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Dr. George A. Purnell
July 18, 2010
“The Wise and the Righteous”
Ecclesiastes 1:12-18; 2:12-16; 9:17-18; 7:15
Last week we began a search with Ecclesiastes to find what would give his life lasting meaning.
First he decided that he would “make a test of pleasure” and live as he wanted. But he found this pursuit to be “vanity.”
Next, he looked to wealth. “I built houses and planted vineyards for myself; I made myself gardens and parks….I bought male and female slaves…I also had great possessions of herds and flocks, more than anyone who had been before me in Jerusalem. I also gathered for myself silver and gold and the treasure of kings....Whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them; I kept from my heart no pleasure.”
But he found that this was not enough: “Then I considered all that my hands had done, and the toil I had spent in doing it, and again, all was vanity and a chasing after wind...”
Today we find Ecclesiastes still searching for something to give his life lasting meaning. He decides to test wisdom, and see if it will give him what possessions and partying could not. Again, he succeeds in unprecedented ways, just as he had with his pursuit of wealth and pleasure: “I said to myself, ‘I have acquired great wisdom, surpassing all who were over Jerusalem before me.”
Now we are a well educated congregation, quite possibly surpassing all others in South Indiana in this regard. Some here have produced original research and added to the knowledge in their disciplines. Others here have been innovative and talented teachers, and have prepared generations of students to go forth and influence the world. Others here have enjoyed enviable careers in one of the professions, while others have excelled in business.
We value education and put much trust in learning, because these have added value to our lives. Yet we know that learning has limits. We can read widely and attend lectures. We can watch PBS and not waste our time on network television (and not waste our money on Cable TV). We can travel extensively, attend operas, and remain involved in academic and professional societies long after we retire…
But all these will not necessarily answer the question Ecclesiastes is asking. We can have a lot of information about the meaning of life, and come to “understand” life instead of actually living it, Kushner observes. We can study how to play tennis at length, but if we never pick up a racket and step onto the court, we won’t be able to play.
I have an abiding interest in American politics, and I regularly read biographies of American presidents. This winter I read a two volume biography of Lyndon B. Johnson. The first volume, entitled Lone Star Rising covered the years 1908-1960, and the second volume, entitled Flawed Giant, covered the remaining years of his life, 1960-1973, which included the years of his presidency.
Johnson’s presidency began with the passage of landmark social legislation. The Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the creation of Medicare and Medicaid in the 1965 amendments to the Social Security Act were the hallmarks of his first year in office, and these were the beginning pieces of economic and social change that he hoped would shape his legacy.
But as we know today, the conflict in Viet Nam began consuming his presidency in 1965. That year 565,000 additional American troops were sent to Viet Nam, and our nation became committed to a military conflict that would last another decade.
The great irony and tragedy of our ever deepening involvement in Viet Nam was that Johnson’s predecessor in office, President John F. Kennedy, had attracted many of the “best and the brightest” of this generation into government service, and these were the architects of our political and military strategies in Southeast Asia.
Robert McNamara – who had taught business at Harvard, been a military officer, and was the first person from outside the family of Henry Ford to become president of the Ford Motor Company – was the Secretary of Defense. Other equally brilliant men and women – honor graduates of America’s finest universities and military academies, who accumulated and analyzed mountains of information, with the help of the most sophisticated computer systems available at the time – continued to make wrong decision after wrong decision about Viet Nam.
Knowledge can only take us so far, as St. Paul wrote centuries later: “as for knowledge, it will come to an end. For we know only in part…but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end.” (1 Corinthians 13)
We can have all knowledge and still be seeking answers about the value of life, as Ecclesiastes writes in our reading today: “For in much wisdom is much vexation, and those who increase knowledge increase sorrow.”
My sister Virginia is a lawyer who has worked for the North Mississippi Rural Legal Services since 1974. She is tireless in her pursuit of justice for the poor, especially the elderly poor, in Mississippi. She is passionate to the point that ulcers and other digestive disorders have plagued her. She worries endlessly about the people she represents and the disposition of their cases. She has no tolerance for discrimination and no patience for poverty. I have worried for decades about her health and happiness.
