Beyond Good and Evil (9/25/11)

Beyond Good and Evil
John Shuck

First Presbyterian Church
Elizabethton, Tennessee

September 25th, 2011

Genesis 2:15-3:24

During the season of Autumn we are going to spend time with the myths of Genesis. This is the season in which we honor the path of letting go and letting be, the via negativa. This is the path characterized by silence, darkness, depth. It is the path of loss, of stripping away, and of letting go. It is a reflective path. It is not a path we often choose, but is chosen for us through a loss, a challenge, or a change. We are forced, gripped, led, pulled and pushed toward questions we have not asked about ourselves and our place in this life.

The myths of Genesis are part of our heritage. They live in the marrow of our bones even if we aren’t conscious of them. They are the myths of patriarchy, male stories of a male god, who is called alternatively, Elohim and Adonai. No one dared call him YHWH. The via negativa is the path that invites us to face the God who demands allegiance, obedience, wrestling, sacrifice, and who is silent at our tears. This is the God of our religious heritage. This is the God who doesn’t need a devil, because evil and suffering is wrapped up in his own being. He is creativity and destruction. He punishes and chastises, chooses favorites, rejects others, makes plans, but reveals little.

People ask me on occasion if I believe in God. Talk about a question that misses the point. I am haunted by God. And so are you. Those who claim to have advanced beyond the “God of the Old Testament” and have embraced some watered down version of Protestantism or some feel good New Age fantasy are in denial. This God will not be trivialized.

“Abraham!...Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains that I shall show you.”

You don’t think that story is real? You don’t think that God is real? He is as real as today’s newspaper. All over the world, fathers sacrifice their sons for some ideal such as flag or freedom or some religious superstition or even their own narcissism. What was your relationship with your father? For what did he attempt to sacrifice you? Did he succeed? And your son and your daughter? For what abstractions (honor, belief, success) will you sacrifice them? Mothers sacrifice their children too. We are all recipients of patriarchy’s bowl of pottage.

Cain said to his brother, Abel, “Let us go out to the field.” And when they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel, and killed him. Then Adonai said to Cain, “Where is your brother Abel?” He said, “I do not know; am I my brother’s keeper?”

Is that story real? Is Cain real? Is Adonai, the fickle lord who picks favorites, who prefers Abel’s offering to Cain’s and thus raises murderous resentment in Cain’s heart real? Listen to the news. You can hear variations on this theme from your television talking head every day. Read your heart. What is your relationship with your siblings? Any resentment you care to admit? Or maybe you were the favorite. Maybe your offering pleased daddy. How does that feel? How does that shape who you are today?

Do you believe in God? Silly question. We live God. We breathe God. We till the ground that is cursed by God and through pain give birth to children and in sorrow and joy live our lives by the sweat of our brow. And this God who haunts, demands, and curses, also clothes us:

And the Lord God made garments of skins for the man and for his wife, and clothed them.

Yes these are myths. They are the creations of our imaginations. But do we create them or do they create us? These stories are what it means to be human at least in part. In church, we still read them under the aura of holy writ. We expound upon them from pulpits. Our fundamentalist friends frame them with halos of inerrancy. We hip progressive types try to dismiss these silly tales with a nervous chuckle. Neither approach honors their terror and their claim upon us. If we wish to find out who we are and why we do the things we do, we might do well to enter these myths.

Before we enter them, we will need to notice the dogma of interpretation and commentary that like cherubim with flaming swords bar our entrance to these texts. We will have to push past those cherubim and demand access to that tree of life. These are ancient stories formed before theology and doctrine.

They are ambiguous stories. These stories have their own agendas. Those agendas are not those of synagogue or church. Neither Elohim nor Adonai fits into a neat system of philosophical thought, "the attributes of God" for instance. He and the creatures he made in his image are neither moral or immoral, good or evil; they simply are, as are we.

Once we pass the cherubim who try to scare us with their flaming swords of orthodoxy and who try to threaten us with charges of heresy and blasphemy if we don’t read the stories in the “right way” we will find ourselves in this garden of dreamlike myth. Once there we will have to wrestle with these images until dawn and not let go until they bless us.

Adonai took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and to keep it.

