not a lot, just forever
A sermon on some initial conclusions ofQoheleth:
I know what the Quester is talking about in today’s passage.
I have dyslexia. Now, dyslexia is relatively common, so you may already know a thing or two about it. But once, when I was talking to friends, I said numbers, letters, and words don’t sit still in my head. They move around. I can’t just mentally keep track of them. Anyway, I’ve been told that’s not a bad description.
Blessedly, though, I was diagnosed with dyslexia early. Of course, this was before IEPs. But my teachers were made to understand my situation. And many of them took time to help me learn the material, too.
Nevertheless, school was mostly a humbling experience. There was no way standardized tests were going to go well for me. Most of the time, it just takes me longer to get my head around something. Given that, it was almost inevitable I would fall behind.
…But here’s the thing about dyslexia: once you learn something, you’ve really got it. And, if you can learn how you learn, you can use dyslexia. It’ll never be a quick process, but it can be an effective one. And, thanks to my mom and middle school English teacher, by the time I was finishing high school, I had a decent handle on it.
In fact, I discovered I liked learning! This is why I like to use fancy words in sermons, by the way! I just like them! Plus, growing up, I was told big words were for other people. But it was the teachers who cared that gave me access to those words! And in those words, I found keys to open new worlds and ideas!
That’s why I share them with you! I want you to have these words on your mental keyring! And I want you to know that I respect you, too! I don’t think these words are beyond you.
Well, as you can imagine, this skill set worked well in college. Quick tests are probably only about a quarter of college, especially if you’re not studying something like accounting or medicine. In college, it’s mostly just a matter of putting your nose in the book and taking the time to report what you learned! And as I said, that’s what I discovered I liked to do!
In college, I was the sort of student I had never been in high school. Needless to say, I liked being the good student for a change. And you know what? This reinforced itself! Not only did I like learning, but I also liked the positive results I was receiving, too!
This loop fueled me to work even harder! By the time I was graduating, I was receiving full-tuition scholarships to seminary. On the face of it, I was on the fast track. But inside, I was cracking up. The pressure was getting to me.
I was still young, so I didn’t really understand what was going on. I thought it was just pressure. If I was honest with myself, though, I could tell I was more high-strung than my classmates. And I was getting to be more and more judgmental, too.
…It was a combustible co*cktail. And on top of that, I was pushing myself in nearly every other aspect of my life, too. I was the vice president of the student body, wrote for the student newspaper, was on the campus ministry team, and ran track. But if that wasn’t enough, although it was plainly too much, I was also in a miserable relationship that I thought was just another thing I needed to make work.
As I said, it was a combustible co*cktail. And then, one night, as college students are wont to do, I poured some real co*cktails into the mix. And instead of blowing off steam, it all compressed. With that, in an instant, everything that was just waiting to combust did.
It was easily the worst moment of my life. I have incredible shame about that night. It’s hard to talk about even now. And as hard as it was for me, I know it was just as hard, and maybe even harder, for those who were caught in my blast radius.
The next morning, I awoke with a pit in my stomach. Honestly, the memories were hazy, but I knew the night had gone sideways. And that’s putting it lightly. I tried going back to business as usual, but it was pretty obvious I wasn’t going to be able to do that.
What had happened was somewhat public knowledge. I was asked to step back from most of my responsibilities. I needed to, too. It wasn’t safe. And to be honest, I’m lucky that’s all that came of it.
At that time, though, it was hard for me to see that. I just knew I felt embarrassed. And I didn’t know what to do with myself either. In the end, all my work only robbed me of rest! And even when I couldn’t do anything anymore, all my pent-up anxiety still kept me from resting!
…There comes a point when work only creates more and more work. Doesn’t there? There comes a time when work only robs you of rest. The Quester is right. Often, all you get from your hard labor is just pain and grief from dusk to dawn. Never a decent night’s rest.
I know what the Quester is talking about in today’s passage. And you know what? I bet you do, too. That’s right, I bet you do, too. Now, maybe you didn’t learn in such a traumatic fashion as me.
But then again, maybe you did. Maybe you did. After all, none of us lead perfect lives. Do we? No, we all have collateral damage somewhere in our history. And plenty of us have inflicted it, too. But, no matter what, none of us walk such a cleared path that we don’t have to climb over rubble and scramble across fissures, too
Of course, we’re all doing our best to clean up our side of the sidewalk. Aren’t we? However, experience might teach us to be careful with that. And even if we won’t learn from our own mistakes, the Quester, in today’s passage, tells us the entire enterprise is a bad business from start to finish. It’s all nothing but spitting into the wind.
