Welcome, new believer! Now that you’ve come to Christ, your
first step as a newcomer should be to read the book of Ecclesiastes!
~ Said no preacher ever.
Worse still:
It’s not the words of an atheist. Its speaker, Qoheleth, is without doubt a
believer in the God of Israel.
As my boxed quip
above says, it’s probably not the first place in scripture I’d send a new
believer. Here’s why.
CULTURE OF THE QUOTABLES
We live in a
world where context-free quotations are given a special place of honor as
being wise and informative. Got a great,
witty saying? Post it as your Facebook
status. A profound zinger? Tweet that sucker! A poignant bon mot? Put it in italics and box it at the start of
your next blog post!
I suppose micro-wisdom is nothing new. In fact, Qoheleth assures us there’s not really anything new under the sun (1:9). Before there were digital venues, there were bumper stickers, and before that there were probably horseless carriage stickers and chariot graffiti. As believers, even we … and to personalize, I, me, myself … really love brief, power-packing quotes that capture so much wisdom in so few words:
If God be for us, who can
be against? (Rom. 8:31)
The joy of the Lord is your
strength. (Neh. 8:10)
He will wipe away every
tear. (Rev. 21:4)
Obviously, there’s nothing wrong with finding inspiration in one-liners from scripture; the Gospel and epistle writers do it throughout the New Testament. However, as Peter warns in his second letter, some writings are difficult to understand and easy to misuse. Imagine applying a “culture of the quotables” mentality to Ecclesiastes:
The fate of humans and the
fate of animals is the same. (3:19)
A stillborn is better off
than [the father of a hundred]. (6:3)
The dead know nothing;
they have no more reward. (9:5)
BEYOND THE QUOTABLES
Back in my teens and early twenties, the old show West Wing had a great episode in which White House aide Josh Lyman laments the anti-intellectualism of some presidential candidates. When his own president faces complex crises, says Lyman, “I don’t know if he’s thinking about Immanuel Kant or not. I doubt it. But if he does, I am comforted at least in my certainty that he is doing his best to reach for all of it and not just the McNuggets.”
Scripture’s take on that same idea is to tell us there are times we need to move beyond the milk of faith (1 Cor. 3:2) to take in solid food, since “solid food is for the mature” (Heb. 5:14). There are places in Scripture where we're going to have to go for a full-course meal, chewing thoughtfully.
Milk and
McNuggets metaphors aside, my point is that Ecclesiastes strikes me as far more
of a book for the mature Christian than for those new to the faith. I wouldn’t discourage anyone from reading any
part of scripture, but when it comes to some books, I’d certainly recommend
taking a friend along, preferably an older one who can provide the fuller context
of the faith. Otherwise, what should be
stepping stones may become stumbling blocks. In Ecclesiastes, we’ll encounter twists and turns, contradictions and challenges galore,
like discovering:
- Despite all health and wealth granted by God, we’ll never be satisfied (1:8)
- Giving our best effort amounts to nothing (2:11)
- Wisdom is better than folly (2:13), but wisdom only gives us sorrow (1:18)
- We should hate life since, no matter what we achieve, we can’t take it with us (2:18)
- What we eat and drink and enjoy working at is from God’s hand (2:24), but it’s meaningless anyway (1:26)
THERE’S CONTEXT, AND THEN THERE’S CONTEXT
We’re told
early in our faith journey that Bible verses are best understood in context. Sometimes that’s at an elementary level. Sure, the Bible says, “There is no God,” but
the full context of that verse is, “The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God.’”
Going beyond the rudimentary to the
context of the entire Psalm 14 where that line's found, we see that not only
atheism but also oppression of the poor (v. 6) and oppression of God’s people (v.
4) are traits of evil fools. Most
disturbing of all is that the foolish evildoers are each and every one of us (v. 3),
not some distant enemy. We’ve all gone
astray, and we can only hope for deliverance (v. 7) at some future date, in
some still-unknown way.
Context continues to gets
bigger, though. This song is in a
collection of Psalms, written in early Israel from the time of King David up
through a time of Israel’s exile to the foreign land of Babylon. Those Psalms tell a story of vast, disparate
emotions ranging from despair resulting from the need for God’s deliverance, to rejoicing
in the realization that the hope of that deliverance always remains. This is a national collection of longing for God that is
today read by peoples of all nations, those still in anguish but still reaching
out in hope toward something bigger and seemingly unknowable.
