Casting Widely (Meditations on Ecclesiastes)

"Cast your bread upon the waters,
for you will find it after many days.
Give a portion to seven, or even to eight,
for you know not what disaster may happen on earth.
If the clouds are full of rain,
they empty themselves on the earth,
and if a tree falls to the south or to the north,
in the place where the tree falls, there it will lie.
He who observes the wind will not sow,
and he who regards the clouds will not reap.

As you do not know the way the spirit comes to the bones in the womb of a woman with child, so you do not know the work of God who makes everything. In the morning sow your seed, and at evening withhold not your hand, for you do not know which will prosper, this or that, or whether both alike will be good." (Ecclesiastes 11:1-6)

Are you ever paralyzed by the uncertainties of life? Do you ever wait too long to act because you aren't able to determine an outcome with absolute certainty? Are you afraid to take risks?

If you are the kind of person who has to have all their ducks in a row before they will swim away from shore (I'll be the first to admit to this sort of tendency!), then the author of Ecclesiastes has a message for you (and me): WE DO NOT IN CONTROL THE OUTCOME! Argh... frustrating, I know! But true, nonetheless. All outcomes of all things ever done are ultimately in God's hands, and, as we've already seen, he doesn't generally tell us what is going to happen in advance. Rather, he invites us to trust him, and leave the end up to him. We are to live responsibly, in so far as we CAN see (there are other passages in the book that speak of careful action), but there is a point at which we may fall into the trap Ecclesiastes speaks of here, and spend all our days trying desperately to determine which way the wind is going to blow and whether the clouds are coming, and therefore DOING nothing. And if we sow nothing, there will be nothing to reap. We are called to be a people who live by faith in God's sovereign care, and with such a firm hand holding us up, to accept some amount of risk. After all, we don't know what disaster may occur (under God's full control) that may remove all chances for action.

If we will accept the risk, wisdom has another word for us. Because we are not God and can never know, with 100% certainty, what the end result of any action will be, the wisdom of Ecclesiastes invites us to live life broadly and generously. The wise person will not set all his hopes on one set of actions, hoard all his things in one spot or throw all his energy into making just one disciple. Instead, he will diversify his investments, so to speak. Like the sower in Jesus' parable in Matthew 13, we are called to spread God's word to as many people as possible, because we cannot know who will be hard soil and who will receive it with joy. Like the sower in 2 Corinthians 9, we are called to give generously and freely, though some of our gifts may not prosper, for whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, but whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. Of course, we are mere humans. We do not have infinite seed for sowing, and there are also investment opportunities that are obviously worthless. But within the boundaries of the fields we have been given, with the wisdom God gives us, we are to sow generously, leaving the outcome to the God who reaps where he does not sow and gathers where he scattered no seed.

The other day we were waiting at a stoplight and a panhandler rolled his wheelchair over to our window. Instantly, we start the debate in our minds, "Does it REALLY help him if we give him some change? What if he uses it to buy alcohol or drugs or other harmful things--we don't want to be enablers. And the 50 cents we have on us could probably be used to better effect if given to a good program..." Well yes, there is wisdom in giving with care. We want our money to be used as well as possible. But on the other hand, Ecclesiastes offers a place for not over-thinking everything. Who am I to judge how some stranger will use the money I give (especially when he appears lucid)? Do I need to have such a mental debate over a quarter cup of coffee's worth of change? What if I just decide to sow a little seed on the edges of my field and let trust God with the outcome? There is a place for deep thought and carefulness. But do we also have a place for broad generosity and swiftness in our actions?

Wisdom trusts God and lives actively. And wisdom trusts God and lives generously. For all us wind-searchers and cloud-watchers, Ecclesiastes invites us to take our trust off of our own control and wisdom and to place it where it ultimately belongs: in God's control and in the wisdom of the Holy Spirit that is available to all who ask for it in faith.

Community Matters (Meditations on Ecclesiastes)

"It is not good for the man to be alone." Right from the beginning of the world, God declares the very not-goodness of a human in isolation. It was not enough for Adam to have animals to care for and land to cultivate. He was created in the image of a God who lives in community in the Trinity; he needed another human being--a helper and companion. And nothing has changed since.