Indulge me.
Close your eyes.
You are the adam, the man.
It doesn’t matter if you are a man or not, be Adam for a moment.
Be in the garden.
It is your Eden. What is there?
Take a moment and describe it for yourself. Picture it.
What does it mean to till it?
There are no thorns or thistles. Those come later.
How large is the garden?
Can you reach its boundaries?
Explore it.
It is your garden, all yours.
Adonai made it for you, alone.
Alone.
Keep exploring.
How long have you been in this garden?
A month? A year?
A hundred years?
A thousand?
Alone in the garden.
Your own perfect Eden.
Have you explored it all yet? Have you tilled it all yet?
Are you lonely yet?

And Adonai commanded the man, “You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for the day that you eat of it you shall die.”

How do you feel about that?
Isn’t this your garden?
Isn’t Adonai your friend?
What is with the power trip?
Keep your eyes closed.
Picture the tree.
Knowledge. What is that?
Good and evil? ...Die. What is all that about?
What does the tree look like?
Is it large or small?
What does the fruit look like?
Are you curious?
Do you wonder about knowledge, good, evil, death?
No? How long then?
Will you wander around the garden and till it for another thousand years—
--all alone?
Do you ignore the tree?
Or do you visit it every day?
Are you bored yet?

Adonai decides you might like a companion. He creates animals. All of them. You name them. You roll around in the dirt with the dogs. It takes an edge off the monotony of living alone in your own private paradise. Keeps your attention distracted from that darn tree. You have fun with the zebras, cockatoos, and the possums. You race the turtles.

But the novelty wanes. Infinity is a long time.

Adonai puts you to sleep and when you awake there is another animal. This one is different than the others. She is so fine, she inspires a rhyme:

This at last is bone of my bones
And flesh of my flesh;
This shall be called Woman,
For out of Man this one was
Taken.

You tell her about the garden, and the tilling, and the animals, and Adonai.

And you show her the tree.

Now imagine you are the woman.
Do you get to speak to Adonai?
Or is he just Adam’s friend?
How do you feel about Adonai?
What kind of friend creates a tree and says the fruit is forbidden?
Imagine the animals.
What is your relationship with them, those who Adam named?
Picture the serpent.
What is the serpent like?
How do you feel when the serpent speaks to you?

But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not die; for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

Do you trust him?
Look at the fruit.
Why didn’t Adam take the fruit before now?

Should you just forget it and go and till the garden for another 1000 years and watch Adam talk with Adonai and play with the animals he named?

Hmmm. Serpent. Fruit. Know what God knows.
You are going to take the fruit, aren’t you?
How do you take it? Greedily, warily?
Do you eat it slowly or hungrily?
How does it taste?
Where is Adam?
Do you have to get him?
Do you bring him the fruit or bring him to the tree?
Or...was he standing by you all along?

Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made loincloths for themselves.

Now open your eyes.
You ate the fruit, you and Adam.
Bad thing to do? Good thing? Or beyond good and bad?
Do you feel guilty, liberated, or both?

It is your story. It is our story. The church has turned it into a story of original sin and it is still used today to instill guilt, fear, and distrust of women. The story itself is simply a story that invites us to reflect on our own lives and the choices we make and the risks we take or don’t take. We hear in this story the voices of authority who demand obedience but offer no reason, and the voices of resistance who promise great things but neglect the fine print of all the consequences. It is a story of coming of age, of growing up, of testing limits.

Limits will be tested again in the myths of Genesis and in our own lives. It is what humans do. We make choices. We take the consequences. No guilt. Just life.

Amen.

Such Is Life! (9/11/11)

Such Is Life!
John Shuck

First Presbyterian Church
Elizabethton, Tennessee

September 11, 2011

Wisdom from Ecclesiastes

Be happy, young man, while you are young,
and let your heart give you joy in the days of your youth.
Follow the impulses of your heart
and the desires of your eyes,
yet know that for everything you do
Nature will hold you accountable.
Therefore banish anxiety from your heart
and cast off the troubles of your body,
For youth and its early vigour are short-lived.
Therefore think of your grave in the days of your youth,
before the days of trouble come and those years arrive
when you say, “I no longer find any pleasure in life.”
Think of it before the sun grows dim,
and with it the daylight and the moon and the stars,
and the clouds return after the rain.
Think of it when the mind starts to wander
and even the strong back begins to stoop,
when the disappearing molars cease to chew
and cataracts dim the eyesight.
Think of it when the doors to the street are closed
and the noise of the grinding mill fades,
when the sound of birds grows faint
and all the daughters of song are humbled.
Think of it when the fear of heights increases
and terrors lurk in the streets,
when the almond tree blossoms
and the grasshopper drags itself along
and desire is no longer stirred.
For humankind goes to its eternal home
and mourners go about the streets.
Think of it before the cord of life is severed,
the golden bowl is crushed,
the jar is shattered at the spring,
and the wheel is broken at the well.
For then the dust returns to the ground it came from,
and the spirit returns to the God who gave it.
“Fast fleeting,” says the Proclaimer. “Impermanent!”
“Everything dissolves into nothingness.”

