Hevel

August 4, 2019

Listen to teaching

Texts:
     Ecclesiastes 1:2-12
     Colossians 3:1-4
     Luke 12: 13-21

 Good morning everyone,

I invite you to pray with me before we begin:

God of love, we greet you.  It is good to be here with you.

This morning we ask for the grace of  sensing your Anchoring presence within us.

Though limited in our capacities,  though limited in our knowledge, though limited in our smallness, we know that we know  the basics of your good news. 

Grant us courage to live from that foundation.  Let us begin, again, today.  Amen.

Meaningless,
meaningless,
everything is meaningless.

Growing up in a very churched environment meant that by the time I was a high-schooler, there were very few scripture passages that struck me as weird and unfamiliar.  This opening poem, indeed the opening line, in Ecclesiastes was an exception.  Everything is meaningless?  I had a hard time understanding how a line like that could make it into the bible.

If, like me, you grew up going to church, you may have heard different translations of the opening line.  The Hebrew word for meaningless is Hevel.  H-E-V-E-L.  Hevel.  In most English translations of the Bible, this word hevel is translated either as meaningless or as vanity, but in recent years, scholars and theologians are getting more creative in their translations -- suggesting that these words may not encompass the fullness of hevel.

Today’s teaching will be about the mystery of this opening line, its many translations, and the angst to which it opens us up.  The point is not so much to figure out what exactly the word means, but rather, to let the translations touch us and have their way with us.

As we take a closer look at three different translations of this opening line, there will be a couple of moments when I will encourage you to take a minute to silently be with God and to be with your thoughts. 

Translation 1: Everything is fleeting.

Fleeting, fleeting
says the Teacher. 
Everything is fleeting!   
Everything is transient. 
Everything is passing away.

A year before I was born, a famous photograph, Pale Blue Dot, was taken by Voyager 1, a robotic spacecraft that was sent on a mission to study the solar system.  Separated by 3.7 billion miles, our planet can barely be seen in the photograph.  It is a strange and awe-inspiring paradigm shift -- the earth, our home, smaller than any freckle on our body.

Regarding this photograph, Carl Sagan, a scientist and science writer, wrote the following:

Look again at that dot.  That’s here.  That’s home.  That’s us.  On it, everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives.  The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader,” every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there--on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam. 

In the book of Ecclesiastes, the author, a Jewish wise man named Qoheleth, takes on this cosmic view of life on earth.  Rather than being stuck in the immediacy of his day-to-day, Ecclesiastes invites us into a larger perspective that takes into account the transience of our lives.  He writes in the opening poem:

Generations come and generations go,     but the earth remains forever.  The sun rises and the sun sets,     and hurries back to where it rises.  No one remembers the former generations,     and even those yet to come will not be remembered     by those who follow them.  (1: 4-5, 11)

The broader our perspective, the more generational our vantage point, the more conscious we are of our place in the universe, the more aware we are of our thirteen-billion year history on this earth, the more it seems that our existence is a miracle.

I want to invite you to close your eyes and take one minute in silence to think about a few questions.  Allow your mind to be quiet and empty.  Allow yourself to breathe, to just be here, with your church family.

• What stirs in you when you consider your smallness and your transience?
• What has come and gone in your life?

• In the quietness of your mind, is there something for which you can say thank you?  

Translation 1: Everything is passing away.

Translation 2: Everything is an enigma.

Enigma of enigmas,
says the teacher. 
Everything is an enigma. 
No one can really understand it all.

Qoheleth, the author of Ecclesiastes, struggled his whole life with his inability to know.  In the whole of the book, he darts between grim observations and rhetorical questions. 

