Ecclesiastes 5:10-6:9
Lent 3
March 3, 2024
William G. Carter
The
lover of money will not be satisfied with money; nor the lover of wealth, with
gain. This also is vanity. When goods increase, those who eat them
increase; and what gain has their owner but to see them with his
eyes? Sweet is the sleep of laborers, whether they eat little or much; but
the surfeit of the rich will not let them sleep. There is a grievous ill
that I have seen under the sun: riches were kept by their owners to their
hurt, and those riches were lost in a bad venture; though they are parents
of children, they have nothing in their hands. As they came from their
mother’s womb, so they shall go again, naked as they came; they shall take
nothing for their toil, which they may carry away with their hands. This
also is a grievous ill: just as they came, so shall they go; and what gain do
they have from toiling for the wind? Besides, all their days they eat in
darkness, in much vexation and sickness and resentment.
This
is what I have seen to be good: it is fitting to eat and drink and find
enjoyment in all the toil with which one toils under the sun the few days of
the life God gives us; for this is our lot. Likewise all to whom God gives
wealth and possessions and whom he enables to enjoy them, and to accept their
lot and find enjoyment in their toil—this is the gift of God. For they
will scarcely brood over the days of their lives, because God keeps them
occupied with the joy of their hearts.
There
is an evil that I have seen under the sun, and it lies heavy upon
humankind: those to whom God gives wealth, possessions, and honor, so that
they lack nothing of all that they desire, yet God does not enable them to
enjoy these things, but a stranger enjoys them. This is vanity; it is a
grievous ill. A man may beget a hundred children, and live many years; but
however many are the days of his years, if he does not enjoy life’s good
things, or has no burial, I say that a stillborn child is better off than
he. For it comes into vanity and goes into darkness, and in darkness its
name is covered; moreover it has not seen the sun or known anything; yet
it finds rest rather than he. Even though he should live a thousand years
twice over, yet enjoy no good—do not all go to one place?
All
human toil is for the mouth, yet the appetite is not satisfied. For what
advantage have the wise over fools? And what do the poor have who know how to
conduct themselves before the living? Better is the sight of the eyes than
the wandering of desire; this also is vanity and a chasing after wind.
There was good news on the economy this week. Fidelity Investments reports the number of 401(k) millionaires has skyrocketed. Between December 2022 and December 2023, the number of retirement savers who have seven figure balances has increased by thirty percent.[1] They might grumble about the current price of a dozen eggs, but they have enough in the bank to be quite comfortable.
Do you know why I
bring this up? If we’re going to spend time with Ecclesiastes, we’re going to
have to talk about money.
This often catches
people by surprise. Maybe you thought we were digging into a neglected book of
ancient Jewish philosophy. After all, we skipped over the famous poem of
chapter three, “For everything there is a season, turn, turn, turn.” Perhaps
you had hoped to sing along. Yet here is one more passage where the Preacher of
Ecclesiastes questions all our assumptions about the Good Life. In a suburban
town like this, that can be as subversive as hauling around dynamite in the
back of your Honda CRV.
In the text we hear today, the Preacher of Ecclesiastes raises questions about money and the possessions we purchase with it. From an ancient vantage point, he observes, “People who love money are never satisfied with it” (5:10). After all, there are two kinds of people who love money, who want more of it: those who don’t have it and those who do.
Then he singles out those who have it, saying, “Look at those to whom God gives wealth, possessions, and honor! They lack nothing. They have everything they desire, yet God does not enable them to enjoy these things” (6:2).
Here is a Preacher who pays attention to us. He opens our closets and looking at the perfectly good clothes we no longer wear. When we are not looking, he sneaks out to the garage and looks at all the things we have stashed there, most of which we have forgotten that we own. He even follow us to the online marketplace, looking over our shoulders at all the treasures we once convinced ourselves to purchase and now want to unload.
Suddenly he comes up the basement stairs without warning, cobwebs still in his hair, and asks, “Do you enjoy what you have?” Well, no, I don’t have time to enjoy it all. He smiles and says, “You’ve got that right. You’re running out of time.” It’s annoying.
Visitors stop by my study across the hall, take a seat, and we chat. Often one pauses, looks around the shelves, and says, “You have a lot of books in here.” What I usually don’t tell them is that I have just as many books at home. They may ask, “Have you read all of these books.” Well, I suppose I’ll get to that someday. But don’t they look impressive. One cynical codger once cut to the chase, “Why do you have all these books if you aren’t going to read them?” I think his name was Ecclesiastes.
And then the Preacher goes on to talk about money. It’s March, so he’s not trying to raise funding for the annual budget. And he’s not offering advice on how to run a household. No, he’s talking about money. For us, it’s paper, it’s metal disks, it’s a sequence of electronic numbers. Money is completely neutral. It has no value until we assign it a value.
Like that Confederate ten dollar bill that you bought in the back of a comic book. It’s not worth anything now. Or those coins and bills that you brought back from a distant country. This week, the lady in the McDonald’s drivethrough gave me back a penny at the window. “Can’t take this,” she said. “It’s Canadian.” But it’s a penny. She waited me out until I could find a real penny.
