“All is vanity.” So says Qoheleth… the narrator of our first reading who is traditionally identified as King Solomon himself, the wisest man on earth. Which makes the words all the more shocking. It sounds so bleak, so dismal. “It’s all in vain.” Wait… is that right? Do you agree?
The answer might be ‘sometimes.’ I think most people can relate to this kind of attitude. Chances are you’ve had moments and moods in which it all just seemed pointless. All the things that people run around trying to acquire and achieve, it’s just dust and shadows. Qoheleth puts it like this: “For so it is that a man who has labored wisely, skillfully and successfully must leave what is his own to someone who has not toiled for it at all. This, too, is vanity and great injustice; for what does he gain for all the toil and strain that he has undergone under the sun? What of all his laborious days, his cares of office, his restless nights? This, too, is vanity.” You know this mood. You’ve felt it before. There are times… maybe a brief moment, maybe a large part of your life, there are times when things really do feel pointless.
If everyone knows the feeling, why is it shocking to read it in the Bible? Because we think we’re supposed to ignore that feeling, ignore those thoughts. Those are bad thoughts, right? We’re supposed to be industrious and motivated and hard-working. We’re supposed to be grateful for life and count our blessings. We’re supposed to find beauty and joy in what God has made. Right? Qoheleth sounds like the opposite of all that. This feeling of pointlessness seems like the denial of all that.
That’s part of what makes the Book of Ecclesiastes so intriguing. All the darkest cynicism you or anybody else has ever felt, it’s expressed here. The kinds of dark thoughts your instincts tell you to sweep under the rug, hide in the closet, they’re here on full scandalous display. It’s sort of cathartic.
Especially when we remember who’s speaking. He was King… the richest and most powerful King Israel ever had. Any worldly pleasure he wanted could be his at the snap of a finger. When he says it’s all vanity, it’s all pointless, he’s speaking from experience. We almost worship celebrities in our culture. I’m going to shock you a little and say I think we should pay more attention to rich and famous people. I’m serious. We should pay less attention to their richness and famousness… and more attention to them. Because if we did, they would be first to teach us that worldly success doesn’t make life worthwhile. If we stopped worshipping gorgeous wealthy famous people and started listening to them, don’t you think we’d hear something very like the Book of Ecclesiastes?
Contrast that with the character in Jesus’ parable. He’s talking about a man who has done very well for himself, with full storehouses of grain and goods. Picture a garage full of cars and a bunch of rented storage lockers full of all the stuff that people get when they have some extra cash. He’s got all of that. Mission accomplished. So what now? Having everything he needs and then some, what’s the project of his life?
Pay attention here, try to empathize, and feel the terrible sadness and tragedy of his answer, which is basically: “I guess I’m done.” He can’t think of anything else. Even worse, he’s convinced that he’s achieved security. Jesus says he’s a fool. Where’s the hitch in his carefully laid plans? Jesus doesn’t pull punches. “Tonight you will die,” He says. And He asks “this hoard of yours, whose will it be then?” I’m sure his Jewish listeners would all have caught the reference to Ecclesiastes: “For so it is that a man who has labored wisely, skillfully and successfully must leave what is his own to someone who has not toiled for it at all.” Or as we put it colloquially, “You can’t take it with you.” Or as someone put it even more colloquially, “I’ve never seen a hearse pulling a U-Haul.”
Is Jesus preaching against retirement planning? I think he’s preaching against false security and placing our hope and building our lives on vanities. Time to bring in our second reading, Paul writing to the Colossians: “Since you have been brought back to true life with Christ, you must look for the things that are in heaven, where Christ is, sitting at God’s right hand. Let your thoughts be on heavenly things, not on the things that are on the earth, because you have died, and now the life you have is hidden with Christ in God.”
What’s the fool in the parable looking for? Where are his thoughts? Earthly things. And when he’s got those bases covered and then some, what more does he want, what greater goal is his life seeking? Nothing. Just… more earthly things. That’s all he’s got, and that’s all he is. And it’s all in vain.