What advantage have the wise over fools?^[1] In this meaningless life of mine, I have seen both of these: the righteous perishing in their righteousness, and the wicked living long in their wickedness.^[2] Good work can be undone so easily, for one sinner destroys much good.^[3] And besides, do not all go to the same place, to Sheol?^[4] Everything is an enigma, a chasing after wind. ^[5]I applied my heart to know wisdom and to know madness and folly. I perceived that this also is but a striving after wind. For in much wisdom is much confusion, and he who increases knowledge only increases sorrow.^[6]

When Qoheleth wrote Ecclesiastes, many scholars believe that Qoheleth was responding to the mainstream thinking of the Kings and the religious sages of the day.  In other words, Qoheleth is in some ways an alternative response to Solomon’s Book of Proverbs and other wisdom books in the Bible.  It’s as though Qoheleth is confronting Solomon personally, saying, I do not see the righteous prospering.  I do not see the wicked being brought low.^[2]

Qoheleth is saying, like Ta-Nahisi Coates, “the narrative arc of history does not bend towards justice.  It bends towards chaos.”^[3] A life full of witnessing arbitrary and random unfairness leads Qoheleth to reflect and say, “I applied my heart to seek and to search out by wisdom all that is done under heaven, and it is an unhappy business that God has given to us.” Taken to its extreme, the pursuit of wisdom is, for Qoheleth, a chasing after wind. 

When I was in college, I took a Philosophy of Religion course.  I thought by taking this course with a friend, it would lead my friend to a greater openness to God.  In Philosophy of Religion, I studied “proofs.” Taught by what seemed to me to be an agnostic teacher, I surprisingly found myself convinced that I could not prove God.  But scarier than that, my own faith was shaken.  I found myself wondering ceaselessly about God’s existence.  For a theology student planning to become a pastor, this whole God-not-existing thing was a bit of a problem!   

For many of us, we believe that if we just understood, if we could just uncover the answers, then we could be happy.  I fall prey to this, too.  Sadly, much of Christianity deceives us and tells us that we can know everything.  We can’t.  We have to be humble about the truths we hold, (especially about the Bible and about God), recognizing that the Infinite Creator of the Universe cannot be contained in our small brains.  I think for that reason, it was not a logical breakthrough that brought me back to a simple trust in God. 

It was watching the movie Apollo 13 in my friend’s dorm room, then stepping outside and looking up at the moon and the stars and thinking, this is all too beautiful. 

Mary Oliver wrote a poem about this reality of unknowing.  It’s called “Bone.” I’d like to read a portion of it to you.

      “Bone”

           by Mary Oliver

Understand, I am always trying to figure out what the soul is, and where hidden, and what shape...
Beside me the gray sea was opening and shutting its wave-doors,
unfolding over and over its time-ridiculing roar; I looked but I couldn’t see anything through its dark-knit glare;
yet don’t we all know, the golden sand is there at the bottom, though our eyes have never seen it, nor can our hands ever catch it
lest we would sift it down into fractions, and facts-- certainties-- and what the soul is, also
I believe I will never quite know.  Though I play at the edges of knowing, truly I know our part is not knowing,
but looking, and touching, and loving, which is the way I walked on,  softly, through the pale-pink morning light.

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Though I play at the edges of knowing, truly I know, our part is not knowing, but looking and touching and loving.

Again, I invite you to a minute of silent prayer, a short moment just to be with God.  As you consider these questions, just pay attention to the images and stories that arise.  If it is helpful, you can imagine that Jesus is just sitting beside you, listening.

What questions are percolating in your heart?  Is there a challenge in your life that you can entrust to God, today, rather than striving after an answer?  Everything is fleeting.  Everything is an enigma, a mystery.  And now, the third translation

Translation 1: Everything is passing away.

Translation 2: Everything is an enigma.

Translation 3: Everyhing is meaningless.

Meaningless, meaningless,
says the teacher. 
Everything is meaningless!   
Nothing has any meaning. 
Nothing makes any sense. 

Richard Rohr says that if we’re completely honest about lives, we will recognize that there is probably a situation, or a relationship, over which we have no control.  When I read that, in his book, Falling Upward, I immediately thought of my 26 rising 8th graders.

