Ecclesiastes week 4: Making the Most of the Situation

Ecclesiastes 3:16-4:6

If we are thoughtful and observant about the world, it is impossible to miss that things are not as they should be. Or at least not as they should be if there is a good and just God who has created the world. If there is no such God, then who knows what the world “should” be. Many people use the state of the world as evidence to say that there is no God. But if we believe in God, if we believe he is good and just and powerful, then the state of the world leaves us wondering why things are the way they are.

There’s a lot of focus now on “systemic problems.” Obviously, individuals have problems, too. But often individual problems can be explained away as poor choices or tragic circumstances. Systemic problems are harder to address because the system persists, often no matter what we do about it.

Generational poverty is a systemic problem. We have people in our society, which is very wealthy, who are born into poverty that has persisted for generations. And some people say, “Get a good education, work hard, and you’ll get out of this.” But if you’re born into poverty, and it’s all you’ve ever known, and it’s all your family has known for generations, it’s just not that easy.

Corruption is a systemic problem. We are fortunate to live in a society that has a relatively low level of corruption. In many places around the world, nepotism, bribery, kick-backs, and such are the norm. In many places, you can’t get anywhere with institutions without paying bribes. In many places you can’t trust that the police are on the side of law and order because they are on the side of the rich and powerful. Fighting against this kind of institutional corruption is not easy. The system resists.

Systemic racism is a problem all around the world. Various groups of people are disadvantaged in every society because of how they look, their ancestry, their language, their culture, and so on. Some people deny it’s a problem here in our society. On the other hand, some people act as if racism is a distinctly “American sin.” It’s not. It happens everywhere to one degree or another. Denying its existence doesn’t make it go away.

In these and other ways, the world is not as it should be. As Christians, we understand these things to be a result of the “fall from grace” described in the Book of Genesis. The goodness of God’s creation is now corrupted by the presence of sin. And the fall is pervasive. Nothing is as it should be in our world. Every aspect of life is affected by the fall from grace.

How does QOHELETH, the Teacher, the author of Ecclesiastes, approach this subject? Here in the second half of chapter three, he turns to more practical matters like the state of the world and how we live in a fallen world.

“Where there should be justice, there is injustice.” This is almost certainly a reference to the courts, the place where there should be justice. Wisdom literature in the ancient Near East world frequently lamented the corruption of the courts.

Well, if QOHELETH is Solomon, the king, then shouldn’t he be able to fix the corrupt courts? Yes. And no. Yes, he has the power, in theory. But practically speaking, no. Every nation has corruption at some level. Rooting it all out is impossible because human nature is corrupt. You can only replace corrupt people with other people who are prone to corruption. When the system is corrupt, there will always be a tendency toward people becoming corrupt.

My father-in-law, a now mostly retired pastor, used to have a member in one of his churches who ran for the state house and won. He served several years in the legislature but decided not to run for re-election. When asked why, he answered, “I knew if I stayed there, I was going to violate my faith. The temptations to misuse power were everywhere. Corruption was everywhere. I was more worried about my salvation than my re-election.” I suspect that situation exists everywhere in government.

He goes on, “Where there should be righteousness, there is wickedness.” This is almost certainly a reference to the religious leadership of the nation, “where there should be righteousness.” Those who should be models of virtue turned out to be the worst sinners. Not that that ever happens, right? We’ve certainly never had any religious leaders in our society turn out to be corrupt and wicked….

But this world is not the end of the story. “God will judge.” This world is not as it should be, but we know that this world is not the end of the story.

Now QOHELETH doesn’t say it, but our baptismal vows do. We are to “resist evil, injustice, and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves.” Our world is fallen from grace, but that doesn’t mean that we should shrug our shoulders about it. The pervasiveness of corruption is no excuse for apathy about it.

Next he addresses the brevity of life, which is also a consequence of sin. “We have a limited life span… so we are no better off than the animals.” That’s pretty harsh, but from the perspective of the fragility of life, he’s not wrong. As the old hymn goes, “Frail children of dust, and feeble as frail.”

QOHELETH seems uncertain, to at least some degree, about the eternal nature of the human soul. But we are not. We have more of God’s revelation available to us. But he does find a positive note in mortality: The fact that our lives are brief means we should enjoy the time we have in this life as a gift from God. The brevity of life should make us appreciate and value it more. “Make the most of life” seems to be a good summary of his message. That’s often said, but do we really do it? Do we really make the most of the time we have? It seems often we do not. We work too much, enjoy too little, and don’t make time for the things that really matter, like friendship, family, and simply slowing down to enjoy things.

From here, he returns to the subject of oppression as it relates to greed. Many use power to amass wealth. QOHELETH gets a little bit pessimistic: It would be better to be dead. Or better yet; never to be born. Eesh.

We can’t read every word he says as the final authority on a matter. QOHELETH himself comes around to far more optimistic conclusions, and later in the book he says, “Better to be a live dog than a dead lion.” Which one of us is not prone to slipping into moments of despair when we think about the evils and injustices of the world?

He goes on to point out the foolishness of using power to oppress others and gain wealth: You’re still going to die and you can’t take it with you. You’ll face God, too.

But the discussion leads him into thoughts about work. Why do we work? Is it envy? Are we just trying to keep up with the Joneses? There are two dangers of work. One is workaholism, which he calls chasing after the wind. The other is idleness, which he calls “devouring yourself.”

We were created for work. There was work in the Garden of Eden before sin. The difference now is that work becomes difficult and frustrating. The ground produces thorns, not tasty vittles. But work is good for us. It allows us to contribute to the world. And it brings us a sense of satisfaction. But only if it’s not misused. The key is to find the middle ground between workaholism and idleness, and that middle ground is contentment. “Better one handful with tranquility than two handfuls with toiling and chasing the wind.” Contentment is an easy thing to say but a hard thing to live. One look around at the world should tell us that.

I think the summary of what QOHELETH has to say here is that the world is not as it should be. But that doesn’t mean that we can’t make the most of the situation. There is injustice, but we can resist it in this life and know that God is not finished yet. Life is short, but that can motivate us to use it wisely. And while work and money can be misused, if we are wise, we can learn to live a life of contentment.