Her college roommate’s brother became my sister’s husband in 1968. They are a peculiar match in many ways. Virginia, with her M.A. in English literature and her law degree, coupled with Rance, who never attended college, drove semi-trucks when he was younger, and now schedules deliveries and dispatches trucks, while moonlighting on the weekends doing jobs with his back hoe and bulldozer.
I remember Ginny saying to me one time long ago that she wondered if her life made as much sense as her husband’s. I worry and get sick over the injustices I see, she said. I can’t sleep at night because of what I see daily in my work and nightly on the national news. Meanwhile, she said, Rance sleeps well, is even tempered, takes care of his mama (who is in her 90’s and still lives within a mile of them), goes hunting with his brother, who lives just down the road, and gets upset when the president is on television pre - empting one of his favorite shows.
My sister was not being condescending of her husband of 42 years. She is and has always been in love with him. They are seldom apart.
Ecclesiastes is perplexed not just because “those who increase knowledge increase sorrow,” but because “the same fate befalls” the wise and fools.
“What happens to the fool will happen to me also; why then have I been so very wise?....For there is no enduring remembrance of the wise or of fools, seeing that in the days to come all will have been long forgotten. How can the wise die just like fools? So, I hated life…for all is vanity and a chasing after the wind. ”
I get the sense that this is a man afraid of dying and being forgotten. I think he realizes that he has gone as far as learning can take him; that he needs a truth that transcends knowledge if he is to make sense of life.
I imagine Ecclesiastes is in the final third of his life, which would be roughly age 60 today. And, since I am 60, I like to think that my doubts, my fears and my questions are similar to his, and that our search for answers is also similar.
What I ‘know’ today that I did not know in my younger years is that many questions I have asked of life have answers that lie beyond the limits of knowledge. They live in the place where faith begins.
“Like many people as they grow older,” Kushner writes, Ecclesiastes “turns to religion” to discover whether life has any lasting meaning.
But, at least on the surface, religion fails him too. “In my vain life I have seen everything; there are righteous people who perish in their righteousness, and there are wicked people who prolong their life in their evil-doing.”
So, no amount of righteousness will protect Ecclesiastes from death, nor will it guarantee him a longer life than those who are not religious.
Ecclesiastes again resembles us in more ways than we like to admit. We seek religion, at least in part, for its advantages to us. We hope it will free us from fear of death and doubt about eternity. We hope for the long life and good fortune that parts of the Bible promise the faithful; promises echoed by many promoters of the gospel of health and prosperity in our own day.
Religiosity will never be a source of satisfaction for these reasons. Some of history’s most faithful people have lived with fears and doubts about their own faithfulness to God, and God’s the faithfulness to them. When we read the Psalms, or Jeremiah, or Job or other writers in the Bible…when we read the writings of Luther or Wesley or other giants in church history…we find people with profound fears and doubts about faith and eternity.
And we know that some of the most faithful figures in history died young and suffered mightily, while some of history’s cruelest leaders lived comfortably into old age.
One month ago today Greg Risch, a young man whom I know well, received a call at work. It was just after 10 a.m. on Friday, June 18. He learned that his 7 year old son John had just lost his life in a car crash outside Evansville, and that his 10 year old son Jake had been air lifted to a hospital trauma center.
Greg is an extremely devout young man. He is grieving his son John’s death. His son Jake is home now, but his injuries will continue to require therapy and close observation. Still, I am told by his parents and extended family, Greg is drawing on his faith to begin finding his way to life in a new reality. He has remained faithful in attendance at worship. His pastor and a faith based counselor are working with him.
It will be a long road for Greg. His devotion to religion did not protect him from loss. It did not make him more prosperous financially. But it will help him find a life beyond tragedy that is meaningful. And he will never lose his love for and memories of John.
Authentic religion will help us grow along life’s way. It will help us leave behind childish thoughts, and encourage us to challenge God as we travel through life. Earlier I quoted from the thirteenth chapter of First Corinthians. In closing, I will return to that chapter and quote St. Paul again:
“When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.”
Ecclesiastes cannot reconcile the fact that “there are righteous people who perish in their righteousness, and there are wicked people who prolong their life in their evildoing.” He is as frustrated with religion at this point in his search as he had been previously with pleasure and wealth and wisdom. He still is afraid that he will die without having discovered what it was that would have made his life matter.
Next week he arrives at the place where he realizes that while the moments of our lives do not last forever, they do have lasting value. Amen.
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