You may think I'm about to talk about marriage, but I'm not--at least not specifically. Though the first human relationship at creation was a married couple, the not-goodness of man being alone does not merely speak to marriage. It speaks to a broader in-born need for community that runs throughout the Bible. And in a book that deals with living life wisely in the midst of toil and trouble, Ecclesiastes does not fail to mention the importance of living in community with others.

"Again, I saw vanity under the sun: one person who has no other, either son or brother, yet there is no end to all his toil, and his eyes are never satisfied with riches, so that he never asks, 'For whom am I toiling and depriving myself of pleasure?' This also is vanity and an unhappy business. 
Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil. For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up! Again, if two lie together, they keep warm, but how can one keep warm alone? And though a man might prevail against one who is alone, two will withstand him--a threefold cord is not easily broken." (Eccl. 4:7-12)

In a world where there is so much futility and evil and death, we gain immeasurable riches by living our lives in community with others. Ecclesiastes gives us 5 things we gain by living in community:

1) Community is a place for service. 'For whom am I toiling and depriving myself of pleasure?' This also is vanity and an unhappy business. If I am merely working toward my own ends, for my own gain, I end up gaining nothing, and my toiling is a very unhappy business. When we live in community with others, we gain ample opportunities to serve, to work for the gain of others, to be last so that others might be first. And this brings joy and happiness to our work. I can enjoy the labour of making bread well enough, but the real joy in that labour comes in seeing others benefit from it as they enjoy the eating. What's more, even when the labour itself is hard and unpleasant, or seems to yield little fruit, there is a blessing in the simple grace of being in it with another, having someone to commiserate, to weep with you in the failure, to laugh with you over the futility.

2) Community is a place for increased fruit. Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil. One person working by himself can only do so much. As soon as another person joins him, the amount of work done more than doubles. If you have a group of people working together toward the same end, the potential for fruit grows exponentially. We have seen this here in Liberty Village, and it is true in any community. The Body of Christ is more fruitful when each member is working together with the others toward a common goal for the glory of God.

3) Community is a place for help. For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up! When we are all on our own, and we fall into sin or error or difficult circumstances, we have no one to help us up. We need others around us who will pick us up when we fall, who will help carry our burdens and point us to the gospel. And we need to be help for others in their time of need, as well.

4) Community is an place for comfort. Again, if two lie together, they keep warm, but how can one keep warm alone? The picture Ecclesiastes gives us is one of travellers sleeping outside on a cold night--they are warmer when they share body heat than when each sleeps by himself. And it is the same in this cold, dark world. Where life is full of feelings of futility, intense trials and mundane ones, weariness and uncertainty, we desperately need the warmth of community to provide comfort for the weary and hope for the downcast.

5) Community is a place for protection. And though a man might prevail against one who is alone, two will withstand him--a threefold cord is not easily broken. Life is not like the movies, where one guy routinely beats down 20 attackers in his own strength. Left to ourselves, one attacker can be enough to destroy us. But there is safety in numbers. In a world where wisdom is not always clear, where sin trips us up, where the church gets persecuted and Satan is always on the prowl, we do not do well to try and fight alone. We need the protection of the community, those who will stand with us on the day of battle, and still be standing with us when it is all over.

Are you trying to live your life on your own, serving your own ends, working by yourself, pulling yourself up, seeking comfort through your own means, trying to fight multiple attackers off by yourself? It is not good for a human to be alone! Even where living in community is hard, where it requires confession and forgiveness, when it means we have to give up some of our preferences to serve others, where we can't live on our own timetable, the benefits far outweigh the risks! God has made us for community, so let us be intentional about living in it.

Enjoy the Toil! (Meditations on Ecclesiastes)

Now that we've been in the doldrums of Ecclesiastes for a month, I thought it high time to examine the joy that is to be found in this little book... because it is there! Weaving through the futility, oppression, evil and death of the book, there is a strong thread of rejoicing. Over and over again, and sometimes even after the bleakest of statements, the author of Ecclesiastes commands us to "eat and drink and find enjoyment in [our] toil. This also is from the hand of God, for apart from him who can eat or who can have enjoyment?" "There is nothing better than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live; also that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil--this is God's gift to man."

