Sermon: The Meaning of Life

Matt Tuttle, president of Intervarsity Christian Fellowship and senior at Binghamton University, was the guest preacher on Sunday August 1st, 2010. Matt has been attending Good Shepherd since his freshman year and God has done many great things through him both in this congregation and on campus. His sermon was based on the first and second chapters of the Book of Ecclesiastes.

Sermon by Matt Tuttle
the Meaning of Life
August 1, 2010
Ecclesiastes 1-2
The Anglican Church of the Good Shepherd

Good Morning, everyone. We’ll be going for a change of pace this morning, as we’ll be looking at our Old Testament reading from the book of Ecclesiastes. I will start by saying this particular book and I have a complicated relationship. For as long as I can remember, I was confused by it. The only good thing I found in it was the lyrics to the Byrd’s song “Turn! Turn! Turn!”, otherwise I either seriously questioned its place in the canon of Scripture or I pretended that it didn’t exist.

It also appears that others have a complicated relationship with the book as well. I asked some friends what they thought about it and I have recorded their response: “it’s alright”, “eeeh, not a huge fan,” and “well… I don’t love it.” My personal favorite was, “I think it’s just Solomon complaining about life.”

While my friend’s sentiment may have some elements of truth to it, what is more important to say about Ecclesiastes is that it, like every other book in the Bible, is “God-breathed, and useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.” On a side note, this goes for Ecclesiastes and all of those other books we flip over when reading our Bibles because we don’t think they’re as important as others (I’ll let you decide which ones those are.)

The book of Ecclesiastes is generally accepted to have been written by Solomon, although his name is not explicitly used. It does say that the book is the words of the Preacher or Teacher, the son of David, when he was king in Jerusalem. We consider the book a “book of wisdom” and it closely resembles a genre of wisdom that was popular in the ancient Near East called ‘pessimism literature.’ This was the kind of literature that suggested giving up because nothing would ever work out the way you wanted, or that the only peace you’d ever experience would be in death. In this style of writing, the glass was never half empty, it was fully empty.

Ecclesiastes, quite clearly, fits into this genre, as we read earlier: Life is an “unhappy business that God has given to the children of man”, “all is vanity and chasing after the wind”, a man who work’s days are “full of sorrow” and his work “a vexation.” I realize this is alarming to many who read it, when it seems such an emphasis is placed on the sanctity of life, living joyfully, and being grateful in God’s mercy elsewhere in the Bible. Where did all this meaningless come from?

And now maybe we reflect on who’s writing this: Solomon who, when he was offered anything he wanted from God, he requested that God grant him wisdom and knowledge. Maybe we’re missing something:

Let’s turn to that passage, Ecclesiastes 1. (It’s right after Proverbs, but before Song of Songs and Isaiah.) We start in verse 12 with the king setting out to understand everything that goes on under heaven, hoping to find some answer to the vanity and meaninglessness that he discussed in the beginning of the chapter. He “applies his heart”, seeking and searching earnestly through everything done under heaven and finds that it is all “vanity and a striving after wind.” What do vanity and striving after wind have in common? They are both empty, fruitless, disappointing. And that’s how the Teacher finds everything under heaven. How are you feeling? Is this book cheerful or what?

It is in trying to understand the world that the Teacher comes up empty, so he goes for the opposite: He tries to find meaning in pleasure—laughter, embracing folly, and drinking wine. In these things, too, he finds no meaning. Still searching earnestly, he lists the things he has accomplished: houses, vineyards, gardens, parks, reservoirs, slaves and herds and flocks. In all of these things, however, he does not find meaning. The end result was much achievement, but nothing more than that.

It seems inevitable that the Teacher would then hate this fruitless work, as we read in verse 18. One time I was paid to stuff envelopes for sixteen hours—by the fourth hour I was already hating what I was doing because, other than the lovely reward I would get for doing such work, there was no real sense of accomplishment in my work, I wasn’t particularly proud of my work, because who really brags about putting papers in envelopes. So by the tenth hour I was looking to distract myself as much as possible, and by the sixteenth hour I was drained, physically and mentally, from partaking in such a menial and meaningless task.

I think this is similar to what happens at the end of our reading—after working so hard to achieve all that he had done—building houses and reservoirs and becoming super wealthy, he finds no fulfillment in the end product. Any satisfaction found in any accomplishment was fleeting and, as he is quick to point out, able to be ruined by someone else, or the person that comes after him. Ironically, if you know the story of Solomon, you know that his son and successor Rehoboam inherited a lot and ended up messing a lot of things up.

In the end of all Solomon’s toil and striving of heart, he is left with only sorrow and vexation.

This could sound either really depressing to you or really familiar, or perhaps both. At this point, there are a few avenues we could go down in interpreting this text. An easy answer would be to diagnose Solomon as clinically depressed and move on—flip a few pages into Song of Solomon, because that’s a cute love story, and who doesn’t like a good story? Another way we could go about this would be to blame his unhappiness on his vast knowledge because, as the old adage goes, “ignorance is bliss.” I believe the right way to go about this is accept Solomon’s words as complete truth, and I believe this for two reasons (besides that it’s Scripture and it’s God’s Word so it must be true.)

The first is personal experience: because I have embarked on many endeavors, spent much of my time, put a lot of energy into things that leave me feeling empty when I’ve finished them. Just a few years ago I was a little boy just dying to get that toy in the commercials, despite my mom’s repeated advice that the toy wasn’t as good as I thought it was, or it was a waste of money. (Thanks Mom, for not getting me “Creepy Crawlers” for Christmas.)  Just last year I was stuck in a class that I absolutely hated, learning material I knew I would never need, wasting time writing a paper that I didn’t care about. A few times a week it’s my turn to do dishes, so I stand in front of the sink for a half hour completing a task I know I will do again less than a week later.