There are poor people who think about nothing but money and there are rich people as detached as desert hermits. Most of us are somewhere in between, trying to be sensible about planning for the future and covering material needs without letting these things define us or give us a false sense of security. That’s good. It’s good to be hard-working and industrious. It’s good to plan wisely for the future.
In fact, you could say that when it comes to the man Jesus calls a fool, it’s not that he’s planning too much for the future. It’s that he’s planning too little. He’s thinking about however many years he has to spend what he’s acquired. Every retirement planner makes these calculations: a key data point, maybe the key data point, is how long you expect to live. Have you prepared adequately for that?
Well, you’re going to live forever.
Colossians 3 is talking about life in Christ overcoming the vanities that leave Qoheleth and the rest of us so unsatisfied. You look at all that stuff and feel like it’s pointless… well, if that’s all you’ve got, you’re right. It is pointless. But what if, like Paul says, “you have died, and the life you now live is hidden in Christ?” He’s the point. He’s the reason. He’s the only reason big enough and good enough and ultimately satisfying. If you’re filling up storehouses or accounts for your earthly future, great, good luck to you. Are you filling up your soul with Christ?
Colossians goes on: “That is why you must kill everything in you that belongs only to earthly life: fornication, impurity, guilty passion, evil desires and especially greed, which is the same thing as worshipping a false god; and never tell each other lies. You have stripped off your old behavior with your old self, and you have put on a new self which will progress towards true knowledge the more it is renewed in the image of its creator; and in that image there is no room for distinction between Greek and Jew, between the circumcised or the uncircumcised, or between barbarian and Scythian, slave and free man. There is only Christ: he is everything and he is in everything.”
Now that’s planning for your future. And it’s how to live your present.
Qoheleth’s most famous quote in the Book of Ecclesiastes is one you’ve all heard: “There is nothing new under the sun.” Reminds me of another quote from a different man: “Behold, I make all things new.” You remember who said that. It’s all new if you’re living under the Son.
The answer might be ‘sometimes.’ I think most people can relate to this kind of attitude. Chances are you’ve had moments and moods in which it all just seemed pointless. All the things that people run around trying to acquire and achieve, it’s just dust and shadows. Qoheleth puts it like this: “For so it is that a man who has labored wisely, skillfully and successfully must leave what is his own to someone who has not toiled for it at all. This, too, is vanity and great injustice; for what does he gain for all the toil and strain that he has undergone under the sun? What of all his laborious days, his cares of office, his restless nights? This, too, is vanity.” You know this mood. You’ve felt it before. There are times… maybe a brief moment, maybe a large part of your life, there are times when things really do feel pointless.
If everyone knows the feeling, why is it shocking to read it in the Bible? Because we think we’re supposed to ignore that feeling, ignore those thoughts. Those are bad thoughts, right? We’re supposed to be industrious and motivated and hard-working. We’re supposed to be grateful for life and count our blessings. We’re supposed to find beauty and joy in what God has made. Right? Qoheleth sounds like the opposite of all that. This feeling of pointlessness seems like the denial of all that.
That’s part of what makes the Book of Ecclesiastes so intriguing. All the darkest cynicism you or anybody else has ever felt, it’s expressed here. The kinds of dark thoughts your instincts tell you to sweep under the rug, hide in the closet, they’re here on full scandalous display. It’s sort of cathartic.
Especially when we remember who’s speaking. He was King… the richest and most powerful King Israel ever had. Any worldly pleasure he wanted could be his at the snap of a finger. When he says it’s all vanity, it’s all pointless, he’s speaking from experience. We almost worship celebrities in our culture. I’m going to shock you a little and say I think we should pay more attention to rich and famous people. I’m serious. We should pay less attention to their richness and famousness… and more attention to them. Because if we did, they would be first to teach us that worldly success doesn’t make life worthwhile. If we stopped worshipping gorgeous wealthy famous people and started listening to them, don’t you think we’d hear something very like the Book of Ecclesiastes?
