Strike a
match and a flame is born. You can
see its light flicker and burn down the stick leaving a blackened curve of a
remnant. Blow it out and smell and
see a waft of sulfur and smoke stream in the air. But the smoke will not remain, it being without any real
substance or anything you can grasp onto.
The
Hebrew word for smoke in the bible is hevel; it means breath, vapor, cloud of
steam, puff of smoke and points to two deeper meanings: 1) it is without
substance. You can't grab onto it; and 2) It is not lasting. Now we see the
puff of smoke; in a few seconds we will no longer be able to detect it.
Whether
you detected it or not, this word hevel or smoke or here translated as vanity
comes 9 times in the short Old Testament reading. Vanity is fleeting and
transient; without substance or permanence. Vanity is the perspective from whence the author sees
life.
Perspective is when an
experience provides a moment of clarity and visual acuity in which we are able
to see what is important in life.
Vanity of
Vanities! All is Vanity. A chasing after the wind. Our reading
jumped us all over the first couple of chapters of the book perhaps to give us
an overview of the writer’s honest, albeit cynical, assessment of life.
To further summarize: life is work, work is toil, wisdom is futile and death is inevitable. (ROLL EYES) Would somebody please tell the guy that he is writing for generations of faithful people who would like to have a little more hope and meaning in their lives, thank you very much?! I mean, we’re supposed to be preaching good news, not what we already know and experience. The life of faith is supposed to offer us an alternative for the way things are with death and war and hunger and poverty and disease and all of those things about which we feel so powerless! (PAUSE)
Perspective is when an
experience provides a moment of clarity and visual acuity in which we are able
to see what is important in life.
The first
time I preached on this text was the first time I ever preached. I was a senior at Augsburg College,
just returned from an educational trip to Mexico and pondering the wise sayings
of Ecclesiastes, especially meaninglessness and the powerlessness of doing
anything in the world. Life is short and filled with toil and that which we
endeavor to do: work, study, encountering the world seemed to end up in the
same place: with nothing changed.
There is nothing new under the sun, so the writer says. “The sun rises and the sun goes down,
and hurries to the place where it rises. The wind blows to the south, and goes
around to the north; round and round goes the wind, and on its circuits the
wind returns. All streams run to the sea, but the sea is not full; to the place
where the streams flow, there they continue to flow. All things are wearisome; more than one can express.”
The point
of the sermon was that although life may seem meaningless, we are not
meaningless to God and while there is nothing new under the sun, Jesus is a new
thing, and gives us new life. While I had good and thoughtful help from Phil
Quanbeck II and had a good sermon in hand, the perspective of it seemed a
little dark and sobering.
But it
happened that day that my niece, who was about 2 years old at the time, was in
the audience and once she saw me up front and not sitting with her, she
wrestled her way out of her dad's arms and came, crawling and crying up to the
place where I was sitting. In a
second I bent down and scooped her up and there she sat in my arms through the
hymn, the reading and finally the sermon. While I was testifying to the meaninglessness of life, I had
to admit that, at that point, nothing seemed meaningless.
Perspective is when an
experience provides a moment of clarity and visual acuity in which we are able
to see what is important in life.
On Monday Evening
I received a phone call telling me that the 6 youth and 3 chaperones, who were
on their way home from their mission trip and great work in Kokomo, Indiana,
were in a serious van accident.
Everyone walked away with generally minor bumps and bruises, cuts and
contusions. Everyone walked
away. What happened was that the
rear passenger tire blew while they were in the passing lane. Kris dutifully and masterfully slowed
the vehicle down, keeping it from hitting the semi-truck in the next lane. With the blown tire, the van went right
into the ditch, where the van rolled one and a quarter times. It is amazing and some have said a
miracle that no one was hurt too badly and that all walked away. (PAUSE)
It is a
fearful thing to be on the cusp of a tragedy. It is hard not to think about
what might have happened. We stare
blankly and start to see how wide the valley of the shadow of death really
is. In such events, life seems
much more as fragile and as short and as fleeting as a breath or vapor or cloud
of steam or puff of smoke. Annie
Dillard, my favorite author says it this way, “That it’s rough out there and
chancy is no surprise. Every live
thing is a survivor on a kind of extended emergency bivouac. But at the same time we are also created.”
Talking to
the kids and parents afterwards and hearing Kris’ reports on the day, two
themes I heard over and over again were: 1) God kept us safe—it is a miracle we
all survived—God was with us in that ditch; and 2) Life means so much more now.
One parent
told the kids, “Well, go out now and serve because you were saved for a
reason.” Which was a rich paraphrasing of what God told Abraham: “You are
blessed to be a blessing.” Life
was seen for what it is: a gift and a fragile thing and it has taken a new
meaning and purpose and focus.
Perspective is when an experience provides a moment of clarity and
visual acuity in which we are able to see what is important in life. (PAUSE)
While we
may give the writer of Ecclesiastes a hard time for his honesty and cynicism,
we must read the rest of the story and hear his perspective: to eat and drink
and be merry—that is, to live your life, live it fully, live it while you still
can and give thanks to God who both gives life and cares for life and is with
you throughout life, even through death.
Or, as the poet Mary Oliver says, “Doesn't everything die at last, and
too soon? Tell me, what is it you
plan to do with your one, wild and precious life?”
Dig in, spend time, don’t save it. You can’t take it with you. Invest in your kids, invest in yourself, invest in your community. This is not smoke. This is not vanity. These are good gifts given by God who has created us, giving us life. These are good gifts given by God who saw it fit to send his Son to encounter life in this world and redeem its brokenness through death and resurrection. These are good gifts given by God who sends to us the Holy Spirit to be our guide and comforter and perspective. A perspective that what we receive in God gives us a vision not of smoke that is here today and gone tomorrow, but a vision of what is invested here and now in faith is harvested fully in God’s kingdom. What we do here and now matters, what we do here and now has a future in God, our vision, wisdom and ruler of all.
Amen.
_________________
Sources:
James Limburg Encountering Ecclesiastes, A Book for Our Time
Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
Mary Oliver, "The Summer Day"
