Title: Chasing After the Wind
Text: Ecclesiastes 1:12-18
Thesis: We can live a meaningful life in a world filled with vain pursuits.
Introduction:
The Book of Ecclesiastes is one of my favorite bible books… despite its reputation as somewhat of a downer, I find it to be filled with wit and wisdom and a rather healthy perspective for approaching life.
We traditionally ascribe the authorship of three Old Testament Books to King Solomon… scholars say
• The Song of Songs was written by Solomon in his youth; (reckless and madly in love)
• Proverbs was written by King Solomon in his midlife;(older and wiser… I wish I knew then what I know now stage in life) and
• Ecclesiastes was written by Solomon in his old age – hence the ccynicism.
The tone of the book of Ecclesiastes is that of a person who has lived long and has grown what one might call, “world-weary.” It is the writing of a man who has observed a world in constant change and yet never really changing. In retrospect he sees life as cyclical (i.e., in the fashion world, if you wait long enough it will become popular again and in life, history tends to repeat itself) he struggles with the harsh realities of human existence. So he begins his book with the famous lines, Vanity of vanities,” says the preacher, “all is vanity.”
The Hebrews word is from which the word “vanity” is translated is “hevel.” When something is said to be “hevel” it is understood to be insubstantial or fleeting or worthless or pointless or futile. So when the author says “vanity of vanities” he is saying not only are life’s pursuits vane, they are the vainest of vanities. The NIV puts it, “”Meaningless! Meaningless! Utterly meaningless.”
If in fact wisdom and knowledge and understanding are meaningless,
I. So much for being informed
I devoted myself to study and to explore by wisdom all that is done under heaven. What a heavy burden God has laid on men! I have seen the things that are done under the sun; all of them are meaningless, a chasing after the wind. What is twisted cannot be straightened and what is lacking cannot be counted.” Ecclesiastes 1:13-15
Solomon was not always cynical about accumulation of knowledge.
A. Wisdom and understanding, i.e., a discerning heart, was important to Solomon.
The writer described himself as a person who was dedicated to gaining wisdom and understanding. In some versions translators say he calls himself “the Teacher” and in others, “the Preacher.” In The Message, Eugene Peterson says Solomon calls himself, ‘the Quester,” which is probably the most pertinent word in this context. Solomon was a man on a journey to seek out and investigate and explore life. His approach to understanding the ways of the world was to launch an investigation.
In the book of I Kings there is a story about how God came to Solomon in a dream and said, “Ask for whatever you want and I will give it to you.” Solomon thought about it for a bit and then he replied to God, “You have made me king in place of my father David. But I am only a child and do not know how to carry out my duties… so give your servant a discerning heart to govern your people and to distinguish between good and evil.” God was pleased with Solomon’s request and gave him this blessing, “Since you have asked for this and not for a long life or for wealth for yourself, nor have you wished for the death of your enemies but for discernment in administrating justice, I will give you a wise and discerning heart, so that there will never have been anyone like you, nor will there ever be. Moreover, I will give you what you have not asked for, both riches and honor and a long life.” I Kings 3:9-14
Shortly thereafter Solomon had an interesting opportunity to demonstrate that wisdom in settling a dispute between two women who lived in the same house.
They came to see Solomon in attempt to resolve a dispute. One woman told Solomon that they both lived in the same house. She said, “I had a baby… and then the third day after my baby was born, she had a baby. We were alone; there was no one in the house but the two of us.” She went on to say that during the night the other woman had laid on and suffocated her own son and then switched her dead baby with her living baby. When she woke up to nurse her baby she saw that the dead baby at her side was not her baby.
Of course the other woman objected and claimed the story was not true… and so the argument ensued, “The living baby is mine and the dead baby is yours.” And then “No, the living baby is mine and the dead baby is yours.”
When Solomon had heard the case he asked for a sword and ordered the living baby divided and half given to each woman.
The real mother of the living son immediately protested pleading, “Please my Lord, give her the living baby, don’t kill him.” However the mother of the dead baby chimed in and said, “Neither I nor you shall have the baby, cut him in two!”
Solomon had discerned who the real mother was and ordered the baby given to the first woman saying, “She is his mother.” I Kings 3:16-28
Of course the story spread throughout the land and the bible says the people were in “awe” because of the wisdom he had demonstrated.