Contrast that with the character in Jesus’ parable. He’s talking about a man who has done very well for himself, with full storehouses of grain and goods. Picture a garage full of cars and a bunch of rented storage lockers full of all the stuff that people get when they have some extra cash. He’s got all of that. Mission accomplished. So what now? Having everything he needs and then some, what’s the project of his life?
Pay attention here, try to empathize, and feel the terrible sadness and tragedy of his answer, which is basically: “I guess I’m done.” He can’t think of anything else. Even worse, he’s convinced that he’s achieved security. Jesus says he’s a fool. Where’s the hitch in his carefully laid plans? Jesus doesn’t pull punches. “Tonight you will die,” He says. And He asks “this hoard of yours, whose will it be then?” I’m sure his Jewish listeners would all have caught the reference to Ecclesiastes: “For so it is that a man who has labored wisely, skillfully and successfully must leave what is his own to someone who has not toiled for it at all.” Or as we put it colloquially, “You can’t take it with you.” Or as someone put it even more colloquially, “I’ve never seen a hearse pulling a U-Haul.”
Is Jesus preaching against retirement planning? I think he’s preaching against false security and placing our hope and building our lives on vanities. Time to bring in our second reading, Paul writing to the Colossians: “Since you have been brought back to true life with Christ, you must look for the things that are in heaven, where Christ is, sitting at God’s right hand. Let your thoughts be on heavenly things, not on the things that are on the earth, because you have died, and now the life you have is hidden with Christ in God.”
What’s the fool in the parable looking for? Where are his thoughts? Earthly things. And when he’s got those bases covered and then some, what more does he want, what greater goal is his life seeking? Nothing. Just… more earthly things. That’s all he’s got, and that’s all he is. And it’s all in vain.
There are poor people who think about nothing but money and there are rich people as detached as desert hermits. Most of us are somewhere in between, trying to be sensible about planning for the future and covering material needs without letting these things define us or give us a false sense of security. That’s good. It’s good to be hard-working and industrious. It’s good to plan wisely for the future.
In fact, you could say that when it comes to the man Jesus calls a fool, it’s not that he’s planning too much for the future. It’s that he’s planning too little. He’s thinking about however many years he has to spend what he’s acquired. Every retirement planner makes these calculations: a key data point, maybe the key data point, is how long you expect to live. Have you prepared adequately for that?
Well, you’re going to live forever.
Colossians 3 is talking about life in Christ overcoming the vanities that leave Qoheleth and the rest of us so unsatisfied. You look at all that stuff and feel like it’s pointless… well, if that’s all you’ve got, you’re right. It is pointless. But what if, like Paul says, “you have died, and the life you now live is hidden in Christ?” He’s the point. He’s the reason. He’s the only reason big enough and good enough and ultimately satisfying. If you’re filling up storehouses or accounts for your earthly future, great, good luck to you. Are you filling up your soul with Christ?
Colossians goes on: “That is why you must kill everything in you that belongs only to earthly life: fornication, impurity, guilty passion, evil desires and especially greed, which is the same thing as worshipping a false god; and never tell each other lies. You have stripped off your old behavior with your old self, and you have put on a new self which will progress towards true knowledge the more it is renewed in the image of its creator; and in that image there is no room for distinction between Greek and Jew, between the circumcised or the uncircumcised, or between barbarian and Scythian, slave and free man. There is only Christ: he is everything and he is in everything.”
Now that’s planning for your future. And it’s how to live your present.
Qoheleth’s most famous quote in the Book of Ecclesiastes is one you’ve all heard: “There is nothing new under the sun.” Reminds me of another quote from a different man: “Behold, I make all things new.” You remember who said that. It’s all new if you’re living under the Son.
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