Resting and Rejoicing

 September 26 2021

Ecclesiastes 2

         This past week was our local county fair and every year when it rolls around I am reminded of a former life when I was a pig farmer. As a pig farmer I was part of a county wide organization called Pork Producers which was made up of people like me who raised pigs whether professionally or for 4-H. Every year at the fair the Pork Producers have an eat stand where they sell pork burgers and ham sandwiches to promote the eating of pork and to raise money for anything the group might want to do like give scholarships to aspiring pork producers. Now, when I was a pork producer I was, of course, self-employed and as I once heard it said, the two most overrated things in this world are natural childbirth and being self employed. When you’re self employed bringing home a pay check means that everything depends on your income exceeding your expenses; only when the bottom line was a positive number would there be anything to show for your work.This positive number is what is known as a profit or gain and when it’s a negative number, of course, that is known as a loss. What becomes evident as one is self employed is that there are so many variables that are out of one’s control that can determine whether you end up with a profit or loss. It doesn’t really matter how hard you work, or how smart you are at making decisions because it is those things one can’t control that mess with the best laid plans. So, those pigs that once smelled like money in the end they just smelled. Yet while I didn’t know it at the time, God had greater plans for me and my life and I came to realize a better life working with God.

         As we continue in our study of Ecclesiastes, this idea of profit or gain is something that we find to be an important subject for the writer of this strange book. In the third sentence of the first chapter he asks this question, “What does a person gain through all the work that they do day after day, year after year?” That is a great question, don’t you think. It is much like what was need when I was self employed where I had to ask just what would be left over when I deducted my expenses, what it cost me from what I had received. This is what the writer of Ecclesiastes wants to know, just what is the real value for all the effort that we put forth every day, day after day, year after year? Just what is left over after you take what you receive and subtract all of the effort that you have put forth? The writer of Ecclesiastes uses the phrase, “chasing after the wind”, as a way to sum up just what life seems to be sometimes, a lot of effort, a lot of chasing after elusive goals, a lot of blood, sweat, and tears and in the end all you have left is a handful of wind. You see, if we are honest with ourselves what our writer has written thousands of years ago is just as relevant today as it was then.

         The word that the writer of Ecclesiastes uses for gain in this third verse of the first chapter, is a Hebrew word, “yitron”. This is a word that comes to us from the world of business and while it can be translated as gain or profit it is better translated as being something of real value. It is this understanding that helps us figure out the purpose that the writer of Ecclesiastes has for writing this book. He wants to discover after much searching just what is left over after everything that is impermanent, or unprofitable or disadvantageous has been swept away. The reason why the writer of Ecclesiastes is wrestling with just what it is that gives meaning to life is that as he sees it, every where he looks, he sees nothing but futility, and absurdity. The whole world seems to be filled with people who have stopped listening to the voice of reason so that every where a person looks there is just one display of nonsense after another. The writer knows that something has gone wrong with this good world that God has created because a good God had to have created a good world, a right world where everything is all as it should be. So, in between the reality that the writer sees and the faith that he holds on to, the writer is holding out a question as to just why is there such disparity between the two. The writer then is much like us as we sit and watch the world go round and wonder just why is everything such a mess when we know that there is a great and wonderful God who has created it, a God who loved it enough to give his only Son to save it.