Solomon was a man whom God had most assuredly gifted with wisdom and discernment… but he was also a man who, despite his natural gifts, made wisdom and understanding a life quest.
Yesterday the Sports section in The Denver Post noted that after a rather light workout in which there were only six snaps, Kyle Orton took four snaps, Brady Quinn took two snaps and Tim Tebow took no snaps… he was not part of the scrimmage but was off to the side working on his foot work.
Following the workout a few people and a very few reporters gathered around Kyle Orton to interview him while a mob of fans and reporters gathered around Tim Tebow…. The number one quarterback on the depth chart, who has a one year contract for a couple of million dollars was largely ignored while the number three quarterback on the depth chart, who has a five year contract potentially worth thirty-three million dollars, was given an inordinate amount of attention. It certainly does not seem fair but it is what it is.
Meanwhile Tim Tebow has earned what they call “locker room respect.” Given his considerable nature ability, teammate Darrell Reid, speaking of Tim Tebow, is quoted in The Denver Post as saying, “I think the thing people don’t know about him is he’s a very, very, very hard worker. He’s almost like a perfectionist. That’s what carries him further. Most people end up being great because they want to be great and they end up working harder than everybody else. Whether it’s working on his throwing motion or in the weight room or running, he is almost always the last guy out of the building. He’s a very humble kid and he’s a proven winner who will do whatever it takes. That’s why people love him.” (Mike Klis, Broncos: Tebow already has locker room respect, The Denver Post, Wednesday, July 28, 2010, Sports 7c)
It could be said of King Solomon, who came to the throne at a young age, “He is a humble kid who has devoted himself to doing whatever it takes to “study and explore by wisdom all that is done under heaven.”
But then in time the wisest man who has ever lived learned something.
B. Wisdom can be very burdensome
.
What a heavy burden God has laid on men! Ecclesiastes 1:13
The more wisdom and understanding and insight you gain makes you increasingly aware of the “weight of the world.”
Whenever I drive down to one of the inner city hospitals I usually take the Park Avenue exit off of I-25. On my return I drive by the St. Francis Center and the Denver City Rescue Mission. Depending on the time of day there will be a lengthy line of people waiting to get into either the St. Francis Center or the Mission. I am always startled by the number of people in those lines or gathered in Triangle Park across from the mission. It is a mass of human beings, piles of personal belongings in bags and bed rolls and shopping carts. Sometimes there will be people huddling beneath make-shift tarps strung up to protect them from the elements.
As long as I stay in my cozy little townhouse over on Xavier Circle and avoid traveling busy intersections or down Park Avenue or go around Capitol Hill, I am relatively unaware of the problem of homelessness. But once I see that it is much larger than the occasional person on a freeway ramp holding a sign asking for assistance… it becomes a weighty burden of concern for masses of people.
As long as the unemployed were statistics of union workers in faraway Detroit I did not feel the pain. But when the unemployed became my brother-in-law and my sister-in-law and my nieces husband and my daughter-in-law I began to feel the burden. When the lay-offs hit our own families and friends… then the knowledge becomes a very heavy burden of loving concern. What a heavy burden God has laid on men!
Despite the fact that there are many, many who abuse the system, the burden of unemployment was not eased when well-intentioned Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah proposed an amendment to the jobs bill requiring recipients of unemployment insurance benefits get drug tested before they receive their checks. The presumption is that the minute unemployed people get their checks they do not pay their rent or buy groceries to feed their kids… instead they go right out and buy drugs. (Annie Lowery, Orrin Hatch: Let’s Drug Test Unemployment Insurance Recipients, The Washington Independent as reported in the Salt Lake Tribune, 6/16/10)
I can assure you that those in my family who are unemployed have been and will continue to be productive citizens and their unemployment has nothing to do with drug addiction of any sort… nor are their benefits squandered on things of the like.
These are days of crisis for many Americans and the greater our awareness of the problems at hand… the larger the burden and sense of frustration and helplessness.
I had not given much thought to oil spills until the Deep water Horizon drilling rig exploded and sank in the Gulf of Mexico on April 20, 2010. But when that oil spill was announced my mind sipped back to the Exxon Valdez spill of thirty-two million gallons of crude oil in Prince William Sound, Alaska on March 24, 1987. In my mind I did a quick calculation and determined that it had been thirty-three years since our last oil spill, so may be that isn’t so bad.
