(Find the reading at https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ecclesiastes%201%3A12-14%3B%202%3A18-26&version=NRSV;CEV)
"I saw all the deeds that are done under the sun;
and see, all is vanity and a chasing after wind."
(Eccl. 1:14)
But, wait ... that's not the whole story. Believe me, it's not.
The writer of Ecclesiastes (which means literally "The Teacher") purports to be Solomon, son and heir of King David, and thus to be writing at a high, expansive point in Israel's history in the 9th century BCE. That's probably when he wished he was living.
But the book dates instead from the 4th century BCE which, unlike "the good old days" of King David and Solomon, was not a very optimistic time for Israel. This was the time of Israel's moral and spiritual decline after centuries of corruption, defeat by the Assyrians, exile into Babylon, and the eventual return of some of the people to the little that was left of their once-beloved kingdom.
How could the Teacher -- any honest person, not be despairing? The lesson of history -- both personal and political, was that everything we do, accomplish, learn, work for, and achieve is "vanity" ("hebel" in Hebrew, which means "transitory and unsatisfactory, fleeting and transient like the wind").
Wow! What a downer! One minister has suggested the author of this book "must have suffered from a prolonged depression or his times must have been exceedingly oppressive." Gee, do you think?
But can we dismiss his teaching that easily? As just a personality disorder, or someone having a bad-hair day (or stuck in a bad century to live in)?
I sometimes feel the same way. When I read the news, and think of the apparently-so-easy undoing of so much good in our society and so much progress that we thought we had made. When I wake up in the middle of the night (or even look at myself in the light of day) and wonder about the worth of what I have done. When someone I dearly love dies, and I find myself wondering what's left of that life and of the one I so looked up to and thinking what's the point of life anyways.
And I wonder (as you might be!!) ... is that really the kind of text I want to read on a hot August holiday-weekend Sunday morning? Is that what I want to start back with after vacation? Yikes!!!
As you may have guessed the answer is yes, because the Teacher actually does work his way through to an answer to the emptiness and despair we suffer at times. It has to do with relationship with God, with openness and commitment to the present moment, and with grateful embrace and faithful care and use of what we have been given.
And that's what I want to hone in on, come Sunday morning. On the good news buried like precious treasure in all our lives, in all our wonderings (and wanderings), and in all the world. The pearl of great price that makes life wonderful and holy no matter what. When we take the time to see it. When we make the effort to listen for it.
A few questions that may help us move towards Sunday:
- when do I feel despair, either about myself and my life, or about the world?
- what good things do I see passing away and disappearing -- or maybe just going somewhere else, like the wind?
- and, speaking of the wind ... when I'm in the doldrums, what helps lift my sails? what refreshes my soul and renews my faith in the goodness and worth of living?
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