The Preacher of Ecclesiastes is watching all of this. He knows what money and possessions can ignite in our spirit. He also knows how materialism erodes our humanity.
Some say this is an historical note. In his commentary on Ecclesiastes, Dr. Leong Seow of Vanderbilt suggests that Ecclesiastes was written in the fifth century B.C. At that time Jerusalem was bustling with commerce. Many of its citizens had begun to model their lives after the affluent people in the Persian Empire.
Dr. Seow finds evidence this was the first time Israel minted a consistent currency. The first time the country dealt with cash in any systematic manner Before that, goods and services were handled through homemade coins or the barter system. But now, there were national coins. People began to put value on little round pieces of metal. The well-to-do began to stockpile their money. Many aspired to have more money than their neighbors. Some even broke the Sabbath to keep working. Gotta keep up with Persians, you know.
In the thick of that economic environment, the Preacher begs the question, “Are you content with what you have?” Ouch – he’s meddling! Then he goes for the jugular. “When you’re gone, what is going to happen to all your stuff?”
Those are the issues, aren’t they? There’s a recent piece that I clipped from The New Yorker that hit me between the eyes. I’ll give you a copy if you ask. It’s titled, “How to Give Away Almost Everything.” It begins by quoting Randy Sabin of Connecticut, who runs estate and Internet sales. He says, “People are stuck in their houses and sick of their stuff. It’s staring them in the face. They have to dust it.” More possessions than they need.
The author says,
What to do with this First World surplus? Your children don’t want it.
The son of a friend, when offered his pick of items from his grandfather’s
estate - antique clock? an Emmy? - took a toilet plunger. In my apartment, it’s
got so cluttered that sometimes, when I leave—usually to acquire more stuff—it
crosses my mind that I should leave a “Dear Burglar” note, urging the intruder
to help herself.[2]
The Preacher reminds us, "We came into the world naked as a jay bird; we leave the world in the same way. Between cradle and grave, we scramble to make as much money as we can, even though we are too busy scrambling to enjoy what we have” (5:15).
The Preacher surveys all of this and then uses a favorite phrase to describe our material pursuits. It is the “vanity of vanities,” or literally, “the vapor of vapors.” That is, chasing after money is like chasing after a puff of smoke. Yet we keep chasing after it. Why? What vacuum are we trying to fill?
If you ask this question and we are ready to hear the gospel. The Preacher of Ecclesiastes is able to diagnose our dis-ease. We have been infected by "affluenza." Affluenza is the flu that people catch when they try to fill the hole in their souls by going shopping. "Vanity of vanities," says the Preacher of Ecclesiastes. Stockpiling your belongings is like chasing after the wind. It is absurd.
How did he know?
· How did he know that you can go into a store, pile up the shopping cart, and as you roll through the checkout line you notice a third of your purchases were bought on impulse? By the time you get home, you don’t even want some of it anymore.
· How did he know that the couple that I married off last year would separate because of a power struggle over the checking account?
· How did he know that children can be deeply damaged when their parents try to fill all their own needs by buying thingsflipping through catalogs?
The Preacher asks, “Are you content with what you have?” That question will not go away until we come to the same conclusion as Ecclesiastes, namely, “There is nothing greater than to enjoy what we have, and be satisfied with what we receive." (5:18) At the heart of the issue are two essential truths: life is short and everything we have comes from the grace of God.
This is his recurring insight. And it’s a pretty good exploration in the season of Lent. In the shadow of the cross of Jesus, we are confronted with the limits of our own mortality. We are also confronted by all those human attempts to ignore it. Some of them are pretty ridiculous.
Hear a parable. Some time back, the local funeral director called. “I need somebody to conduct a service,” he said. A prominent businessman had died suddenly. He did not have a church home, but everybody in town knew him. His whole life had been dedicated to the pursuit of wealth. There would be a memorial service in the funeral home. The deceased would be decked out in an open casket. Then a procession would take him to the cemetary.
I checked the calendar. My calendar was full. So, I pondered who I could recommend as a substitute. Yes: how about the author of Ecclesiastes? His name is “The Preacher,” one preacher is as good as another. I looked up the contact information for the Preacher and passed it along. The funeral director got in touch. The Preacher agreed to do the service.
They gathered for prayer. The Preacher spoke briefly; he didn’t know the man. Friends and family filled in the gaps. Many offered their memories of the deceased. As the service concluded, everybody passed by the open casket to pay their last respects. The Preacher stood off to the side as many friends placed gifts inside the casket. Someone put in a baseball glove and a Yankees cap. Another, a couple of roses. A few dropped in personal notes and letters. There was a bottle of expensive single malt, and a favorite nine iron.
The last person to approach the casket was the businessman’s accountant. She gently pulled back the blanket, placed the business man’s checkbook in his stone-cold hands. Then she pulled up the blanket as if she was tucking him in.
According to
eyewitnesses, the Preacher laughed the whole way to the cemetery.
(c) William G. Carter. All rights reserved.
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