

Still, the amazing thing about the gospel is that, in Christ, everything is made new.  Jesus redeems even the most vain, useless life!  He gives it meaning.  And he, above all, is qualified to do so.  That’s because Jesus has experienced the ultimate vanity.  His life has plunged to the very depth of uselessness; he has known complete failure.

The vast majority of his life is unknown to us.  And not too long after stepping onto the stage of history—after beginning his ministry—he gets killed.  Jesus actually dies!  It’s hard to get much done when you’re dead.  It’s hard to imagine a bigger failure than that!  But every time we state the Apostles’ Creed, we reaffirm that Jesus has descended to the dead.  He has descended to Hades—in Greek, the land of the dead.

Nobody here can make that claim!  I don’t care how badly you’ve screwed up…you’re still breathing!  God isn’t finished with any of us yet.

I’ll admit it, though:  I’ve had fleeting thoughts when I’ve wondered how I can possibly preach—if my brain keeps the words inside my head!  (If it won’t let me speak!)  Obviously, not everyone has seizure activity as something to deal with.  Still, there’s no end to the things that hinder us.  There’s that, and the things we permit to hinder us.

I say “permit,” because I think of Moses, who in Exodus 4 says, “O my Lord, I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor even now that you have spoken to your servant; but I am slow of speech and slow of tongue” (v. 10).  Then there’s the apostle Paul, who in 2 Corinthians 11 refers to the so-called “super-apostles,” extremely articulate and well-versed in the art of public speaking (vv. 5-6).  But neither man lets his lack of a golden tongue stop him.

And neither should we.  Obviously, there are some things we can no longer do.  But there are some things that we’ve never really tried, even though we’ve thought about them.

As Thomas Merton says to his friend, “Our real hope...is not in something we think we can do, but in God who is making something good out of it in some way we cannot see.”[6]

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