Text: Ecc 1 & 2. Preached by Rev Lance Lawton at Werribee Church of Christ 7/9/03

Introduction You get up, have a shower, get breakfast, go to work, come home, eat, watch telly, go to bed, sleep .. You get up, have a shower, get breakfast, go to work, come home, eat, watch telly, go to bed, sleep .. and then what? .. Well then you get up, have a shower, get breakfast, go to work, come home, eat, watch telly, go to bed, sleep .. then you get up, have a shower, get breakfast…… day in, day out .. month after endless month .. on and on .. never stops .. All for what?? Do you ever feel like chucking a two-year-old tantrum? “Why! Why! Why?!” What’s the point .. and why should you bother? .. And that’s only the start of life’s riddles….. Christians are sometimes accused of having a very simplistic view of life. Believe in Jesus, and everything will fall into place and it will all be alright. If you want to believe that the life of faith is a life of continual victory – as indeed some worship songs seem to imply – then you don’t want to read Ecclesiastesesiastes! But if you want to cry out for answers to life’s puzzles, the issues that just won’t go away, yet don’t seem to have easy answers, then this part of the Bible is depressingly honest about life – almost to the point of being brutal. You might not be depressed about life now, but if you sit down and read Ecclesiastes, you could be on valium by chapter 10 .. unless you read it thoughtfully and carefully .. in which case you might begin to ‘twig’ that the apparently senseless merry-go-round of life is actually an invitation to you from someone called “God” to search not for answers .. but for him. Because that, God claims, is the real purpose for existing … Well if you’ve got one of those big questions that needs an answer, what would you do about it? Well if you’re a government, you’d launch an enquiry .. which according to some commentators, is all that governments do these days. That’s what the writer of Ecclesiastes does, this guy who introduces himself as simply “The Teacher/ Preacher”. [Please open your Bible..] 1:13 applied my mind to seek and to search out by wisdom all that is done under heaven; (We know that heaven isn’t really “up there” etc, and I think the Teacher knows too, but it’s a convenient picture to work with. Trying to figure out heavenly reality, by analysing what goes on in human affairs. Same with 3 . under the sun? .. the phrase comes up 30 times.) He launched an enquiry – only he conducted it all himself – and these 12 chapters constitute the report. It’s an exhaustive account, of a comprehensive enquiry. (Ecc 1:13) 13 applied my mind to seek and to search out by wisdom all that is done under heaven; And our task over the coming weeks is to analyse his report, and its recommendations on how to make sense of life and how to live it. The treadmill of life The hunger for more .. More stuff, that is, and more fulfilment. Life might be a treadmill, but many of us are reluctant to accept that that’s how it’ll always be .. under the sun. We might agree with the Teacher’s assessment in v8 that All things are wearisome; more than one can express; But we think we have the answer to that. We could break the cycle if we could just have a bit more to feast our eyes and ears on… If we just earned better pay .. got the job we deserved .. had a more attractive husband or wife .. lived in a better neighbourhood .. then things would be different .. and we would be satisfied. The Teacher torpedoes that view with one missile: (Ecc 1:8) 8 . No matter how much we see, we are never satisfied. No matter how much we hear, we are not content. You get that new job .. the money’s in the bank .. you move house .. there’s more to look at & listen to .. and you’re still hungry for more. That’s why the advertisers know that they can convince us to purchase things we do not need. They know that we’ll never have enough. Chuck Swindoll put it like this: The itch for things, the lust for more – so brilliantly injected by those who peddle them – is a virus draining our souls of happy contentment. Have you noticed? A man never earns enough. A woman is never beautiful enough. Clothes are never fashionable enough. Cars are never nice enough. Gadgets are never modem enough. Houses are never furnished enough. Food is never fancy enough. Life is never full enough. And it’s all chillingly true. The treadmill of life, the insatiable hunger for more .. and .. No one remembers us anyway The Teacher says “Just look at history..” v11 “No one remembers the people of the past .. And when you’re pushing up the daisies, the next generations won’t remember you either.” The really big names might rate a page or two in a Yr 9 history book, maybe the odd biography .. but they’ll soon be gathering dust in some second-hand bookshop. Apart from that … nothing. Most are simply forgotten. The heroes of today are unheard of tomorrow. If you hang your sense of significance on being remembered by others, you’re up for disappointment. —- Are you reaching for another valium yet? Are you wondering how you’re going to survive 12 chapters of this!? Who is this lemon-sucking jerk who’s writing this stuff anyway? A pessimist? Yes, I believe he is a pessimist .. about “life under the sun.” (30 times, he says it.) Every time that phrase comes up, it’s a reminder to us of the angle he’s writing from. He’s looking at what the world really would be like from a secular viewpoint. .. In other words, this is what life looks like if God is nowhere on your radar screen. God doesn’t force you to include him in your life. But the Teacher is making a stark point: If you do leave God out of the picture, then life really is boring, fragile, repetitive, insatiable, unchangeable .. and your life is insignificant and forgettable. But the Teacher isn’t ready to cut to the chase just yet. He’ll drop a hint here, a clue there that you need to put God in the picture to make sense of all life’s muck (e.g. v13 .. however weird you think life is, God has to be behind it somehow…). But we’ll have to wait for the end of