And one step up from that, we find the still-larger context in which it’s best to appreciate the Book of Ecclesiastes: the fullness of salvation history, from the creation of the world through the ascension of the resurrected Christ and beyond. Ecclesiastes is a slice of life – the mental life of the wisest of men who is trapped in the idea that there must be something more to life, more to God, than eating, drinking, making merry, and dying. There must be something else. But there isn’t. Nothing lasting. There’s nothing new.
QUESTING UNDER THE SUN
“Vanity” is
the word Qoheleth uses dozens of times throughout Ecclesiastes, literally from the text's first word to its last. The word's early-English meaning isn’t what we think of today as vanity – egoism, excessive
pride, and self-admiration. In fact, the
Hebrew word being translated here, habel, doesn’t mean “vanity” in any literal sense, old or modern English. It means “vapor” or “breath,”
a puff of smoke that really gets the message across about how meaningless
vanity is. Ancient Hebrew’s more common
word for breath, ruach, is much more positive and can also mean “spirit,”
either as a human spirit or the very Spirit of God. Habel, on the other hand, trends negative,
a fleeting breath not much more meaningful than a scoff. In fact, in some passages of scripture, the
word is also translated “idol,” a false, meaningless spirit.
Qoheleth’s
writing – or, his speaking, actually, since the book is in a framed format
introduced and then concluded by a scribe presenting Qoheleth’s words – is a
despondent struggle with the fallen state of man, life “under the sun.” What’s under the sun is, of course, the
world, and Qoheleth tackles every angle imaginable to find something more than
scoffing breaths, vapor, vanity. Old
Testament scholar Christopher J. H. Wright sees the book as a “quest,” a
perspective I very much like. Qoheleth’s
struggle with the meaning of anything in this world is a futile quest not unlike
the legends of Arthur’s knights hunting fruitlessly for the Holy Grail. The quest is impossible as long as one keeps
searching “under the sun.”
But I also
like Bible teacher Mike Mazzalongo’s perspective of Ecclesiastes as Qoheleth’s “journal,”
an in-process diary of Qoheleth’s struggles to understand why life has so
little meaning for one who has belief in God, one who, in fact, rules over
the very people of God. “Journal,” for
me, captures more of the feeling of how the text presents itself. It can jump quickly from topic to topic, abruptly changing its tone as if Qoheleth had set aside the scroll for a day and then returned to it later in a different state of mind.
I don’t have
to decide between Mazzalongo and Wright, of course. “Qoheleth’s Journal of His Quest” works fine
for me and helps navigate the ups, downs, twists, and turns of the
writing. Qoheleth is depressed, then suddenly
hopeful, then resigned. And that’s okay. I’m sure my own journals read like that
when I’m being an honest journaler. Qoheleth bemoans all
his failed efforts; then he suddenly gives advice on how to serve God well in
the temple; then he gripes about a few other quests; and then for no reason he gives advice on how to behave in front of a king. None of that is a problem to read
when you understand you’re peeking into the diary of a man whose quest for meaning is frustrating him no end.
WHAT DO YOU GIVE THE MAN WHO …?
Qoheleth has everything. Riches?
Check. Wisdom and knowledge? Indubitably.
Fulfilling work? Roger that. Food aplenty?
Bon appétit. Slaves and
concubines for sensual pleasures? Um,
yeah, that, too.
For this reason, I like to think of Qoheleth as the anti-Job. A few books away in the Old Testament, Job loses everything. He loses his health, his wealth, his family, his confidence in the God he serves, and he struggles to find meaning in all that suffering. At first glance, Qoheleth is the stark opposite: all privileges attained, smartest guy in any room, more concubines than he can shake a scepter at, yet still a broken man, miserable, suffering just as much as Job. Job’s suffering was external, true; Qoheleth’s was entirely internal. Anyone who’s struggled with depression knows, though, that suffering is suffering, whether inside or out. In situations a full spectrum apart, Job and Qoheleth still both suffer.
From our standpoint as believers, we can see a difficulty shared by the biblical texts of Job and Ecclesiastes – namely, that we modern folks can't just pull out many one-liners for awesome quotation, especially not from Job's friends.
The two books are examples of what Bible scholars in dimly lit offices call “dikē
Scripture” (pronounced DEE-KAY), a genre of Bible writing in which the author struggles to
understand the justice of God. When we
read dikē passages in the Bible, we get to glimpse the inspired writer’s
mental efforts to reconcile what’s going on in daily life with what should be
going on, given God’s just nature. To go
back to an earlier metaphor: dikē passages are solid food for us to chew
on, not milk meant to nourish us with a quick swallow.