         So, to find the answers to this mystery of all this futility and absurdity that the writer has observed he states in the thirteenth verse of the first chapter that he would apply his heart to seek out  and to search by wisdom all that is done under heaven. And then he further states that it is an unhappy business that God has given the people of the earth to be busy with. This is the writers statement of purpose, to go on a quest to figure out this mess that we find ourselves in. Why is it that the business that God has us be busy with is as the writer describes it, an unhappy business? This is what must be kept in mind when in the first few lines of the second chapter the writer states that he said in his heart that he was going to do an experiment and see if he was really intentional about the pursuit of happiness, about doing all he could to enjoy himself, if this might set him free from the nonsense and futility that the world seemed to be in the grip of. The relevance of what he seeks is echoed in our Declaration of Independence where we are told that we are created with these unalienable rights, of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. So, yes, we are people who live in a country where we hold fast to this right to pursue our happiness but to what end? We would do well to listen to the writer of Ecclesiastes when he tells us of laughter, “It is mad” and of pleasure, or a better translation might be happiness, “What use is it?” The writer speaks from experience because he worked really hard at being happy.  He tried to cheer himself up with wine, he tells us, and he tried hard to be as foolish as possible. He then goes on to say that he pursued happiness by building and creating great works, a fine home, a beautiful garden. He had his own park with fruit trees that had little pools of water, you know, the ones that have the goldfish in them. He had a large staff to take care of the house and the grounds and a gourmet chef to prepare the finest cuisine. He amassed a huge investment portfolio having so much money he thought about having his own rocket ship with his name emblazoned across the side of it. As he tells it, everything he wanted he got, he was the epitome of self-indulgence. His pleasure, his happiness, this quite naturally is what would be his reward for his work. He sounds like a great all American kind of guy doesn’t he? I mean he has worked hard in order that he can play hard, isn’t this what life is supposed to be about? But, and there’s always a but, the writer goes on to tell us the findings of his experiment stating, that he had considered all that his hands had done, the work that he had expended in order to be intentional about his happiness and he concluded that the bottom line was that it was all a bunch of nonsense, it was all futility and absurdity. That sounds kind of strange to us doesn’t it as people who hold out the pursuit of happiness as a God given right only to find that if we go down that path what we will find is that in the end it was all a bunch of nonsense. The reason why the writer of Ecclesiastes comes to this conclusion is that there was nothing to be gained by pursuing happiness. In other words, when you subtracted the work involved and what had to be expended to achieve the goal of being happy from what was actually received, the real value of what was left was a big goose egg, zero, nothing at all. And if we want to just write the writer of Ecclesiastes off as some pessimistic Old Testament kill-joy then perhaps we would do well to heed the words of Jesus who at the end of the eighth chapter of the gospel of Mark tells us, “For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? For what can a person give in return for their life? Here again in these words of Jesus we hear the same wisdom that we hear from the writer of Ecclesiastes, that our life is our most precious gift and we must be wise in what we are willing to exchange that gift for. I once heard it said that everything that we can be passionate about in this world all are things that can consume us so that the more passionate we become about something, the more it drives us to have more of it, the less human we become. God is the only one that when we become more and more passionate about him, the more and more human that we become. This I believe is the sentiment that the writer of Ecclesiastes and Jesus are attempting to get through to us.

         So, just pursuing happiness is not the answer to this unhappy business that God has us be busy with. If a direct assault on happiness is not the answer then what else might we try to find an answer to what plagues us? The writer of Ecclesiastes turns to a subject he is most familiar with, the love of wisdom. Surely wisdom will provide the comfort for which the writer seeks from the futility that is everywhere he looks. There was definitely more gain, more value, in being wise than in being foolish, that much is abundantly clear. As the writer sees it the wise is living with his eyes wide open but the fool is just stumbling about in the dark. So, yes, there is an advantage to being wise. But as the writer thought more about it there is just one problem with being wise and that is that death comes for the wise person just as it comes for the foolish person. This also is abundantly clear. Wisdom will give you a better life but it has no answer for ones impending death. This conclusion was a crushing blow for the writer who knew how wonderful it was for him to be a person who treasured wisdom. Now, just so we’re clear, it was not the pursuit of wisdom that was absurd or futile or nonsensical; no, the source of the futility was that death was the great equalizer. It didn’t matter if one made wise decisions or was a person marked by their stupidity, the end was the same for each of them and it is this tragedy that is the root of all absurdity. The writer came to understand that all that he had worked for in the end was going to be left to someone and that someone might be someone who was wise but that someone might also be someone who wasn’t too bright. It didn’t matter, either way some person who walked in the ways of wisdom or if they were a person who didn’t give a lick about wisdom, either way somebody was going to be the proud owner of all the writer had worked for; this is what was so nonsensical. Once again the writer of Ecclesiastes brings up this idea of gain or profit because he asks the question, “What does a person gain from all the work they do, from all the effort they put forth for all the years of their life? His sentiment is the same as the wisdom that states that there are no U-Hauls hooked to hearses. You know, you can’t take it with you and if you can’t take it with you then why get excited about expending so much effort? As the writer concludes, if you want to work that hard for nothing, then your days will be filled with sorrow and your heart will never be at rest; what a sad state of affairs!

