BE CAREFUL HOW YOU MEASURE SPIRITUALITY

Fundamentalist and evangelical Christians are known for drafting creeds of right beliefs and right conduct to separate themselves from the world. Some of the lists by which you may have lived your life might include abstaining from certain foods and drinks and practices that other mainstream Christians feel are harmless. Lists tend to lead to self-righteousness and the opinion that the more you abstain, the more spiritual you are. Isn’t that the way it goes? The more fastidiously you comply with rules of self-denial the greater your holiness. Well that doesn’t wash with Paul. For him, the mark of true religion is not a rigorous compliance to rules of self-denial, but rather faith in Christ and a life in his Spirit. What finally defines true Christianity is "being in Christ," where God's grace transforms people into an alternative faith community. Any definition of Christianity that substitutes regulations of self-denial for self-transformation by the grace of God is spiritually impoverished and finally useless.

WHAT’S IT ALL ABOUT? WHAT AM I DOING HERE?

The Teacher doesn’t want people to become so attached to life here on planet earth, that they become convinced this is all that there is. The Teacher as he calls himself in the Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes, paints a dreary picture of life as a drudgery. Perhaps it is overkill. There is an accuracy about his observations however. He views everything as meaningless, and that is partly because he views all of life as cyclical and recurrent rather than unique and progressive.

The world experiences the turnover of generations, the repetitive cycle of the sun, the endless incessant pattern of wind currents, the perpetual round of rivers to the sea becoming vapour and rain and then seas again. The writer's own familiar words in Ecclesiastes 1:4-7 are these:
"Generations come and generations go,
but the earth remains forever."
"The sun rises and the sun sets,
and hurries back to where it rises."
"The wind blows to the south
and turns to the north; round and round it goes,
ever returning on its course."
"All streams flow into the sea, yet the sea is never full. To the place the streams come from, there they return again."

Always there are questions. What is it all for? What’s it all about? What is it good for? Why am I here? What am I doing? It’s a bit of a set up really because the Author is going to give an answer. The author's intent is not to cast a pessimistic pall over the reader's life, but rather to improve our understanding of priorities. In the previous post I recited verse 3 which asks, "What do people gain from all their labours 
at which they toil under the sun?" Under the sun is a key idea and it means in this present world. God has not intended for us the live life with an exclusive 'under the sun' perspective. Then redundancy becomes obvious. We are more than mere creatures of earth, breakfast, lunch dinner and bed; breakfast, lunch, dinner and dead. The Father's House is the compelling goal and being here is preparatory. Enjoy life but don't let it be everything, all that you care about. Don't commit merely to the cycle that repeats, but by faith become transformed so you can be with Christ where he is.

LIVING LIFE FOR OURSELVES IS NOTHING MORE THAN SOAP BUBBLES

Meaningless! says the Teacher. Utterly meaningless!
 Everything is meaningless” In fact this dismal theme brackets the entire book of Ecclesiastes in the Old Testament (1:2 and 12:8).

Nevertheless, the author has a purpose and here it is. You don’t hear this immediately upon reading the first two chapter but the author extends an invitation to enjoy life as a gift from God. "A person can do nothing better than to eat and drink and find satisfaction in their own toil. This too, I see, is from the hand of God, for without him, who can eat or find enjoyment? To the person who pleases him, God gives wisdom, knowledge and happiness, but to the sinner he gives the task of gathering and storing up wealth to hand it over to the one who pleases God. This too is meaningless, a chasing after the wind." (2:24-26).

Before announcing that life is a gift from God to enjoy, the author realistically prepares for that conclusion by speaking to the restlessness of life (1:1- 11). So much in life appears to be futile and worthless when viewing life from a leave- God - out - of the - picture, secular worldview. Therefore the author completes the corollary. Life is a gift from God to be enjoyed but without God life is hollow.

EVERYTHING IS MEANINGLESS

What kind of world are we living in? No matter how it may be described, God does have a word for us. It comes in Ecclesiastes, one of the canonical wisdom books. Ecclesiastes is a series of lectures in the Old Testament that speak about life, reality, and values for wise and successful living. Ecclesiastes has sometimes been misunderstood or neglected.  Some have considered it to be the strangest book in the Bible. The author has been accused of scepticism, fatalism, and pessimism. That's not an accurate appraisal. I recommend the following perspective. Approach the book with an open mind. Discard unflattering assumptions. It is possible to understand what the author was communicating to an Old Testament community of faith and to discern robust recommendations and warnings about life and for living in this age.

The descriptor "son of David" identifies the author as a male and although the author's personal name has not been divulged, the options are narrowed. "The words of the Teacher, son of David, king in Jerusalem …" (1:1). From among David's sons, it was Solomon who had a reputation for communicating wisdom and truth. He is called qoheleth meaning teacher as he takes on the role of a sage, a wise man, a scholar, a wise and older tutor of wisdom.  Like other sages of his day, Solomon spoke to the young people of his day. His primary audience was young adults embarking on life and making decisions about their priorities, their values, and their purposes in life.

The author begins the book by describing everything in life as vanity or meaningless. “Meaningless! Meaningless! says the Teacher. 
Utterly meaningless!
 Everything is meaningless” (1:2). How long would you stay with a counsellor who spoke like that? He must have something more to say. 
He does.

LIKE MICE ON A WHEEL

Inside the small cage a mouse runs on a treadmill. Scientists don't know what a mouse thinks about life. Does a mouse feel imprisoned? Does a mouse look upon a cage as his home? Does the mouse believe that as he runs, he is actually going somewhere? Whether or not scientists can discover answers to these questions is of far less interest to me than examining the thesis that human realities frequently resemble mice on a treadmill.

Fantine is one of the tragic figures in Les Misérables. She was a victim of circumstance rather than fault of her own. She was an abandoned child who as a young woman, fell in love with someone who took advantage of her but left her when she became pregnant. She was forced to leave her infant daughter with a disreputable innkeeper and his spouse who constantly extort money from her claiming that the daughter needs things. She lost her factory job and had to sell her hair and her teeth and finally can do nothing but prostitution. She became ill and she died yet while still alive she sang these words. "I had a dream my life would be 
so different from this hell I’m living, so different now from what it seemed. Now life has killed the dream I dreamed.”

FANTINE, as played by Anne Hathaway
in Les Miserables, and drawn by artist,
Victoria Sulbaran Vera.

People dream dreams when they are younger and today those dreams have vanished? People make choices and investments that prove to be unwise? Sometimes people love someone and lose because that love is not returned? Some are mistreated and fight the injustice only to be disappointed at the outcome? Wouldn’t it be helpful if someone could provide wise counsel either before or following these experiences? It would be beneficial if God had a word for us.

I’ll share more in a day or two.