Is my work a source of fulfillment for me? Is your work a source of fulfillment to you?

This is not exclusive to my toil, because like Solomon, I find pleasure to be without meaning too- the amount of time I spend watching television, the high I get when I’m on a roller coaster, how good that doughnut tastes when it first enters my mouth. I’m not still reeling from that piece of cake I had last week. That pleasure was fleeting. The joy I had when the chocolate entered my mouth is long gone.

So now I ask, are the things that we do for pleasure also the things that we do for fulfillment?

This reason leads me to believe what Solomon writes is true in my own life. The second reason I take what he’s saying as truth is because I recognize Solomon’s predicament as one that is pervasive and not a predicament isolated in this text.

A couple of weeks ago at Vacation Bible School, I had the pleasure of teaching 3 to 12 year olds that the wholeness and perfection of God’s creation was ruined when Adam and Eve sinned. And because God is holy, he could not be around sin, and because God is just, he had to punish that sin. And so all of creation was fell into decay as a result of the fall. That wholeness and perfection that was there in the beginning could no longer be found in the imperfect creation. The fulfillment that Solomon is looking for in his toil and pleasure will not be found “under heaven” because that fulfillment has been missing since that fall.

Here is where I think we are able to differentiate Solomon complaining about life, as my friend alleged, and Solomon’s wisdom in action. While it sounds like whining and complaining on the surface, there’s something to be said for the persistence with which Solomon approaches his search for meaning: He does not search to see if it exists because if he was, he probably would’ve given up by now. Instead, he searches with the knowledge that it does exist.

His unhappiness and emptiness point to the existence of something to fill him.

The upsetting part about this is that despite being considered one of the wisest men who ever lived, his advice is clearly not heeded, as time and time again people look for the same things he looked for in the same places he looked for them and are disappointed to not find them. And so we come to our Gospel reading from today, where we see exactly that happening.

Someone in the crowd approaches Jesus with a civil dispute, a matter a rabbi would in most circumstances settle, requesting that Jesus instruct that the brother would divide the inheritance. The dispute was most likely caused by one brother feeling like he had not received his fair share, but Jesus chose to address another issue. First, he will not bother with this trivial dispute when there is a deeper problem at stake. He was there to teach, not to do the job of other rabbis.

Then he addresses the issue of covetousness, which is most likely what he discerned at the heart of the man’s request. Not only does covetousness cause strife, as it did between this man and his brother, but it also points to a worldview that a man’s material possessions are what matters in life: A worldview that had been exposed by Solomon almost a millennium earlier as being vain and empty. What follows is a parable about a rich man who, also falling into covetousness, plans to build larger barns for his crops and possessions. He is seeking fulfillment and meaning from his accumulated wealth, but the vanity of his endeavor is revealed when, after his own life is taken from him, his possessions become worthless.

Jesus makes it clear that the lifestyle of the rich man, similar to the covetousness of the man in the crowd, may have seemed full and fruitful initially, but its true meaningless becomes clear when material possessions fade away. At the end of the parable Jesus offers that this is the case for those who are not rich towards God.

This sounds like something we’ve heard before though, right? In Matthew we are warned to “lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”  But what does that mean? How can we become “rich towards God”?

I think that that’s a question we can answer when we look at the text a little further. I don’t think the only reason Jesus so sternly corrected the man in the crowd was because the man coveted his brother’s possessions. I think that Jesus could see that the man wasn’t just looking for his fair share, but some sort of fulfillment from it—that same fulfillment that Solomon had been looking for.

Except, unlike Solomon, the man in the crowd was staring at what I’m sure Solomon would’ve recognized as the end to his searching. The missing piece in Solomon’s life was the same missing piece in God’s creation—that, God’s creation, fallen into sin and no longer whole or perfect, was to be reconciled to Him through Jesus Christ. The man in the crowd asking the Son of God to settle a civil dispute so that he could get his money was the man in the crowd being so blind to what he needed that he didn’t go after it when he found it.

And so now I ask you, are you still looking for meaning in your work or achievements? Are you looking for meaning in pleasure? And if so, how do you feel? Are you like the rich man, seemingly content, excited to kick back and relax? Or are you, like Solomon, disappointed and dissatisfied?

We have found the answer to the problem the perplexed Solomon. We have experienced through the Scriptures the truth that can make creation whole again, that can bring meaning back into our existence. It is literally at our fingertips. But experiencing doesn’t appear to be as easy as it should be: we live in a culture, in an era, where we are bombarded on all sides by everything that promises things on meaning and purpose can provide. Commercials for television shows that will entertain us, a beer that will ensure we have a good time, products that will make our lives easier. Sales at the mall tell us we could get more stuff for less money, so that we can use that saved money to get more stuff, and then be happy. We see movies that encourage false narratives of what it means to be fulfilled or have meaning – if I get the girl, if I get my money, if I live in a big house by myself and get some peace and quiet, if I have a baby, if I get the job. The everyday hustle and bustle is successful only when we can accomplish as much as we can in the shortest amount of time.

We live in a culture epitomized by the parable of the rich man, and it is incredibly easy to believe that these worldviews and lifestyles can coexist with our faith. The truth is, as Solomon stated 3000 years ago: those lifestyles, the pursuit of meaning in pleasure or achievement or toil is a pursuit made in vain. So it is my hope for this congregation that we no longer bother ourselves looking for meaning anywhere else except for upward.
Ecclesiastes ends with the following conclusion: “Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.” When we seek out in wisdom meaning and understanding in Him, we will not be disappointed.

Prayer.

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