We live in a world broken by sin, and we feel the weight of it. But at the same time, even in the midst of difficulty and sorrow, we are to find joy in the life we have been given by our good God. Ecclesiastes gives us several reasons to rejoice in this life we have been given:

1) Pleasure and joy are a gift from God. God created this world good, and he lavishes good gifts on us. There are so many things in creation that really have no other function than bringing joy. God didn't have to give us light by way of a sun that creates beauty merely by its rising and setting. He didn't have to create the cocoa bean, or the coffee bean, or grapes that ferment into something pleasing. We could still get along in a world that had no colour, no music, no fleecy-soft inner coat pockets (one I've been enjoying recently). But that is not the world God has given us. He has filled this world with more pleasures than I could list, and he does it so we will rejoice in the goodness of our Creator and give him glory.

2) God's sovereignty gives us freedom to enjoy life. Often I cease to enjoy the good gifts God has given me because I become consumed by stress and anxiety over details of my life that I cannot control. I become a slave to worry. Rather than enjoying the present pleasures, I am wrapped up in thinking about tomorrow, trying to manage the rest of my life in my head. And I defend this with the excuse that if I can figure everything out for the future, then I will really be able to relax and rejoice. But this is a lie. Ecclesiastes reminds us over and over again that this life is not under our control. Our lives, and every detail of them, are firmly in God's hands. This, of course, does not negate any responsibility on our part to be wise and good stewards of what God has given us, but it does mean that we must not spend our time in worry over tomorrow. Tomorrow will take care of itself. If we really believe that our lives are fully in the hand of our very good God (who is so good that he gives us all things richly to enjoy though we do not deserve it), then we gain the great freedom of really enjoying the life we've been given today, even when there are storm clouds on the horizon.

3) Enjoy all the life you have been given because it is short. "Light is sweet, and it is pleasant for the eyes to see the sun. If a person lives many years, let him rejoice in them all; but let him remember that the days of darkness will be many." (Eccl. 11:8) Moses puts it this way in Psalm 90: "The years of our life are seventy, or even by reason of strength eighty; yet their span is but toil and trouble; they are soon gone, and we fly away. So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom. Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days." This is part of why Ecclesiastes regularly reminds us not only to rejoice in "pleasant" things, but also in the work that God has given us to do, despite that fact that so often it really feels like toil, because we recognize that having work to do means we still have the gift of life.

4) Rejoicing keeps us happily occupied. You're familiar with the phrase "time flies when you're having fun." Ecclesiastes says that isn't too far from the truth. Speaking of the man who rejoices in the life God has given him, it says, "For he will not much remember the days of his life because God keeps him occupied with joy in his heart." (Eccl. 5:20) Are you in the midst of difficulty and toil, wondering when it will ever end? Pay attention to all the things you've been given to enjoy, not least of which is the offer of salvation from sin, futility and death through Jesus' death on the cross in your place, and thank God for them. For while a heart of thankfulness does not remove the ache of living in a world stained by sin, it directs our attention off of the hardship we are facing, and toward the good God who has our whole life and all its details in His generous hands, and who graciously gives us so many things to enjoy, though we deserve none of them! And you may well find that the difficulty and toil passes far more quickly than when you focus only on the things you need deliverance from.

Yes, we must be careful not to find our ultimate joy in earthly things that can be taken away at any given time (Eccl. 11:8). Yes, we enjoy life only within the boundaries that God has set for us, recognizing that the day will come when we will have to answer to a Holy God for all we have done (Eccl. 11:9). But we ARE to enjoy what God has given, and thank Him for it.