There’s some plain wisdom here, too. Isn’t there? The ideal life is an illusion! Nevertheless, we bend ourselves out of shape trying to achieve some foolhardy approximation of the dream life.
Then, when that doesn’t work, as it inevitably won’t, our work turns on itself. All our work goes up in smoke, and we combust. And if we don’t explode on others, we explode on ourselves. Don’t we? We get angry with ourselves for something as absurd as being unable to do the impossible!
Worst of all, though, it’s usually despair that smolders in those ashes. Isn’t it? And despair is something we all do our best to avoid. But like the Greek tragedies, our avoidance just lands us in the exact place we were running from!
This is one way Ecclesiastes is helpful. The Quester tells us ahead of time that it’s futile. We don’t have to run down that dead-end. We’ve been warned!
…That’s also the problem, though. Isn’t it? It’s just a warning! Good advice may be good and all. But that’s all it is! And I don’t know about you, but advice has never been enough to keep me from those places where I should have put it to good use in the first place!
This is why we don’t need a god who just sits on high and warns us. Do we? No, what we need is a god who departs from the way it ought to be to come to us where life has really gone sideways! In other words, we need a god who is really a quester!
But not just any quester! No, we need a god who willingly takes the dead end to rescue us from all of ours. And we need a god who rescues us from the most pernicious of those dead-ends, the one that looks to us like the path to life. I’m talking about, of course, that futile road of hard work.
Yes, hard work. Now listen, there’s nothing wrong with hard work. Work has its place. But that place is for our neighbor’s benefit, not our own. As the Quester and life teach us, when we expect our work to make us work, things go wrong real fast. Don’t they?
And that is precisely the sin Jesus rescues you from! Jesus is the true Quester! He’s the final king of Israel! Jesus doesn’t just look into matters. No, he clothes himself in matter!
In Jesus Christ, the Creator becomes enfleshed in the creation! And therein, a miracle more powerful than splitting the atom transpires! In Christ, creation collapses in on itself! And in this reality-altering act, creation is pulled out of itself!
In Christ, creation no longer has to look to itself! No, in Christ, creation can finally look to its Creator! In Christ, creation is rescued from those intractable catastrophes of existence, namely, Sin, Death, and the Devil. All in all, all this means is, in Christ, creation is at last redeemed from that idolatrous desire to save itself! And that includes you. Yes, you.
…Jesus doesn’t just warn you and me of the futility of working to save ourselves. No, he just hurls himself into this futility! After all, that’s all the cross is! Isn’t it?!?
The cross is the culmination of our hopeless drive to force life into our machinations. And what does Jesus do there? Does he give us a lecture about its inefficacy? Does he wag his divine finger?
No, he doesn’t! No, what Christ does is travel that bitter road all the way to its dead end! And there, he inverts the miracle of the incarnation on itself! At the resurrection, creation is put back into itself! And in that reality-altering act, all creation is set aright! Only now, it’s set aright in Christ, the firstborn of creation!
In Christ, the “very good” issued from the lips of God on the seventh day is spoken once more, once and for all! In Christ, creation is recreated in all its original glory! In Christ, all of creation can just bask in the divine glow of its Creator all over again! In Christ, creation is set free to just be itself! And that includes you. Yes, you!
In Christ, you are not a human doing! No, in Christ, you are a human being! In Christ, your being bears witness to your bearer, Jesus Christ, God made flesh! In Jesus Christ, you are the miracle you’ve been all along! In Jesus Christ, you are very good!
There’s nothing you need to do to prove this, either! And you know what else? In that nothing, the smoke the Quester speaks of in today’s passage is everything you need! This nothing is the hiding place of Jesus Christ, God’s Word of creation out of nothing! And in this nothing is all the freedom of your existence, and it’s God-given vocation, too!
…Sure, that may not seem like much to those vain fantasies that we can prove our own worth. But, in the eyes of God, who has seen to your sacred value all along, there’s nothing more glorious! And in Christ, this blessed vision of faith is all yours! And this revelation changes absolutely everything about you and for you, too!
But that’s another sermon. Isn’t it? And it’s a sermon the Holy Spirit is writing out of your life! In other words, I don’t need to take any more words speaking of that! God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit will tell that one!
As such, let’s all lift our voices and join the holy harmony of redemption! Our Hymn of the Day is hymn number 636, How Small Our Span of Life. How Small Our Span of Life, hymn number 636. Let’s sing!