Then I did some research on the history of oil spills on a mariner group site and l was absolutely blown away to learn that since 1967 there have been one hundred and sixty-seven significant spills of crude oil around the world in the last fifty-three years. Forty-eight of those spills have occurred in the last sixteen years. (www.marinergroup.com/oil-spill-history.htm and www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0001451.html)
Oil spills, like nearly every other crisis in the world, seem to ongoing.
King Solomon would look:
• At the problem of homelessness and he would see the masses of homeless around the world; (he would look)
• At the massive number of unemployed Americans and the unemployed peoples around the world; (He would look)
• At the massive number of spills of crude oil in the last fifty-three years; (he would look)
• At all the things that go on in the lives of people who live on earth…
King Solomon would look at all of it and he would see all of it for what it is. He would have a pretty good idea of what the problems are and have the knowledge and wisdom to fix everything. And he would likely conclude that having extensive wisdom is meaningless and that all the wisdom in the world does not change reality, i.e., knowing something is twisted does not get it untwisted or straightened out. People are still people and people are not always nice people and people sometimes do incredibly ignorant things and people sometimes do unconscionable things to hurt other people and it would seem our attempts to fix things is an exercise in utter futility.
It is an enormous burden to see and even know how to fix things but knowing human nature also know that that knowledge was ultimately meaningless in the face of reality. That’s why he concluded this section of scripture with these words, “For with such knowledge comes much sorrow; and the more knowledge, the more grief.” Ecclesiastes 1:18
Conclusion:
So what do we do… nothing?
The Old Testament prophet Micah wrote, “God has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” Don’t tell me the bible doesn’t say anything about justice and mercy… Despite how much injustice and how little mercy we see in this world, we are to do justice and do mercy in this world.
Jesus said that everything we do hangs on our understanding of one single word… love. He said, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul and with all your mind; and love your neighbor as yourself.” Matthew 22:37-38
Solomon was not in error when he made his observations… things look pretty futile. They always have and until the return of Christ they likely always will.
However the adage holds true, “The best way for evil to succeed is for good men to do nothing.”
In my devotional reading a few weeks ago from A guide to Prayer, a snippet written by Mother Teresa. She wrote, “The problem of the poor continues, so our work continues.” She went on to write that despite our inability to fix the problem of poverty, we can do something beautiful for God and be blessings to others.
I read a story recently about Park Hill United Methodist Church just east of downtown Denver. In April of this year they decided to host a meal as part of their Change the World emphasis. They set up to serve two hundred guests. They sent a bus down to pick up the homeless to transport them back to church for a meal. One man rode the bus back to church. They sent the bus to a second pick up location… no one rode the bus back for their dinner.
When the bus returned empty the second time, the driver, Judy Orecchio, director of youth and children’s ministries at Park Hill announced, “We are taking it to the streets. She had noticed the people congregated in Triangle Park waiting to get in line to spend the night at the Denver Rescue Mission… so the crew packed beef, chicken and pork tacos, beans and rice and cake in take-out containers. They loaded the containers on the bus and took dinner to the streets of Denver. The meals were gone in five minutes and there were still hungry people. So they went back to church, reloaded and did it again. And there were still hungry people…
The Park Hill Church repeats its community dinner at Triangle Park every three months as one of their ministries in Denver’s urban core. (Rev. Kathy Noble, Denver Church Takes Dinner to the Streets, April 10, 2010, UMC.org)
There will always be poor… no matter how many boxes of macaroni and cheese we ship to the food bank. There will always be tyrants and terrorists and evil people no matter how many wars we wage. There will always be an oil spill to clean up no matter how many we clean up. There will always be people who need to hear the good news of salvation through faith in Jesus Christ no matter how many missionaries we support and how many personal witnesses we give. There will always be people in places of power and authority who abuse the system for their own gain by stealing the savings and investments of people who trusted them. And so on and on and on…
So since reality is so huge and our ability to fix everything is a impossible, do we do nothing?
Though we cannot save all the people in the world or solve all the problems in the world, we can make a meaningful difference because whatever we do is ultimately pleasing to God, helpful to others and satisfying to us.
“So whatever you do in word or deed, do all to the glory of God!” I Corinthians 10:31