We are sinners deserving of death, and yet we have been offered life and everything good through Jesus' death on the cross in our place! So we cannot merely be a people who ask hard questions and grieve oppression and futility. Yes, there are times to weep and mourn. But even in the midst of our mourning, may we be a grateful people. May there be a strong thread of rejoicing even in the middle of our pain and grief. May we not forget that God blesses us daily with many good things to enjoy, and that even in the worst circumstances, we have life, and salvation in Jesus. "He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?" (Romans 8:32)

Tears of the Oppressed (Meditations on Ecclesiastes)

"Again I saw all the oppressions that are done under the sun. And behold, the tears of the oppressed, and they had no one to comfort them! On the side of their oppressors there was power, and there was no one to comfort them. And I thought the dead who are already dead more fortunate than the living who are still alive. But better than both is he who has not yet been and has not seen the evil deeds that are done under the sun." (Ecclesiastes 4: 1-3)

Really? Is anyone allowed to say such a thing?! No wonder some of us feel uncomfortable with Ecclesiastes! Here is a book, inspired by God, that appears to claim it better to be dead, and indeed, to never have even been alive, than to have seen and experienced the evil that goes on under the sun. Where is the hope here?

In fact, the author of Ecclesiastes doesn't really offer any right now. There is terrible oppression done on this earth, injustices that in this life go continually unpunished (Eccl. 3:16-17). But we want to find the hope NOW. As Christians, we want Ecclesiastes to jump to the gospel, to hold up the coming judgement and offer salvation. Better off dead? Seriously?

In thinking through this troubling passage, I was really struck by Derek Kidner's question in his commentary:

If [the author]'s gloom strikes us as excessive at this point, we may need to ask whether our more cheerful outlook springs from hope and not complacency. While we, as Christians, see further ahead than he allowed himself to look, it is no reason to spare ourselves the realities of the present.

Are we shocked by the darkness of Ecclesiastes because we truly understand the hope of resurrection and future justice offered in the gospel, or, if we are honest, is it because we are not willing to go to the dark places in this world? Is it because we aren't ready to really look at the evils and oppressions that go on under the sun, and really care, really mourn, really weep with those who weep. To my shame, I have to admit that far too often, my lack of groaning is not because I'm so full of hope, but because I'm too lazy or comfortable to care. I'm apathetic. I don't look at the sufferings in this world with the grief of the God who created a beautiful world that was "very good" and then, in looking at the wickedness of man, "was sorry that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart" (Genesis 6:6).

Do we care about the unspeakable horrors going on at this very moment around the world? Do we care that young girls are forced into prostitution at any age, let alone at ages when our own daughters are still playing with dolls? Does it grieve us that infants the world over are slaughtered just because their parents and or their governments don't want to deal with them? Does it matter to us that children are conscripted into violent armies, that slumlords, orphanage owners and relief workers grab for themselves many of the donations given for the poorest of the poor under their "care"? And what about our own Christian brothers and sisters in other nations who are tortured, enslaved, imprisoned and killed because their persecutors hate what they believe? What about the spiritual oppression and darkness in our own comfortable land?

"But what can I do?" we often ask. Ecclesiastes itself acknowledges that oppression and evil are out of our control. We can deal with it in one form, in one place, at one time, and it's just starting somewhere else. Until the day that Jesus returns, there will always be poor, oppressed people in this sinful world. But I may not use this as an excuse to cease caring, to ignore. There ARE practical things that can be done for some of these issues. And even if there really is no practical way that I can help, there is ALWAYS one practical way that I can help. I can PRAY. I can join with Ecclesiastes and with the psalmist and with the martyred saints before the throne of God and groan on behalf of the oppressed. I can weep and mourn and plead on their behalf before the throne of the only One who has the power to end the pain, to comfort the victims, and to judge their oppressors.

Yes, ultimately we do not mourn as those who have no hope. In the end, God will bring every deed into judgement, with every secret thing, whether good or evil (Eccl. 12:14). We do know that there is a Jesus who sets the captives free. But we may not use this hope as an excuse to ignore the darkness of this present age. If we want to follow the whole counsel of God, as revealed in the entirety of the Bible, we must also have a place for deep grief over the ravages of sin, over the terrible evils that plague masses of people made in the image of God. We must be willing to go with Solomon to the depths of human suffering and mourn it. We have a God who didn't just sit back, looking from a distance at our misery, saying, "Don't want to go there." We have a God who entered right in to a world burdened by sin and oppression, lived in the midst of it, wept under the weight of it, and then died a horrible death to deal with it once and for all.