Both Job and Qoheleth keep their eyes on God. Neither loses faith that God is just. But what they don’t have access to is the full context. By that I mean the big context: the fullness of salvation history, something completely unavailable to them because of where they’re locked in time.
BREATHING RIGHT
Qoheleth and
Job sought evidence of God’s justice and love. They stayed true to their faith in God, but
to my mind, they were looking for the wrong evidence. Recall those two words that mean “breath” in
Hebrew, ruach and habel, true breath vs. a vapor, spirit vs. idols. Both men, Qoheleth especially, were looking
for evidence of God’s justice in the fleeting things of this world, the habel. In their situations, the external trappings of the
world were all they could appreciate as proof God loved them. They needed their evidence to be “under the
sun.”
As Christians, we see the rest of the story. The
justice and love of God come from what’s far beyond a mere sun. We can never reach it, not through the riches
or pleasures or knowledge or wisdom or works of this world. And since we couldn’t reach it, it reached us
in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. In
that moment of salvation history, justice and mercy kissed, and what was impossible for us became possible by God.
We couldn’t earn the eternal, because we couldn’t pay the price of
entry. Job and Qoheleth were judging
eternity from their pre-Jesus vantage point; in fairness, they could only judge
according to what their limited, world-weary knowledge could offer.
“Sorrow is
knowledge,” wrote Lord Byron, echoing Qoheleth and then adding a hint to the
answer Qoheleth sought: “Those who know the most must mourn the deepest o’er
the fatal truth, the Tree of Knowledge is not the Tree of Life.”
To hazard quoting once again from a nonbiblical source (Paul and others did it, so I feel
secure in superior company), I find Ecclesiastes-resolving wisdom in a 16th
century poem by Teresa de Jesús, Sólo Dios Basta (my translation):
Let nothing stir you, nor
make you frightened
Everything passes; God never
changes.
Only your patience shall
overcome this
One who has God is lacking
in nothing.
God alone matters.
Teresa lived in an age when the history of salvation had finally revealed heaven's remedy to Qoheleth’s many frustrations. Christ was her answer. Born to a wealthy family, she didn’t seek riches like Qoheleth; she sought God through salvation in Jesus. Her wealth and health didn’t leave her in some Job-like manner; rather, she surrendered them. She embraced the spirit of the ruach wind, and it blew the habel vapors right out of her life.
THE MEAT OF ECCLESIASTES
We’re
Christians. We know the fuller version of the salvation story. So why do we … why do I,
since I want to be vulnerable here with the hope that some reader, somewhere,
needs to see it as an example … why do I find myself slipping back into judging
God’s love for me according to the habel rather than according to the ruach,
that holiest of Spirits sent to comfort me?
Why, when I had three miscarriages in a
row early in my marriage, did I fall into the darkest of despairs, convinced I
was abandoned by the God I’d accepted and loved since my teens?
Why, when I left behind my U.S. birth family
to relocate with my husband’s family to Switzerland (the least Mexican-American
country on Earth 😊) did
I believe God was punishing me for some reason I didn’t yet understand and which
I fretted over for months?
Why, when I
saw my young son go off to elementary school to be taught German, not my native Spanish,
did I feel so angry … when in truth, Spanish is habel, German is habel,
and eternity will have me and all mine speaking other tongues, even the tongues
of angels?
Answer:
It’s because I’m living in the Age of Christ, but I’m still tricked by the Age
of Qoheleth. Paul would call that the
flesh bidding him to do what he does not want to do.
Ecclesiastes
is far more to the Christian than a chronicle of the Bad Ol’ Days before the salvation
of the cross. It’s an active, living
word from God. It’s a reminder that I,
like Qoheleth, like Job, live in a set point in the full history of
salvation. Even in my salvation, the flesh will keep trying to
trick me. Internal insecurities will keep
coming back to fool me. External
circumstances will conjure specters of doubt. Qoheleth's despondency still looms.
But here’s my
lifeboat in the tempest of a world that is not yet part of a New Heaven and a
New Earth: the ruach of God moves over my waters, active in Me-The-New-Creation, just as it moved over the waters of the first creation. And it continuously whispers to me with an assurance:
Sólo Dios basta. Sólo Dios
basta. Sólo Dios basta.
"God alone suffices."
Marana Tha,
Cosmic Parx / YoYo Rez
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