Short and hasty … and useless?
Ecclesiastes 1:2-11(9/10/2017)
The book of Ecclesiastes does us a service by popping balloons, by tearing down edifices, by exposing flawed assumptions, by challenging orthodoxies, so that we will put our faith in no orthodoxy, but in God and God alone.
Chasing the wind
Ecclesiastes 2:4-17, 24-26 (9/17/2017)
There is nothing inherently flawed about narratives or systems or orthodoxies, until we put our faith in them instead of God! Until we rely on them instead of God. Like Job’s friends, or like any of us who depend on our own ability to become the heroes of our own stories to give our lives meaning. That is a burden neither you nor I can bear. None of us can perfectly fulfill the criteria for our own happiness, but as the Philosopher shows us, even if we could, it would be useless, like chasing the wind.
Business
Ecclesiastes 3:1-15 (9/24/2017)
We are all about growth. We are all about productivity. We are all about busyness. How many times have you heard someone say: “I’m not happy unless I am busy?” Because? Because you genuinely enjoy what you are doing? If that is true, bless you, bless you because your busyness is a blessing. Or is it because it is expected, because you feel you must be busy? If that is true, bless you, because you bear a heavy and unhappy burden.
Dust
Ecclesiastes 3:16 – 4:6 (10/1/2017)
We are not immortal beings trapped in fading bodies. We are what we seem to be — this! This is the life we have: to eat and drink and laugh and cry and taste and see for as many days as we have. Does that make your life any less precious? Or does that make your life all the more precious? We don’t know. We don’t know what will happen after we die. Only God knows.
Awe
Ecclesiastes 5:1-7 (10/8/2017)
You are so filled with awe that you are not aware of yourself, and yet the awe itself comes from the sense of being connected, intimately connected to the one, to the thing, that fills you with awe. What you see or hear or feel is part of you, or, rather, you are part of it. It belongs to you, or, rather, you belong to it. You belong to that song. You belong to that place. You belong to that person. You belong to Jesus.
I don’t know
Ecclesiastes 6:1-12 (10/15/2017)
All the things we count on for fulfillment and happiness and significance prove hollow, fleeting, ephemeral, useless: wealth, honor, family, long life, hard work, wisdom, ambition. Ecclesiastes systematically dismantles every stone in the foundation of meaning upon which we might want to build our lives. And we are left with …?
Plain and simple
Ecclesiastes 7:1-10 (10/22/2017)
God made us plain and simple, but we have made ourselves very complicated.
We cover our faces and our souls with layer upon layer of pretense, anticipating or even guessing what we need to project in order to be accepted, in order to get what we want.
We walk around with all kinds of strings attached: envy, pride, anger, guilt, fear, regret.
And we carry heavy burdens — heavy burdens we shoulder voluntarily! — anxiety about the future, morbid preoccupation with the past, others’ expectations and our own, the burden of performance and the burden of keeping score and the burden of keeping a tight grip … on everything!
It is freeing to let go! It is freeing to be plain and simple …
Heartbreak
Ecclesiastes 8:9-17 (10/29/2017)
But what do you do with heartbreak? What do you do when you see what the philosopher sees: a world where the weak are exploited by the powerful, a world where justice is often not served, a world where the powers of death seem to be winning? You live.
Enjoy life with the one you love, as long as you live the useless life that God has given you in this world.
Ecclesiastes 9:1-10 (11/5/2017)
Lauren Reisinger
Eat the pizza! Eat the salads too, but there is no point in restricting yourself to such high extremes when we all share the same fate. Share a meal with a friend. Have a real, deep, healing, conversation with someone. Odds are, it will make their day and make yours too. Spend more time engaging in the hobbies you love. Celebrate the art of today!
If you are living as if enjoying life is a sin — stop!
Loosen up!
Ecclesiastes 10:1-14 (11/12/2017)
God is. And God is in what is. God does not exist in the world as it should be; God is not there. God does not exist in the world as it could be; God is not there. God does not exist in the world as we wish it would be; God is not there. God is in the world that is, a world where you fall into pits and get bitten by snakes and struggle to make headway with a dull ax.
TRUTH
Ecclesiastes 11:1-8 (11/19/2017)
I am glad to tell you that TRUTH is stubborn. It has not died and never will …
Only one thing to say
Ecclesiastes 11:9 – 12:14 (11/26/2017)
We are not saved from this life! We are saved from sin, from anything and everything that spoils and disrupts and destroys all this life is meant to be, all we are meant to be in this life with each other and with God. We are not saved from this life, but for this life, for this fleeting and precious and oh so sweet life.