November 4, 2007
First Church of the Brethren
H. Kevin Derr
Ecclesiastes 1:1-18
“Everything is Meaningless”
1 The words of the Teacher, [a] son of David, king in Jerusalem:
2 “Meaningless! Meaningless!”
says the Teacher.
“Utterly meaningless!
Everything is meaningless.”
3 What does anyone gain from all their labors
at which they toil under the sun?
4 Generations come and generations go,
but the earth remains forever.
5 The sun rises and the sun sets,
and hurries back to where it rises.
6 The wind blows to the south
and turns to the north;
round and round it goes,
ever returning on its course.
7 All streams flow into the sea,
yet the sea is never full.
To the place the streams come from,
there they return again.
8 All things are wearisome,
more than one can say.
The eye never has enough of seeing,
nor the ear its fill of hearing.
9 What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun.
10 Is there anything of which one can say,
“Look! This is something new”?
It was here already, long ago;
it was here before our time.
11 There is no remembrance of people of old,
and even those who are yet to come
will not be remembered
by those who follow them.
12 I, the Teacher, was king over Israel in Jerusalem. 13 I applied my mind to study and to explore by wisdom all that is done under the heavens. What a heavy burden God has laid on the human race! 14 I have seen all the things that are done under the sun; all of them are meaningless, a chasing after the wind.
15 What is crooked cannot be straightened;
what is lacking cannot be counted.
16 I said to myself, “Look, I have grown and increased in wisdom more than anyone who has ruled over Jerusalem before me; I have experienced much of wisdom and knowledge.” 17 Then I applied myself to the understanding of wisdom, and also of madness and folly, but I learned that this, too, is a chasing after the wind.
18 For with much wisdom comes much sorrow;
the more knowledge, the more grief.
We find here wisdom literature, part of what would have been known in Jesus days as a part of the writings. It appears in our Bibles as poetic verses, much like the Psalms, at least at places. At other points it is seen as a short narrative. The whole of this is a collection of wisdom, insight and the musings of a person with spiritual maturity.
It may well have been written by Solomon or one of his descendents who were on the throne in Jerusalem, or someone who knew the court at Jerusalem. He identifies himself as the “Preacher” or the “Assembler” the one who gathers the people of God together.
He is counted as a type of “Christ” or someone who points to what Jesus himself would do later. He displays traits that are connected with the Messiah. A well known type of the Christ is David, but there are numerous examples in the Old Testament. One way the “Preacher” functions as a type of Christ is that he “assembles the people of God” for instruction, and secondly that he gives the people godly wisdom that they may live lives devoted to the King, the Living God.
Prayer:
I. Here we find the first words of the “Preacher” 1 The words of the Teacher, [a] son of David, king in Jerusalem:
a. He identifies himself as the “Preacher” or “Teacher”
i. He does not use his personal name but rather a title that at times also functioned as a first name.
ii. He does give us some specifics, that he is a son of David, and the question is he the King in Jerusalem or is David the one who is King in Jerusalem?
1. You can argue that the “Preacher” is not the king, but only if you haven’t read the rest of the text.
2. He does seem to know the court of the King and at other points alludes to being the King.
b. Then we are given some words that seem utterly hopeless. He writes, 2 “Meaningless! Meaningless!” says the Teacher. “Utterly meaningless!
Everything is meaningless.”
i. If everything is meaningless, pointless or vanity, whey bother? Why not just hang it up and call it a day.
ii. Is the teacher telling us that all of our activity is useless?
iii. He then says, 3 What does anyone gain from all their labors
at which they toil under the sun?
1. Hopefully, you get to feed your family, take care of those you love and perhaps even help those who are in need of your generosity and mercy.
2. But, how many times do you have to weed the same flowerbeds, mow the grass, paint the porch or trim the hedge. And what do we get from all that, the satisfaction of a job well done, or at least done?
3. Maybe his next thought will help, 4 Generations come and generations go, but the earth remains forever.
a. We live in a long line of generations that have done what we have done, but what has it accomplished, what has it done. People still die, weeds still grow, and we all know pain and hunger for something more and better
b. All this has played out over the surface of the earth how many times?