We must not merely be a people of hope, but also a hopeful people who care, who act, who pray to the God of all mercy and comfort on behalf of those who have no earthly hope. May we be a people who weep with the tears of the oppressed.

Achieving Eternity (Meditations on Ecclesiastes)

Do you want to live forever? Regardless of whether you believe it is possible or not, most of us live our lives in pursuit of this goal. We do our best at our work, we strive to realize our dreams, we do great things, we try to make the world a better place, we want to be good friends or good parents... And while we do these things in part because it makes us happy, most of us would have to honestly say that we also do them because we want our achievements, our memory, our good works, our descendants to live on after us. We seek eternity by means of works that will last long after we are gone. We may be dead and in the ground, but our memory will live on in the hearts of those that knew us or benefit from the things we accomplished.

Ecclesiastes is a book about seeking eternity. Though it only mentions the word once, the idea is present in virtually every chapter of the book. Its characters, including its author, are people who seek wisdom and knowledge, or who build great architectural edifices, or who attain high political offices, or who are very religious and want to do great things for God. Some of them are incredibly innovative. Others have large families given to them to care for. There are men and women, kings and lay people, young people and old people, wise people and foolish people, wealthy nobility and the humble poor. And the vast majority of them are seeking eternity by means of a life well-lived, whatever that may mean to each of them. Sound like any world you know?

Of course, this is also no surprise, because Ecclesiastes tells us that God "has put eternity into man's heart". We are created with a desire for immortality imprinted on our very being. Elsewhere in the Bible, we are told that man was made to live forever. But he has been thwarted by sin and is now universally condemned to death. We who are made with eternity in our hearts now have a 100% chance of dying. But this death sentence does not stop us from seeking the immortality we should have had. You will rarely meet a person who could care less about how they will be remembered. Even those who do great evil are often seeking a name for themselves. Better to be infamous for the rest of human history for some terrible deed than to lie forgotten in an unmarked grave with the vast majority of the human race.

The problem with achieving eternity via long-standing accomplishments (however noble) or via a good name is that we have no guarantee that anything we do in this life will outlive us. You can spend your days toiling to build up your business and have no guarantee that the person who takes over after you won't run it into the ground. You can be a mother who pours her life into her children, giving them every chance at success, teaching them with all wisdom and insight to live a life of godliness and you have no guarantee that they will live on after you as godly, successful people. You can't even guarantee that they will outlive you! And even if we could guarantee good results, "there is no remembrance of former things, nor will there be any remembrance of later things yet to be among those who come after." So, "what does man gain by all the toil at which he toils under the sun?" (Eccl. 1:2, 11). Death comes for us all (another prominent theme in Ecclesiastes), and regardless of what we have done or how often our name is mentioned 500 years from now, we will be forgotten. Think about the handful of names you know from history (out of the billions who have ever lived), and then think about how much deconstruction, reconstruction, reanalysis and "new discoveries!" are part of our knowledge about history. We don't even know those people for who they really, really were.

No, we have no hope of achieving immortality for ourselves, no matter how hard we try. We who are made with eternity in our hearts are doomed to be lost and forgotten to the running sands of time. BUT, "whatever God does endures forever; nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken from it" (Eccl. 3:14). God who put eternity in our hearts also only does that which lasts forever. This means that the only way we will ever live on forever is through participating in God's enduring work. And he invites us into it! In fact, he offers us an exchange: he will take our broken, half-hearted, mediocre, forgettable work, as well as the best, most pleasing achievements we have to offer (which are still just as perishable as we are); and in its place, he will give us the perfect, everlasting, finished work of his son, Jesus. When we admit that we cannot make eternity for ourselves, and instead put all our trust and hope in God's finished and enduring work at the cross of Jesus, then, and only then, do we gain unending life. "And this is eternal life, that they may know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent." (John 17:3)

This may mean that we live a life that will be forgotten by mankind. It may mean living in a way that doesn't seem very successful to others, and even at many times to ourselves. But it is our only sure hope for eternity, and that makes it a life worth living.