Ecclesiastes Sermon

This is the last sermon I gave for my Homiletics class this Spring. My previous two really didn't crank my tractor too much, but I felt relatively good about this one. As you will see, I have plenty of room for improvement, though. Some didn't like the sermon and called it a little too philosophical and too dark. My contention is that the good news can't really be all that great unless the bad we are saved from is really bad. The Bible tends to think that the bad news is really bad. The text is Ecclesiastes 1:1-11. - DOB

As I was driving to church a couple of months ago, my faith had reached a low ebb. This happens a lot with me, as I suspect it does with most, if not all, Christians. I was tired from school and wondering what sort of turn my life had taken with this whole seminary bit. My sort of Enlightenment rationalist mind (which bears no real heft, by the way) is always analyzing and probing, not satisfied with taking anything on faith (which is an impossibility, also by the way).

I happened to be listening to NPR’s All Things Considered as most doubting secularists inevitably do. A story came on about a phenomenon called “flash mobs.” Now, this was new to me as I have ceased being hip due to entrance into my thirties and a healthy distrust of anything urban. Apparently, flash mobs are mobs of people who appear suddenly at a particular spot due to the ability to quickly disseminate information by way of text message, e-mail, blackberries, and whatnot. They are generally peaceful and the point of the whole thing tends to be some sort of prank. For instance, one flash mob showed up at a department store, all inquiring about the price of one particular rug. The sales attendant was obviously run ragged and the mob disappeared. Very South Park-like.

NPR tracked down the inventor of flash mobs to get his reasoning behind them. He said that is was a parody of the meaninglessness of our pop consumer culture. Now, sometimes NPR can sort of eschew their narcissism for a very short time and actually report something profound. This was profound. Flash mobs as a parody of pop consumer meaninglessness or pop nihilism. Very Fight Club-like.

The inventor of these flash mobs was obviously very proud of his brainy insight. Obviously, he did not read his Bible. There was another brilliantly insightful sage named Qohelet and his analysis in Ecclesiastes was truer to the mark on a world without God and significantly darker.

Ecclesiastes 1:2-3 "Vanity of vanities," says the Preacher, "Vanity of vanities! All is vanity." What advantage does man have in all his work which he does under the sun?

Everyone who reads this blog is engaged in some sort of work. That work may be anything including looking for work and going to school. I myself have primarily been engaged with politics and business. Now, you have seen all sorts of people in your line of work. There are the super-charged hot dogs who would have a heart attack if you startled them, the big-ego types who have had some sort of success at what they do and put a lot of stock into it, and the bitter failure who hung all their hopes on success in a particular field and failed.

The preacher Qohelet says all of it is meaningless. What sort of profit is there for someone after all this hard work is done? One retires, plays a few rounds of golf, moves to the beach, and dies.

Ecclesiastes 1:4-7 A generation goes and a generation comes, But the earth remains forever. Also, the sun rises and the sun sets; and hastening to its place it rises there again. Blowing toward the south, then turning toward the north, The wind continues swirling along; And on its circular courses the wind returns. All the rivers flow into the sea, yet the sea is not full. To the place where the rivers flow, there they flow again.

Have you ever been on a mountaintop out in Montana or Tennessee and stopped to ponder how ancient that landscape is? How many tribes and races of people has that mountaintop seen? How much human victory, defeat, and depravity have that landscape seen? Does it seem to be affected? Does it seem to care? Generation upon generation has passed and yet it remains; a monument to indifference. The endless cycle of the natural world carries on, oblivious to its frail human inhabitants.

The Hebrew for the word rendered “hastening” literally means “panting.” The sun is wearied, panting after its chore like Lawrence of Arabia lost out in the desert. The wind is making a big show of it, but it is just blowing in circles. The streams are engaged in a doggedly futile attempt to fill the sea to its capacity.

Ecclesiastes 1:8-11 All things are wearisome; man is not able to tell it. The eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor is the ear filled with hearing. That which has been is that which will be, and that which has been done is that which will be done. So, there is nothing new under the sun. Is there anything of which one might say, "See this, it is new "? Already it has existed for ages which were before us. There is no remembrance of earlier things; And also of the later things which will occur, there will be for them no remembrance Among those who will come later still.

So, most people do not see how tiresome and repetitive the world is. They look, explore, and listen believing they will find something new, but it never happens. “You worked very hard to close that deal. Congratulations. Now go and close another one.” “You defeated your primary opponent. Congratulations. Now, here’s the general election.” Democrats are ushered into office on the heels of the New Deal, thinking they will change the world. They succumb to arrogance and complacency and the Republicans are ushered into office only to fall to the same thing. Enemies and friends come and go. Can someone please put me in touch with the next flash mob?

Wait just a second, though. There is a question asked here that needs to be addressed. Is there anything of which one might say, "See this, it is new "? Well, actually there is. The answer to this question lies not in the Book of Ecclesiastes, but the first chapter of the Gospel of John:

John 1:1-4 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being by Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.

The Greek philosophers would constantly search for the meaning of life or “logos”. They believed that if one’s life was aligned with the logos, the full potential and purpose of the human race would be realized. The bomb that the Apostle John dropped was that the logos was not some abstract notion, but it was a person. He existed before the creation of the cosmos and, as a matter of fact, it was created through Him. Everything came into being through the Light of the World.

Jesus Christ came into this world and was crucified, buried, and resurrected to redeem the meaninglessness of the human condition since the Fall. The preoccupation with death is no longer is an issue in eternal matters. There is hope in the coming new creation where the entire world will be remade and reborn. The relationship between God and man has been restored and we will steward this new creation.

Do you see the difference? If one is in Christ through faith, then everything means everything, as Tim Keller says. One can actually engage in humanitarian works because the image of God is in all people. Otherwise, there is no inherent worth to humans other than their utility in serving your purposes. One can actually go to work in the law firm and work with purpose, knowing that there is a Redeemer who has conquered your greatest enemy.

“So, is there anything new?” asks the preacher of Ecclesiastes. “I’m dying here. There is no reason for me to be on this planet. My life means nothing.”

In the movie The Passion of the Christ, the Lord is carrying His cross to Golgotha where He will be nailed to it to suffer death by torture. He is a bloody and tired heap as His mother Mary comes to Him in tears. His response in that time of humiliation, contempt, hatred, and pain? “Woman, behold. I make all things new.”