Ecclesiastes: Part 2...Pastor Phil Strong

1-30-11

Text: Ecclesiastes 2

● Pain is the most common reason that people visit a doctor. Sometimes the pain is difficult to describe. Sometimes in the process, we experience what is called “referred pain”.

The worst kind of pain is the one we cannot seem to identify; the one we can’t seem to locate.

(e.g. “Where does it hurt?”… the first question we hear from the doctor, besides, “Do you have insurance?”) In my case, the pain that I feel in my shoulder-blade, I have come to discover is really a problem with my neck.

During the introduction to this series, I made (2) statements that will help give direction to our considerations:

            ►This book is for those who think that life is about having it all and for those who have it all and have yet to find the life they long for.

            It’s for those who “ache”.

►When it comes to life, most of the time, we are “asymptomatic”.

            We often don’t experience the symptoms which warn us of our unhealthy condition. We’re not particularly miserable or what we would consider unusually discontent. We are just gradually robbed of life.            Or, even more detrimental still, we simply learn to live with the pain. We find ways to cope with life.

● As Christians, we contend that every human creature has an innate yearning for the fullest experience of God, ourselves and others in a way that is in keeping with Creative-design--- a way that makes us feel most alive (“God shaped hole”, as some have described it).  This yearning, this hunger, this desire--- however you choose to describe it, can easily be neglected or ignored, but it never goes away.

            Most often, because the desire is so strong and our failure to satisfy it so obvious, we choose more attainable ambitions--- more immediate gratification.

● Jesus would never let anyone get by with a ‘superficial’ approach to life or God. He brought a message that undeniably connected with people at a deeper level (one that required “ears to hear”); a message that seemed to address the deepest longings of their hearts--- a message of loving-exposure.

Whether it was a woman with a long history of failed marriages, the stealthy tax-collector in the tree or the religious leader setting up a clandestine a rendezvous with Jesus, they were all confronted with the deep ache in their hearts and the many methods they utilized in order to numb the pain or ignore the tension.

Sometimes it’s good to feel pain; it’s healthy to experience our emptiness.

Could it be, then, that those feelings of emptiness----those soul-pains, are one of God’s most valuable gifts to us? Because it’s the feeling of emptiness that gets our attention and finally allows me to confront all of the hollow distractions and my lifeless preoccupations.

● If your experience has been like mine, here’s what the cycle usually looks like: dissatisfaction (usually manifests itself as ‘boredom’)--- I seek some momentary pleasure--- followed by deep sensations of emptiness--- regret and intense self-loathing--- gravelling (where we come to God and offer him the list of all the reasons that he shouldn’t love us!)--- pain relief.

● In some significant way, Solomon is contrasting the ideas of living “for” the moment and living “in” the moment.

            Living for the moment, although intense and quite frankly, “fun”,  certainly has its limitations, because unless I can string together all of the moments--- each one bigger and more exhilarating, into some meaningful whole, life seems random [existentialism].

            Living in the moment usually shifts the focus from self-absorption and makes me more aware and more available to and what is going on around me; to who is around me.

● Listen to the way that Solomon describes life “under the sun”… 1:15.

“crooked” (Heb.)- ‘to be bent; defrauded’ (deprived by deception) (Gr.)- it is the word ‘skolios’, from where we get our word “scoliosis”. Something is askew and it results in various forms of disorder and dysfunction.

“perverse” (Gr.)- ‘to distort, turn aside from the right path; to corrupt; to oppose, plot against the saving purposes and plans of God’ [Philippians 2:15]

“straightened” (Heb.)- ‘set in order’

“Life under the sun” is life confined to our senses; to our own abilities and our limited point of view.

“under the sun”--- nothing beyond the senses; no one responsible for and no one to be accountable to for life under the sun; no story, only random and subjective experiences; no revelation; no God speaking and interacting… just life under the sun.         

● So, it stands to reason that if I see myself as just another of the species being dragged along by my own natural impulses with nothing beyond this life and no sense of accountability to “the other”, why not “go for it”? Why not indulge myself to the fullest? You’d be foolish not to.

On the other hand, if I see “under the sun”, indicators of another reality, then I will attempt to discover how that reality addresses my desires and how can I can bring that reality to bear on my waking, eating, sleeping, working life. You’d be foolish not to.

Every generation is touted as the one that will “figure it out”; that will get this thing “turned around”.

A new plan; a new administration, some new technology; a new version of the M & M.; a new day!

● Each successive generation seems to simply inherit all of the disorder and dysfuncationality of the previous one. As much as we have tried to identify, label and market each generation, what we discover is that, apart from a few technological and sociological distinctives, they are all pretty much the same (just different phones, more distractions, bigger TVs and better medication).

Solomon says, it’s all been done before; the new things are simply the old things that we attempt to resuscitate in order to convince ourselves that we really were content.

            Life just seems to get ‘recycled’.

e.g. “Plato’s Closet”: even our clothes get recycled. We buy them, wear them and sell them to someone else (because we are convinced they are “lame”) who then sells them back to us as “designer chic”.

We either seem to not have what we want (which leaves us greedy, envious and resentful), or, we have what we don’t want (which prevents us from appreciating and being grateful for that which we do have).

In either case, life becomes elusive. It causes us to live with our “hands full” and our “hearts empty”. We were created ‘eternal beings’ yet we settle for ‘temporary pleasure’.

There are times in our lives when we just need to figure out what we really want because the frustration of not knowing what we want always leads us to the conclusion that it’s “something else”. You realize, at this point, nothing could possibly satisfy you, right?

We never lose the “grasping instinct”.

 As parents, there is no time in your child’s development that requires your attentiveness anymore than when they discover the “art of grasping”. You are now alerted to all of the things which could be potentially harmful because their instinct to grasp is less than discerning.

● In fact, we discover that as the “grasping instinct” is coupled with the “unrestrained desire instinct”, we find that life is always within reach, but just out of our grasp.

“This world has nothing for me and this world has everything. All that I could want and nothing that I need” (Caedmon’s Call)