         At last after experimenting with the pursuit of happiness and the gain of wisdom, the writer of Ecclesiastes sets forth what he has learned through applying his heart as to why the busyness God has us be busy with is such an unhappy business. He states, “There is nothing better for a person than he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in their work. This is from the hand of God for apart from him who can eat or have enjoyment? Now, what the writer is saying here about eating and enjoying ones self is very reminiscent of the various feasts that God commanded of the people of Israel. In the sixteenth chapter of the book of Deuteronomy, we hear God through Moses command his people that they were to keep the feast of Booths when they had gathered in the produce from the thrashing floor and the wine press. They were to rejoice in this feast, and everyone was to be included, their sons and daughters, male and female servants, the Levite, the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widows. They were to feast and celebrate for seven days at the place where God would choose, because the Lord their God had blessed them in all their produce and in all the works of their hands, so that they would be all together joyful. This is much the same as what is written in the fourteenth chapter of Deuteronomy where we also read that the people of Israel were to tithe all the yield of their seed that came from their fields year by year. Before the Lord, in a place where he would choose to make his name dwell, the people were to eat the tithe of their grain and of their wine and of their oil and the firstborn of their herds and flocks so that they might learn to be in awe of God. They were to eat before the Lord and rejoice. Here in these festivals the people would be eating, drinking and they would be all together joyful. The purpose of these festivals was a rest after the harvest, a time to push the pause button to reflect on just how God once again had blessed them richly. They were to see that their abundance was a material representation of the love that their God had for them for as Jesus taught, our Heavenly Father makes the sun rise on the evil and the good and he sends rain on the just and the unjust. Here in these festivals the fact of our heavenly Fathers love was acknowledged. The abundance of their harvest was not because of who the people of Israel were but instead the abundance happened because of who God is, that he is a God who loves everyone equally and who shows that love in very practical and material ways.  In these festivals then what was being celebrated was this great love of God and the people gave thanks to God with grateful hearts. You see, God understood that we as people, we need to step out of the relentless march of time periodically to rest, to reflect and to rejoice.  It is these pauses, these Sabbath times, these times of rest, that are needed for us to escape from the futility in order for us to remember that all we have comes from the God who loves us. Through our work we are blessed because it is there that we experience God’s love for us and in that love our hearts at last find rest which is just opposite when we believe that our work is merely, as the writer puts it, “our work”.

         As the writer of Ecclesiastes goes on to say, the one who pleases God, God gives knowledge, wisdom and joy. This makes us wonder just what does it mean for us to please God? The answer is found in the eleventh chapter of Hebrews that it is impossible to please God without faith. It is faith then that pleases God. Earlier in the book of Hebrews we also learn that having faith in God is the same as entering into the Sabbath rest that God desires us to live in where are hearts are at rest because we have come to trust in the provision of God’s love. It is to those who have come to trust God, to find their rest in him, these are those to whom God gives knowledge, wisdom and joy. These are gifts to be received not rewards for our labors. No, what we are told in the fourth chapter of Hebrews is that what we are to strive for, what we are to seek after is the rest that God holds out for us to live in because when we live in that rest then we will discover that there we will at last understand the order of God’s good creation and find our hearts filled with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory. This is what the writer of Ecclesiastes had come to figure out and it rings with the same teaching of Jesus found in the sixteenth chapter of the gospel of John where he tells us that if we would only ask he would but give us joy, a joy that will fill us to overflowing. This is why Jesus went to the cross and shed his blood for us to set us free from the slavery of sin, sin that has its roots in the works of our flesh. Jesus arose three days later, so that through his resurrection we at last might be set free from fear so that we might experience the Sabbath rest of faith that God desires us to live in for it is there and there alone that we will find knowledge, wisdom and joy just as the writer of Ecclesiastes knew so well! Amen!