Wisdom From Ecclesiastes: All Is Vain I. Base Text: Ecclesiastes 1:2-11 II. Context A. Ecclesiastes 1:1: the words of the Preacher, son of David, king in Jerusalem 1. The same, we are told, wrote many proverbs (Ecclesiastes 12:9) 2. Thus Ecclesiastes is a "sermon" of sorts by the Preacher, directly associated with King Solomon (1 Kings 4:32, Proverbs 1:1) B. Solomon known for his great wisdom and prosperity, can thus speak the message of Ecclesiastes with the authority of experience (1 Kings 3:1-10:29; Ecclesiastes 1:16, 2:1-10) C. Thus Solomon speaks as the Preacher ca. 950-910 BCE III. Meaning A. All is Vanity (Ecclesiastes 1:2) 1. Solomon begins his sermon the way he ends it, framing the entire discussion: vanity of vanity / all is vanity (cf. Ecclesiastes 12:8)! 2. "Vanity" translates a challenging Hebrew word: hevel a. Literal meaning: vapor, breath b. Thus, all things are as a vapor or breath: fleeting, vain, for they do not last c. An existential view would suggest "absurdity"; a bit anachronistic but not terribly wide of the mark of the Preacher's perspective 3. "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity!" is really the thesis statement for the whole sermon (and thus book of Ecclesiastes), and must inform how we look at what the Preacher is saying a. A lot of people do not know exactly what to do with Ecclesiastes b. Pious people understandably want to emphasize those places where God's hand can be seen in the book and try to redeem the Preacher's lesson, seen even in its conclusion (Ecclesiastes 12:13-14) c. Others see the bleak portrayal of life and walk away convinced that the Preacher is a Cynic, a forerunner of existentialism, and have a hard time seeing God in any of it d. Yet we must accept Ecclesiastes for what it is in the particular context in which it is declared: Solomon describes the way life works "under the sun," that is, on this planet, in light of the impermanence of life, the certainty of death, and the transience of all material things people hold dear e. Ecclesiastes is disorienting because the Preacher is stripping away the pretenses, veneers, and vain imaginings we maintain about ourselves, our efforts, our material wealth, and their ultimate value in and of themselves 4. Life, work, laziness, oppression, oppressor, wealth, poverty, fortune, etc.: it is all vain, a vapor, a breath; it is all absurd! B. The Value of Labor (Ecclesiastes 1:3) 1. After declaring all things as vain the Preacher asks the rhetorical question which provides the secondary concern: what profit or benefit does a man have in all of his labor? 2. He is aware that labor was the reason God made man in the Garden (Genesis 2:15), that work is good and provides benefit (Proverbs 10:16, 13:11, 14:23) 3. But of what ultimate benefit is it? Such will be one of the major themes the Preacher will explore: why is it that we work so hard and accumulate wealth anyway, and what will it all mean in the end? C. The Cycle of Life (Ecclesiastes 1:4-11) 1. The Preacher's first way to address the reality of vanity and question about profit is by setting forth the cyclical nature of all life 2. Generations come and go but the earth remains (Ecclesiastes 1:4) 3. Cycles can be seen in natural forces: the sun, the winds, rain, rivers, and ocean (Ecclesiastes 1:5-7) 4. The Preacher returns for a moment to the question of labor: all things are full of labor; man cannot speak of it; his eye and ear are not satisfied, and that is part of the problem (Ecclesiastes 1:8) 5. The Preacher makes his point about cycles: there is nothing new under the sun, for all that has been will be, and all that will be has already been (Ecclesiastes 1:9-10) 6. In the end comes the Preacher's true but ultimately terrifying point: each generation comes and goes, and each generation in turn is forgotten (Ecclesiastes 1:11) D. Making Sense of Ecclesiastes 1:2-11 1. The Preacher will continue down the themes of vanity and the profit of labor but makes enough of his point to provide clarity in Ecclesiastes 1:2-11 2. In order to make life livable people invest their existence with meaning 3. That meaning, as illustrated in the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11:1-9, tends to involve building some monument to their own greatness and so that they might be remembered 4. All labor expended is done in order to accumulate wealth and to make a name for oneself 5. Yet the Preacher has observed the reality which strips the pretense and the veneer of this type of meaning: in general, it does not happen! 6. Everyone dies; previous generations have died; the next generation rises up and dies as well 7. Some people are commemorated in history books, but for how long? People build memorials, but how long do they last? All eventually decay! 