The Proclaimer was not only wise in himself,
but what is more important, he imparted his knowledge to the people.
He searched and weighed and set forth a host of parables.
The Proclaimer sought to find just the right words,
and honestly write down what he found to be true.
The words of the wise are like goads.
They are like nails driven firmly home,
by members of a fraternity
and now delivered by one caring guide.
Apart from these, my son, be warned
that there is no end to the making of books,
and much study simply tires us out.
That is the end of the matter, for now you have heard
everything.
Stand in awe of Nature and do what it requires of you,
for this is the whole duty of humankind.
For everything we do Nature will bring to judgment,
even everything hidden, whether it be good or evil.

Translation by Lloyd Geering, Such Is Life! A Close Encounter with Ecclesiastes (Santa Rosa: Polebridge, 2010), p. 171-192. Ecclesiastes 11:9-12:14.

We have spent the summer with Qoheleth, the Proclaimer, the goad, the devastatingly honest skeptic and critic. Today we allow him his last word and let him rest. Some may breathe a sigh of relief. A steady diet of existential angst is not warm and fuzzy.

I am going to miss him. This is the first time I have preached an entire series of sermons on Ecclesiastes. I am grateful to the guidance of Lloyd Geering, whose book, Such Is Life: A Close Encounter with Ecclesiastes has helped me to see more about this interesting figure of the Bible than I had seen previously.

Qoheleth is not warm and fuzzy. He is real, though. He is not one to settle for “Sunday School” answers to important questions. He is not the one who will acquiesce because some authority tells him what is supposedly true. He will examine the evidence for himself. He will come to his own conclusion even if that conclusion is not popular or warm and fuzzy.

Earlier this week I watched an interview with retired Bishop John Shelby Spong. Spong is a Qoheleth-type figure. He is not warm and fuzzy either. In addition to his delightfully sharp and liberating critique of Christianity, he talked a little bit about his life. He grew up in fundamentalism. He said,

“The reason fundamentalist churches grow is that they offer security. “You can’t think but they offer security….The churches that claim to have all the answers don’t allow any questions.”

He said that he had an unstable life growing up. He was only twelve when his father died. His father was an alcoholic. His mother was uneducated and raised him in the faith she knew. He said:

“My fundamentalist religion probably gave me the strength to endure that kind of childhood. But by the time I was fourteen, my fundamentalistic religion kept me from growing, either in terms of my understanding of God or my understanding of the world. So it began to shatter and fall apart. I didn’t go from fundamentalism into what I am now in one step. There were a number of intermediate steps. But I finally came to the conclusion that God is beyond my human capacity ever to know fully. I tell people that a horse could never explain what it means to be human. No matter what you did, no matter how a horse might be able to talk, a horse could never enter into the human experience and describe what it is like to be human. I wonder why human beings can describe what it is like to be God. And yet we have done that throughout history. We have said God is this and if you don’t agree with this I’ll burn you at the stake, I’ll go to war, I’ll persecute you. That’s nothing but human arrogance. God is a mystery into which we walk and the more deeply you walk the more that mystery just surrounds you. I consider myself today a God-intoxicated person, almost a mystic, but I have no idea of what human words I would use to try to articulate who God is or what God is. I can articulate what I believe my experience of God is.”

That was John Shelby Spong in an interview about his latest book, Jesus for the Non-Religious. What I think is important here is that he recognized that the fundamentalist faith of his childhood had a purpose. It gave him security and strength to endure a difficult childhood.    It isn’t that fundamentalism is bad. We have to be careful about judging because that security is often what people need to endure. But there comes a time that it no longer works. That happened for Bishop Spong, perhaps for many of you, and for me.

Security is a good image. Security can keep you safe, but it also keeps you confined.

Peter, Peter Pumpkin Eater,
Had a wife but couldn't keep her.
So he put her in a shell
And there he kept her very well.

I'd like to know his wife's opinion.