My principal, whom I deeply respect, runs a very tight ship.  When students enter the building, the expectation is that they have a seat on the gym floor and read a book silently.  Then we have a morning meeting in which we share a few announcements, say our mission and identity statement, recite the Pledge of Allegiance, and highlight any birthdays or positive achievements.  Then, a silent transition up to the 3rd floor classroom.  Between each class, students are again expected to transition in silence, in a single-file line.  And when I find myself alone with Kelvin and Sa’myah and Kaiya, when these beautiful, unruly 13 year-olds decide that it’s time to test Mr S’s boundaries, I find myself thinking that all these silent transitions are close to impossible, and because of that, completely meaningless -- or as Qoheleth puts it, a chasing after wind. 

This scene is the scene that comes to me in my time of solitude and prayer pretty much every day.  Kelvin, Sa’myah, Kaiya, and the rest of the cool crew, testing the boundaries.  My authority on the line, challenged, pricked and poked.  For the past two weeks, the invitation from God has just been to smile about this, to just accept that meaninglessness is part of the deal.

It’s easy to jump from meaninglessness to meaning as quickly as possible.  In the face of meaninglessness, it is comfortable to do this.  So sadly, in the Name of Jesus, we can try to avoid meaninglessness, unknowing, and any sense of transience.  In the Name of Jesus, we can even ask God to completely take away these pains, but what if Jesus is inviting us to a different relationship with our limitations?

Conclusion

What do we do with the overarching messages of Qoheleth?  Can we stay here, with the reality of our fleeting nature, our unknowing, and the meaninglessness that surrounds us?

In our Gospel reading today, we hear a story about a man who wants part of an inheritance, though he isn’t the oldest son.  On the surface, he just wants to be treated equally as a son and brother.  Rather than responding to the brother’s plea for equitable treatment, Jesus cautions the man, instead.  In the text, it reads as though Jesus raises his voice to say: “Watch out!   Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.”

Sensing the need to make his point even clearer, Jesus tells the parable of a man who is foolishly over-focused on financial stability.  The younger brother desires an easy future, one in which he can tell himself, “You have plenty of grain laid up for many years.  Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.”‘ (12:19)  Surely, this lie is part of our American fabric.  Work hard to earn money.  Then retire early.  Move to Florida, and take it easy.  You deserve it!

In the great wisdom traditions and in cultures that have a healthier relationship with money, these retirement years are seen in a different light.  These years are not merely an opportunity to get away but more clearly an opportunity to pass on hard-earned wisdom and to integrate a fullness of life—the successes and the failures—into meaning that can be given away.  Perhaps this is in part the “richness in God” that Jesus refers to.

This richness has not only drawn many of you years ago but also many of us younger folk recently.  Those of us who are young in the community know that we are valuable members of this garden.  Do not dismiss what fertile soil you have become.  Your radical commitment is bearing a harvest that is not yet fully visible.

We are at an important time in the restructuring of our community.  Half a century ago, seeds were planted that were drawing many of you to this very community.  Enamored by the love and integrity of Jesus, an outpouring of energy manifested itself in the creation of the Potter’s House, the purchase of Dayspring, and the beginning of other missions.  The church grew.  The church grew some more.  Then an intuition: we need to become smaller, we need to become more intimate.  So we split off into twelve small faith communities, and now we are seven. 

L’Arche mimicked this move.  L’Arche communities sprouted up on every continent at the beginning, and L’Arche even began to take over Trosly, France where it began.  Years later, Jean Vanier realized that L’Arche was not called to be a huge presence in Trosly, France.  Eventually, he would say that L’Arche was not meant to be a solution, but a sign that love is possible.

Paul writes to the Colossians, “Your life is hidden with Christ, in God.”^[4] The meaning of your life is not always or immediately apparent.  It is often revealed over time in community in surprising ways.  And in this unique moment of our own church’s story, and in this unique moment in our American history, maybe Paul’s words can be encouragement to you and to us to step into a bigger and broader view of our life together. 

Maybe they can be an inner reference for you, an inner prayer that helps you hold the meaninglessness.

Your life is hidden with Christ, in God.  Our life together is hidden with Christ, in God.

Amen.