8. All that work you put into your life, your career, your investments, your family, etc., will fade and perish: children grow up and die, careers end and people have no reason to remember accomplishments, money changes hands and is spent, and odds are you'll be left as a line item far back in the family tree of your descendants... 9. ...a fate for the privileged few, since for most people they are too poor and otherwise not notable to even be that well remembered 10. Such is why all is vanity: "under the sun" all we work for will vanish like a mist! E. We may not like to admit it, but indeed, all is vanity! IV. Application A. The Preacher's words in Ecclesiastes 1:2-11 continue to provoke and challenge to this very day B. Life as Vanity 1. Humans are "meaningful" creatures; our lives must have meaning to make them worth living 2. It is reported that during the Holocaust the Nazis directed a group of Jewish people to dig ditches only to fill them in again and similar sorts of work that clearly had no purpose or meaning; many of those who worked in such areas committed suicide or gave up the will to live because they could find no meaning in what they were doing! 3. Such is why people and cultures have sought to invest meaning in their existence and efforts so as to inspire and motivate people to accomplish the goal 4. Nations, corporations, families, even religions appeal to some sense of meaning to justify why people should expend energy or even their lives for their betterment 5. Yet, as the Preacher points out, it will all be in vain! 6. Personal satisfaction is what we can get from what we do, but, as the Preacher says, we want more 7. We want notoriety, a sense of permanence, to hold onto the idea that something we do will be immortal, lasting long after we do 8. Yet "under the sun" such is not the case: all work will be forgotten, all monuments will decay or be toppled, nations will rise and fall, descendants will at some point forget you, and we all will be essentially forgotten on this planet within a few generations 9. Our "Towers of Babel" will always fall! C. Cyclical Existence 1. One of the great conceits of the modern era is its emphasis on "progress" and "development" a. We are quite conceited as a generation; this is facilitated by the fact that those who came before us are all dead (Ecclesiastes 1:11) b. We "know better" than past generations; they could not help it, because they did not have the science or technology or resources, or they were merely backward people; now we do know better and can smugly judge everything that came before us as primitive c. Evolution is no longer just a scientific theory but a social one: we're developing, getting smarter, better, more advanced d. In our conceit we all enjoy this view of ourselves, but is it really accurate? Do we really have a better handle on things than those who came before us? 2. In order to perpetuate this narrative a lot of uncomfortable realities and detail must be neglected a. We no doubt have better technology than those in the past, yet we seem to ask the same questions and are stymied by the same problems b. Why am I here? What is this life for? c. How should I live? d. In most things we are encouraged in our society to turn to science for answers, but science has no answers for these questions, and we find their philosophy, warmed over Epicureanism, to be quite thin 3. There is wisdom in the Preacher's view of things! 4. Everything around us speaks much less of "progression" or "evolution" and much more of "cycles" 5. Many have pointed out what seem to be cyclical historical events 6. This all leads to a sharp rebuke of modern culture: there is nothing new under the sun; all that is has been, all that has been will be (Ecclesiastes 1:9-10) a. The original protest is easy: but we have smartphones and cars and airplanes and all sorts of technological advancements that did not exist in past times! b. It is true that these things are "new", but the Preacher is not interested in these c. We may have smartphones, but the challenges we have in communicating with our fellow human being are just as acute as they were in ancient times; we might use cars and airplanes but have accidents, safety concerns, and boredom in travel just as those who walked or had chariots! d. If anything, technological advancements merely amplify the challenges; after all, what were the first things the Internet ended up being used for? Pornography, then gambling, then all sorts of commerce! 