When you become strong enough that you no longer need the security, you will feel the urge to break away from the confines of a rigid faith. It is important to allow people to take their own spiritual path at their own speed. The other side of that is that in order to break out of the confines people may need the goad or the prod such as what Qoheleth offered.

It is near the end of Ecclesiastes that we realize what Qoheleth is doing.

The Proclaimer was not only wise in himself,
but what is more important, he imparted his knowledge to the people.
He searched and weighed and set forth a host of parables.
The Proclaimer sought to find just the right words,
and honestly write down what he found to be true.
The words of the wise are like goads.
They are like nails driven firmly home,
by members of a fraternity
and now delivered by one caring guide.

He is writing as an old man to a young man. He is offering his reflections. He is not sparing anything. He wants the young man to think. Qoheleth knows that there are plenty of places where the young man can go to get security and someone else’s answers. Those places are a dime a dozen. They exist today as they did in his time. In our language it sounds like this:

You are a miserable sinner. Here is how Jesus will fix you. Believe this and believe that and don’t doubt this and don’t doubt that.

Qoheleth knows that business. He heard all of it and found it wanting. Qoheleth, like Spong, does not tell his spiritual story to give the final answer. He tells his story so that the young man will take his own adventure and live his own life. What Qoheleth tells the young man in the last chapter is what he has been saying throughout. He is telling him the one truth that he knows:

everything comes to an end.

Nature bats last. She brings us all home, back to her womb. That is how she holds us accountable. Our life is impermanent.

Qoheleth is haunted by this. He keeps trying to beat it. Through wealth, power, wisdom, pleasure, religion, but none of it helps. All is impermanent. All is vapor. It is only when he comes to an acceptance of it, that he can say,

Stand in awe of Nature and do what it requires of you,
for this is the whole duty of humankind.

In other words, such is life.

This is what you have now. Take it. Give it. Live it.

The Buddhist teacher holds up a glass. He says isn’t this beautiful? Look how it reflects the light. It holds this pure water that quenches my thirst when I drink from it. I am happy with this glass. I know that one day this glass will shatter into a thousand pieces. I don’t know when. I don’t know how. I know that this glass will break. I cannot stop it. I imagine that this glass is broken. Because I know that one day it will not be I can enjoy it fully now.

You get the paradox? When we try to make something last forever, when we deny reality, we actually increase anxiety and suffering and cause harm to ourselves and others. When we know that life is impermanent, when we accept our limits, we can be more present to what is real. We don’t need to be anxious about what we will lose, because really it is already lost. In cosmic time, the glass is already broken. It is not ours to keep. It is ours to honor in its fragile, impermanent state.

Qoheleth rather than hold up a glass, holds up himself as an old man. He says to the young man:

Be happy, young man, while you are young,
and let your heart give you joy in the days of your youth.
Follow the impulses of your heart
and the desires of your eyes,
yet know that for everything you do
Nature will hold you accountable.
Therefore banish anxiety from your heart
and cast off the troubles of your body,
For youth and its early vigour are short-lived.

Be happy. Enjoy your youth. Don’t be anxious. Live life, knowing that Nature has the last word. Then he says:

Therefore think of your grave in the days of your youth,
before the days of trouble come and those years arrive
when you say, “I no longer find any pleasure in life.”

Why think of the grave? Isn’t that depressing? No. It is the opposite. What do we spend our time doing? Much of the time we spend it waiting to be happy. I am going to be happy when I finish school, I get a job, I get a better job, I get a lover , I get another lover, I have kids, I boot the kids out, I get a house, I get older, I retire, whatever.

The Buddhist and Qoheleth say,

“Why wait? Be happy now.”

None of it lasts. Neither do you. There is no need to put off joy. Whether it is joy or sorrow, it is now. Notice it. Such is life.

To drive the point home, Qoheleth gives a lengthy poetic description of aging.

Think of your grave, young man, before…

Your teeth rot out and
Your eyes grow dim and
Your mind wanders and
You can’t hear the birds and
Desire stops and
You get afraid of things
And you drag your old body around like a grasshopper

and on and on. In my first church, my elderly parishioners would tell me,

“Don’t get old.”

What do you say to that? I’ll try? I knew what they were saying. They were seeking some sympathy and offering advice,

“Don’t let life pass without noticing it.”

Good advice.

Qoheleth shows the young man what his future will be. Think of your end, now, recognize your impermanence so you don’t cause a lot of suffering trying to cling to what you need to let go.