4. It seems that the whole of creation is stuck in this endless cycle of meaninglessness.
a. 5 The sun rises and the sun sets, and hurries back to where it rises.
b. 6 The wind blows to the south and turns to the north; round and round it goes, ever returning on its course.
c. All streams flow into the sea, yet the sea is never full. To the place the streams come from, there they return again.
d. To do the same thing again and again without different results seems to be at best futility.
e. The Preacher says, All things are wearisome, more than one can say. The eye never has enough of seeing, nor the ear its fill of hearing.
i. It is the same with us as well, we all have things and people we like to look at and never get tired of, things we like to listen to that fill us with joy, that we again never grow tired of hearing.
ii. The Preacher says all things are wearisome
c. So, he then offers us another way to think about the same thing, he says, 9 What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.
i. This may never be so true as it is in a campaign year, we hear the same words, different people, the same promises, but see little that changes.
ii. In realty most of what we have talked about, has been spoken of before, only the names change. How long have people talked about the weather? A game? An idea?
1. What has been done will be done again. Just look at Hollywood, we keep telling the same stories over and over again, different names, different people
2. Even our transportation, you can find a historical example, and we just improvise around an idea. But the point in transportation is to get people and goods from one point to another. Nothing new about that, but what good does all our moving things and people from place to place accomplish?
II. Then the Preacher says, 10 Is there anything of which one can say, “Look! This is something new”? It was here already, long ago; it was here before our time.
a. While the cell phone is much different than a letter, the point of both is the same, a way to allow two people to carry on a conversation. They may indeed be new items, but do they really let us do something new?
i. The point is not to say that we don’t need to talk, but rather that we continue to do what we have done for a long, long time. If we are doing in now, it has been done before. Only the medium has changed.
ii. As it was before so it is now.
b. His thoughts continue, 11 There is no remembrance of people of old, and even those who are yet to come will not be remembered by those who follow them.
i. For some reason we have trouble learning from those who came before us, it is as if we need to reinvent the wheel for each age.
ii. Do you remember when you were 16, 17 or 18 years old, it seemed you knew everything you needed to know to do what you wanted.
1. But we didn’t.
2. We didn’t realize how little we actually knew until a few decades latter.
3. We pay little attention to those who came before us, just as those who come after us will not head our lives .
III. So, where does this leave us? All of what we do is pointless, forgettable, and soon after we are gone it will be forgotten. So, perhaps the real fruitfulness lies in cultivating the mind.
a. The Preacher writes, 12 I, the Teacher, was king over Israel in Jerusalem. 13 I applied my mind to study and to explore by wisdom all that is done under the heavens. What a heavy burden God has laid on the human race! 14 I have seen all the things that are done under the sun; all of them are meaningless, a chasing after the wind.
i. While king the Preacher, set his task to master the world of knowledge and wisdom. He said he had explored all the wisdom of all that is done under heaven.
ii. His response to the study was: “What a heavy burden God has laid on the human race!”
1. His summary of the value of all the things that are done under the sun, meaningless, a chasing after the wind.
2. It would seem that the world of knowledge and wisdom is too a meaningless undertaking.
3. About this time I am about ready to say, there is little point in doing anything.
iii. The Preacher then says, 15 What is crooked cannot be straightened; what is lacking cannot be counted.
1. What is crocked or mangled cannot be made right
2. There is little use counting on what you do not have, it may never be.
3. It seems that all of our activity comes to nothing. So what is the point to all of this?
b. He then continues, 16 I said to myself, “Look, I have grown and increased in wisdom more than anyone who has ruled over Jerusalem before me; I have experienced much of wisdom and knowledge.” 17 Then I applied myself to the understanding of wisdom, and also of madness and folly, but I learned that this, too, is a chasing after the wind.
i. No matter where he has turned in the world of humanity has he found anything of lasting value, everything is but chasing after the wind.
1. What we strive after, what we search for, what we spend our time seeking to accomplish, it is all meaningless in and of itself.
2. It is storing up treasures to be eaten by moths, and destroyed by corrosion.
3. Jesus said much of the same, he tells us in Matthew 6:19-21 19 “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. 20 But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. Then skip down to verse 3131 So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
4. Here is the wisdom of the Preacher, all of our efforts on our own, will amount to nothing but a chasing after the wind, much like the things that the Pagans run after, and it is not that we do not need clothes, food and shelter, but they are not to be our first goal. Our first goal is to be seeking after the Kingdom of God and his righteousness, then all of these things we need will come, with our work and toil, yes, but they will not be the reason we live, they will simply be the means by which we live.
IV. As the Preacher rightly understands, 18 For with much wisdom comes much sorrow; the more knowledge, the more grief.
a. Life is found in Christ in seeking for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, not in the quest to have and to have more, of which we will never be satisfied, and in the end will only find it to be as profitable as chasing after the wind.
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