7. If you had told the Preacher about the types of things we would invent, or the ways of the world we figured out, he would have likely predicted all these problems and more! 8. There is a reason why it is said that the more things change the more things stay the same: humans remain humans 9. Over the past 2500 years we have just been rehashing the questions and problems of existence a. For all its technological grandeur, as we have said, science and the secular perspective is rooted in a not very reflective Epicurean philosophy b. The Greeks recognized Epicureanism as a way to see the world but were not nearly so delusional as to imagine it was the only one; Platonism, Aristotelianism, Stoicism, Cynicism, and other schools of thought existed c. Do you think there is some new philosophical idea or model of reality? Check back with Greek philosophers; odds are someone at some point already speculated about the possibility 10. Yet every so often someone thinks they've figured out some new thing; it's really just an old thing warmed over a. This proves persistently true in religious history b. Calvinism? Really Augustinianism. c. Christian Science? Neo-Gnosticism. d. Jehovah's Witnesses? Anticipated by Arius among others. e. New trends? They probably existed at some point in the past as well 11. Everything is turning out just like fashion trends: what was in vogue 20 years ago is back in again! 12. Therefore we have no right to pretension and conceit: we are not superior to our ancestors; we live in different times with different benefits and challenges, but we remain in the same boat as they, asking the same questions, trying to find meaning in a world corrupted by death D. All is vanity, and all will be forgotten! V. Conclusion A. Thus we can see wisdom from Ecclesiastes 1. All under the sun is vanity; attempting to find meaning in that which will perish and be forgotten is a futile task 2. There is nothing new under the sun; despite all our protestations we're not really progressing or becoming more enlightened, just emphasizing different things than others did in the past B. Such sounds like a bleak forecast, yet we must remember its limitations 1. Solomon speaks about life "under the sun," in this present creation, subject to decay, corruption, and death (cf. Romans 8:18-25) 2. If all there is to living is this life, it would be bleak, and rightly so! C. Yet Solomon's descendant Jesus of Nazareth was raised from the dead and extends the hope of eternal life in the resurrection (1 Corinthians 15:1-58)! 1. There is more to living than this life 2. We can ground meaning and hope in something that is not vanity and that will not perish or fade, the Kingdom of God in Christ (Matthew 6:19-24) 3. Our labor need not be in vain as long as it is the work of the Lord Christ in the hope of resurrection (1 Corinthians 15:58) D. If we seek to find true meaning and truly desire immortality, let it be known for certain that it will not be found in this world subject to corruption but in Christ, His Kingdom, and the resurrection of life; let us seek God in Christ and hope in the resurrection! E. Invitation/songbook Scripture, Meditation, and Application 1: "Vanity of vanities," saith the Preacher; "vanity of vanities, all is vanity" (Ecclesiastes 1:2). Solomon begins with the thesis of his message: everything is vanity, a breath, vapor, fleeting in its existence. He is coming to grips with the universality of death and the impermanence of all things on earth in which humans invest meaning. Let us recognize this truth of the Preacher and not trust in the things of the world! 2: What profit hath man of all his labor wherein he laboreth under the sun? (Ecclesiastes 1:3). Labor is good and beneficial, but what is the point of it all? On what basis can the fruit of labor be enjoyed? Such is a major concern for the Preacher, for humans are never satisfied, but keep wanting more. Let us recognize that labor under the sun ultimately is vanity, and labor instead in the hope of resurrection! 3: That which hath been is that which shall be; and that which hath been done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun (Ecclesiastes 1:9). We like to believe that we are progressing and evolving, that life is getting better. The Preacher knows that is a lie: even if we have better technology, mankind still is plagued by the same questions as their ancestors. Ideas are never "new"; they're just old ideas warmed up again and again. As with fashion, so with ideas; what is old is new again, and what is new will become old. Let us recognize that times may be different than the past, but not inherently better or worse! 4: There is no remembrance of the former generations; neither shall there be any remembrance of the latter generations that are to come, among those that shall come after (Ecclesiastes 1:11). The Preacher exposes as true the great fear humans work so hard to deny: they and their works will be forgotten under the sun. Immortality does not come through a career, labor, monuments, or even in descendants; all such things prove vain, as vapor or a breath in the grand scale of time. To become immortal we must overcome death; only through Jesus of Nazareth can we overcome death and obtain a resurrection like His (Romans 6:1-11, 1 Corinthians 15:1-58). Let us put all our hope and confidence in Jesus and the resurrection and not in the vain things of the world which perish!