This is not only a lesson for individuals but for society. This whole decade since 9/11 has seemed to be one of desperate clinging. Clinging to security, to fear, to fantasies of lost innocence. Eventually civilization will end. Economic growth will end. The age of the automobile will end. How much suffering will we cause before we recognize that? How much suffering will we inflict before we recognize our limits? Before we follow the advice of Qoheleth:

Stand in awe of Nature and do what it requires of you,
for this is the whole duty of humankind.

The last words from Qoheleth are these:

For everything we do Nature will bring to judgment,
even everything hidden, whether it be good or evil.

For me, that sentence means that what I do now matters. What do I now, not five years from now or ten years from now, but what I do now matters. What I do will either add to the collective good, the ball of merit, as Joanna Macy calls it, or it will add to suffering.

I don’t have forever, I have now. I have this amazing unasked for existence. Like Bishop Spong, I don’t need to cling to religious or theological baggage that no longer works. I don’t need to be anxious about my life as it will end anyway. There is only one rule I know of, that Brother Kurt Vonnegut reminded us,

"Be kind."

I will try.

I will also try to follow the advice of Phil Ochs. If any of you are around at my funeral, you can sing this song if you like. It is called, “When I’m Gone” and here are the lyrics:

There's no place in this world where I'll belong when I'm gone

And I won't know the right from the wrong when I'm gone

And you won't find me singin' on this song when I'm gone

So I guess I'll have to do it while I'm here

And I won't feel the flowing of the time when I'm gone

All the pleasures of love will not be mine when I'm gone

My pen won't pour out a lyric line when I'm gone

So I guess I'll have to do it while I'm here

And I won't breathe the bracing air when I'm gone

And I can't even worry 'bout my cares when I'm gone

Won't be asked to do my share when I'm gone

So I guess I'll have to do it while I'm here

And I won't be running from the rain when I'm gone

And I can't even suffer from the pain when I'm gone

Can't say who's to praise and who's to blame when I'm gone

So I guess I'll have to do it while I'm here

Won't see the golden of the sun when I'm gone

And the evenings and the mornings will be one when I'm gone

Can't be singing louder than the guns when I'm gone

So I guess I'll have to do it while I'm here

All my days won't be dances of delight when I'm gone

And the sands will be shifting from my sight when I'm gone

Can't add my name into the fight while I'm gone

So I guess I'll have to do it while I'm here

And I won't be laughing at the lies when I'm gone

And I can't question how or when or why when I'm gone

Can't live proud enough to die when I'm gone

So I guess I'll have to do it while I'm here

Such is life.

Amen.

Wisdom Is Better Than Strength (9/4/11)

Wisdom Is Better Than Strength
John Shuck

First Presbyterian Church
Elizabethton, Tennessee

September 4, 2011


"Tiger got to hunt, bird got to fly;
Man got to sit and wonder, 'Why, why, why?'

Tiger got to sleep, bird got to land;
Man got to tell himself he understand."

Kurt Vonnegut, Cat's Cradle


Who can be compared with the wise man?
Who else knows the meaning of things?
A person’s wisdom lights up his face
and the grimness of his appearance is transformed.

When I gave my full attention to the study of wisdom,
taking note of all the happenings that occur on earth,
I saw that though a man sleep neither day nor night
in his search to understand all the “works of God,”
he cannot find out what it is that God has done on the earth.
However diligently a man may seek, he will not find out.
Not even the sage who claims to know can find it out.

So to all of this I directed my full attention
seeking an explanation for it all.
People say that the righteous, the wise,
and all their deeds are in God’s hands;
but whether things stem from love or hatred,
not a single person will ever know.
Everything they encounter is meaningless
because one Fate comes to everybody—
to the righteous and to the wicked,
to the good, the pure and the unclean,
to those who worship and to those who do not.
as it is with the good man, so it is with the evil-doer,
as with him who swears an oath, so with the one afraid to swear.
This is what is wrong with everything that happens in the world.
The same fate comes to all.

But I also saw something else in this world—
an example of wisdom that greatly impressed me.
Once a small city, with only a few people in it, was attacked
by a powerful king who surrounded it and built huge
siegeworks against it. Now it happened that in that city lived
a poor but wise man, and he could have saved the city by his
wisdom. Yet nobody remembered that poor man!
Still, I say, “Wisdom is better than strength”
even though the poor man’s wisdom was despised
and his words went unheeded.
The quiet words of the wise are more to be heeded
than the ranting of a master of fools.
Wisdom is better than weapons of war.