the book to really be brought face-to-face with what God has to offer. For the moment the Teacher has plenty more work to report on in his enquiry. He’s asking us, if we’re willing to stay with him, to have a good, hard, long look at the secular life – the life that doesn’t include God – from all kinds of angles. The man who had it all And so he moves to the question: How can man with his own resources make sense of a senseless world? Is there some way you could look at life, that would make it all fall into place? And here in chapters 1 & 2, he comes up with four possibilities: wisdom, pleasure, achievement & wealth. Where would you find that? .. If you lived in the Jewish world, and you were asked to name someone who had more wisdom, wealth and pleasure than anyone on earth, and who made more impressive achievements than any known person, who would you think of? … King Solomon! And to get us thinking he uses a literary device that was quite common in the ancient world. Lining up v1 with v12, he’s basically saying in not quite as many words: “Now I’m King Solomon…” .. which is another way of saying, “Suppose you were Solomon .. Suppose (v16) you possessed more human wisdom than any other ruler .. Suppose (Chp 2a) you had all the pleasure you could ask for – slaves to wait on you, wine from your own vineyards, singers to entertain you, women to satisfy you (or in the language of the 1960s – sex, drugs & rock ‘n roll) .. Suppose you had acquired or commissioned acres of houses, gardens, orchards, parks, and your own forest with an irrigation system .. And suppose you had bigger flocks & herds than anyone’s ever seen, and more silver and gold than a Swiss bank ….. Suppose you were the man/ woman who had it all .. would life “under the sun” make sense then? The Teacher says, “I’ve tried it .. I’ve tried that exercise, I’ve placed myself in Solomon’s privileged shoes .. and when you add up the balance sheet on a life like that – when you’ve done all the thinking and analysing there is to do; when you’ve drunk yourself silly on sex, drugs and rock ‘n roll; when you’ve worked yourself into the ground on the greatest projects; when you’ve made so much money you could retire in luxury at 40 – in other words, when it feels like you’re ready to grab the fullness of life in your hands – [clap!!] – there’s nothing there .. it’s like trying to catch the wind in your hand. (another repeated phrase) This life – “under the sun” that is – is futile. If you did have everything, you’d end up with nothing, and life – your life – would make about as much sense as that.” The end is always the same Are you depressed enough yet? You ain’t seen nothing yet! 2:14 puts the nail in the coffin – literally! Living wisely sure beats living like an idiot .. for now .. but either way, you’ll be food for worms in the end. Derek Tidball puts it this way: (referring to the wise person and the idiot…) In days to come they will both be forgotten. Short memories begin the day they die. The wise person might have a funeral with a generous oration that lasts all of fifteen minutes. Of course it leaves a lot out. Compressing a lifetime into fifteen minutes is bound to make the orator selective! Then the coffin is lowered into the ground and that’s it. A few minutes later exactly the same ritual is followed for the fool. Selective memories get into gear once more. People are too polite to be too honest at funeral services. Perhaps he wasn’t so bad after all. Then he too is lowered into the ground and forgotten. The End. The end is always the same. If you’ve finished analysing the world and life from all those angles, where would you end up? (Remember this is a look at life “under the sun” – everything, minus God.) The Teacher’s verdict is if that’s “life”, it stinks: 2:17 So I hated life, because what is done under the sun was grievous to me; for all is vanity and a chasing after wind. He’s discovered the chilling truth that plenty of others have too. In the game of life without God anywhere in sight, every card in your hand is going to be trumped. So why play the game…? Conclusion If you’ve got it all, if you’re tanked up with the best that this world has to offer, i.e. if you’re cluey, wealthy, successful and drunk with every kind of physical pleasure .. does that make life less boring, less fragile, less repetitive .. does it make you content and in the driver’s seat of your life’s direction .. and does it make your life count – now, and 20 years,10 years,or even 1 year after you fall off the perch…? Vanity of vanities – meaningless, meaningless, utterly meaningless .. “under the sun” – in a life where God is out of the equation .. there’s nothing new .. it’s all been done before. So why bother? We have to wait several chapters for the real, big conclusions .. but there are little pointers to it along the way – and there’s one of them for us here, at the end of chap 2: (Ecc 2:24-26) 24 There is nothing better for mortals than to eat and drink, and find enjoyment in their work. [That enjoyment comes from God, who’s also the source of 26 wisdom, knowledge for those who please him] . You won’t find life’s meaning in wisdom, pleasure, work, wealth – but all of them mean something if you put God into the landscape of your life. You can find satisfaction in material things, in wisdom, in knowledge .. when you understand that all of them are gifts to you from God. Whatever you have is simply evidence that God is real, that he’s in control of this seemingly crazy world, and you matter to him. So we’re offered two choices, two ways to live, in the Teacher’s closing words to us today: 1. Receive life thankfully, as an incredible gift from God; or the other option 2. the way of the “sinner”; and what that means here is simply living life without God in the picture, refusing to trust in him or his goodness. You can live that way if you like – the choice is yours – … but it’s like trying to catch the wind and put it in a jar. Which path are you on?

[I acknowledge my debt to Derek Tidball in his book “That’s just the way it is” (Christian Focus, 1998)]