So go and eat your food with gladness,
And drink your wine with a joyful heart,
For Nature has already given approval for you to do this.

Translation by Lloyd Geering, Such Is Life! A Close Encounter with Ecclesiastes (Santa Rosa: Polebridge, 2010), p. 171-192. Ecclesiastes 8:1; 8:16-9:3a; 9:13-18; 9:7.

What is wisdom?
Where is it to be found?
Is it worth the effort of the search?

We have been working our way through the book of Ecclesiastes this summer. Our guide has been Presbyterian minister and scholar, Lloyd Geering, who has provided for us a fresh translation of the text and a book in the form of a dialogue with the author of Ecclesiastes, Qoheleth. The book is available in our library and is called Such is Life: A Close Encounter with Ecclesiastes.

So far in this sermon series we have taken on some of the big questions:

Who is Qoheleth?
What does Qoheleth mean when he speaks of God?
Is God another word for Nature?
Is life fair?
Is death the end of us?
Is life the result of chance or purpose?

Underneath all of these questions is the one that is most urgent: “How then shall we live?”

Qoheleth himself according to the text sought for meaning by looking outward.

So I devoted myself to research,
To the rational understanding of everything
That happens on the face of the earth.
Ah, what an evil burden Nature has given
To the human race to busy itself with!

I studied all human activities,
Everything that happens to people on the face of the earth,
And what have I found?
They are all as futile as chasing after the wind…”

He devoted himself to the search for wisdom and concluded

With the increase of wisdom comes the increase of grief;
For the more we know, the greater our sorrow.

So far, not so good. Then he decided to live for pleasure. But again, he writes:

What did I find? It too is short-lived.

Then he thought he would go for the wine, but decided that wasn’t such a good plan:

My mind was still guiding me into wisdom,
And not yet captivating me with foolishness.

He then decided to strut his stuff and become successful and powerful.

I did things on a grand scale.
I built myself mansions and I planted myself vineyards.
I laid out for myself gardens and parks
And planted in them every kind of fruit tree….

….And so I grew great, surpassing all who had lived before me in
Jerusalem….

….and yet, (since my wisdom remained with me_
When I surveyed all that my hands had done,
All that I had struggled to achieve,
Everything was as futile as chasing after the wind.
I had made no gain at all in this world.

Then he turns back to wisdom and was disappointed…

Since the fate of the fool will be my fate also,
Then for what purpose have I become extremely wise?
Thus I concluded that even the pursuit of wisdom is futile.
For in the long run the wise man
Is no more remembered than the fool,
Since everything will be forgotten as the future stretches on ahead.

After all of this he gets depressed.

So I came to hate life…
I turned about and fell into despair
At the thought of all my futile labor in this world.

I like Ecclesiastes.
He is so delightfully depressing.
He is refreshingly honest.

He isn’t depressed because he hasn’t done anything. He has lived a whole life. If there is any reality to his autobiographical sketch, he has done it all. He has lived a life anyone might envy. This is what he is bummed about:

So I turned about and fell into despair
At the thought of all my futile labor in this world,
For it can happen that a man works hard,
Displaying wisdom, knowledge, and skill,
And yet have to leave his resulting assets
To a man who has not labored for them at all.
This is not only meaningless, but utterly wrong.

He is bummed because it doesn’t last. You can’t take it with you. Not only that, but you won’t ultimately be remembered. It all becomes vapor. What Qoheleth finds absurd and wrong is impermanence.

Qoheleth searched outward for meaning. If he could have followed the path of the Buddha, who also searched for wisdom and meaning three centuries earlier, Qoheleth might have found meaning and wisdom by searching within.

The Buddha started with the absurdity of impermanence. His realization was that impermanence went all the way down even to the self. His release, his liberation came from developing the skill to quench the desire for permanence, even the permanence of self which he realized is illusory.

In a sense, even as Qoheleth’s search is outward and he finds that it all lacks meaning and purpose, he does decide to follow a similar ethic that the Buddha advocated. It comes, it seems as kind of a surprise.

We read along and Qoheleth gets more and more depressing. He writes about the poor schmuck who works and works:

For all their days bring pain and grief;
Even at night their minds get no rest. This too is futile.

Then he finally has a moment. Finally, he appears to find something of value. He writes:

The best that any of us can do
Is to eat and drink and enjoy ourselves in our work.
This too, I realized, is from the hand of Nature;
For if it were not for her, who could eat or who could have any enjoyment?

I think it would be wrong here to confuse this as a quest for pleasure. We are familiar with the phrase, “Eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we may die.” He already did that, and he found that futile. This is something deeper. This is a realization of what is real. It is being present to the present.

We spend much of our time, and I know this from personal experience, living in the un-real. That is we spend our time worrying and feeling guilt, shame, or nostalgia for the past. The past is gone. No amount of shame or guilt or beating up on ourselves will change it. And we spend a corresponding amount of time anxious about what will come. We worry over what will or could happen. We rehearse scenes of imagined encounters. None of it is real.

What Qoheleth found is that life is lived when our minds are somewhere else. Qoheleth comes back to this refrain several times. Bring your awareness to what you are doing. Bring your mind to your life. Eating, drinking, being with those with whom you are eating and drinking and being present to the work you are doing is the path of wisdom.

What is wisdom?

For Qoheleth it includes knowledge. He speaks about how he devoted himself to learning everything he could about the world but couldn’t. He couldn’t learn it all.

I saw that though a man sleep neither day nor night
in his search to understand all the “works of God,”
he cannot find out what it is that God has done on the earth.

It doesn’t seem to matter how much he knows, because he cannot know it all and his fate is the same as the fool who knows nothing. He isn’t saying the pursuit of knowledge is bad or worthless, it just doesn’t give him permanence.

He also recognizes that knowledge and wisdom are not quite the same thing. Knowledge is power. We can know many things and not be wise. The rich and powerful have a great deal of knowledge but not always wisdom. He illustrates this with a parable.

But I also saw something else in this world—
an example of wisdom that greatly impressed me.
Once a small city, with only a few people in it, was attacked
by a powerful king who surrounded it and built huge
siegeworks against it. Now it happened that in that city lived
a poor but wise man, and he could have saved the city by his
wisdom. Yet nobody remembered that poor man!
Still, I say, “Wisdom is better than strength”
even though the poor man’s wisdom was despised
and his words went unheeded.
The quiet words of the wise are more to be heeded
than the ranting of a master of fools.
Wisdom is better than weapons of war.

Typical of Ecclesiastes, his parable is a negative one. The people did not listen to the wise but poor man. So they lost their city. So my push back on Qoheleth is how do you justify your statement that “wisdom is better than strength?”

• Does the poor but wise man always lose?
• Is wisdom always unheeded in the face of strength, weapons, and power?
• If wisdom always loses to strength than why is wisdom better than strength?
• Why should we heed the quiet words of the wise more than the ranting of a master of fools if people always listen to the fool?
• Why is wisdom better than weapons of war if no one listens?

I think the hope that Qoheleth holds is that despite evidence to the contrary, it is possible that wisdom will be heeded. People might not always listen to the master of fools. People might not always choose weapons of war over wisdom. People might realize now and then that wisdom is better than strength.

We all know that it is ultimately unwise to destroy the mountains, streams, and forests of Appalachia to get to the coal underneath. In the long run at least it must be obvious to everyone that it is not wise to destroy something more permanent to get something less permanent.

To maintain an unsustainable lifestyle for the short term, we will destroy our habitat for the long term. In this case wisdom is up against the strong and the powerful.

There is no question in my mind that the poor, wise ones who fight for our mountains will be shown to have been right. Hopefully, not everything will be destroyed before all of us realize that.

One thing that I admire about this congregation is that it is filled with people who fight for the underdog. That can be discouraging work. But it is good work. It is wise work. It is work that is worth it. It is work that we are given to enjoy.

If it is true that somewhere along the line your search for wisdom led you to be an advocate for the underdog, for wisdom over strength, then perhaps someone else is on that same quest and you will be a teacher.

Qoheleth doesn’t spell it out. Maybe he didn’t have the words or the concept. I believe there is such a thing as a ball of merit that lasts beyond our individual lives. There is something about goodness and wisdom that transcends those who are good or wise. In other words the good and wise things that are done are not ultimately lost, but take other forms beyond anything we can predict.

Another image for this wisdom is a flame, that despite rain and wind and all the things that threaten it, still it shines. In the Gospel of John this wisdom is a light that shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. It is the same light that Jesus saw all around him in the poor and wise ones he called disciples.

He told them:

You are the light of the world.
Let your light shine.

Let us in turn remind each other:

You are the light of the world.
Let your light shine.