Sermon: Solomon- Chasing after Wind

Hello folks! Happy PICNIC Sunday… I suspect a few of you are itching to get to the dessert table already! But I’m going to make you devour some knowledge first! The prophet Jeremiah said:

Jeremiah 15:16

“Your words were found, and I ate them, and your words became to me a joy and the delight of my heart…”

So, we’re going to try and find some joy in one of the most depressing books of the Bible! Are you ready?! Two weeks ago we looked at King Solomon. Was he a righteous king? Did he have a right-relationship with YHWH? Did he have a good and right-relationship with the people in his kingdom? Did he have a good and right-relationship with all of God’s creation- the forest, the animals, the bountiful goodness this planet provides? And, truth be told, it was kind of a big fail for Solomon. He was not living in righteousness. In fact, he did everything wasn’t supposed to do as a King under the dominion of YHWH. 

If you recall, in Deuteronomy, chapter 17, we are told that there were three things a king of Israel was NEVER supposed to do: a king was never to amass large amounts of horses from Egypt. 

What did Solomon do? He purchased large amounts of horses from Egypt. The king was not to have many wives. What did king Solomon do? He took 700 wives and 300 concubines. A king of Israel was not to have large amounts of gold and silver. What did Solomon do? He hoarded the largest gathering of wealth in the known world at the time. Everything he wasn’t supposed to do as king, he did.

And that’s weird, because this guy was known for WISDOM. God was willing to grant him his heart’s desire, and Solomon asked for wisdom. This pleased YHWH greatly… and Solomon became known, internationally, as a king dripping in wealth and wisdom.

But what did he do with his wisdom? Well, he proceeded over legal trials in his kingdom, and…

…he wrote a lot of wisdom literature. He has been arguably credited with writing the Song of Songs, much of the Proverbs, and a book called, “Ecclesiastes”. He put his wisdom to use by providing and preserving God’s words for us to read and contemplate. We can be, and should be, grateful for Solomon’s contribution to Scripture. 

Now, I wouldn’t be a good Biblical scholar if I didn’t point out that Ecclesiastes isn’t directly said to have been written by Solomon. It is written by the Qohelet (the Teacher/Preach), son of David, king in Jerusalem… Solomon was the son of David and he was the king in Jerusalem, so I think there is a good chance that Solomon is, indeed, the writer.

What we know about Solomon is that he had a stellar international reputation as a wise king, with lots of horses, money and women… and along with the vastness of those things came power. Everything came easy to Solomon. He had all he ever wanted; nothing was out of his reach. So assuming he did write Ecclesiastes, why did he say things like this:

Ecclesiastes 7:15-16

I have seen everything during my lifetime of futility; there is a righteous person who perishes in his righteousness, and there is a wicked person who prolongs his life in his wickedness. Do not be excessively righteous, and do not be overly wise. Why should you ruin yourself?

Really? Is this what your wisdom has taught you? Do not have too much right-relationship with God or people. 

Do not attempt to be overly wise… it’s just going to highlight the fact the wicked seem to succeed where you fail… so what’s the point? It’s all futile, meaningless, empty, like grasping for wind…

Now before we tackle Ecclesiastes, let’s reflect on Solomon’s earlier writings… the Proverbs. God granted Solomon wisdom and it wasn’t completely wasted on him. The writings of the Proverbs are at the heart of Biblical wisdom literature. They are brilliant and God’s wisdom shines through them. The very first chapter introduces the reason for the Proverbs:

Proverbs 1:1-3

The proverbs of Solomon the son of David, king of Israel:

To know wisdom and instruction, to discern the sayings of understanding, to receive instruction in wise behaviour, righteousness, justice, and integrity…

Proverbs 2:6-12

For YHWH gives wisdom; from His mouth come knowledge and understanding. He stores up sound wisdom for the upright; He is a shield to those who walk in integrity, guarding the paths of justice, and He watches over the way of His godly ones.

Then you will discern righteousness, justice, and integrity, and every good path. For wisdom will enter your heart, and knowledge will be delightful to your soul; discretion will watch over you, understanding will guard you, to rescue you from the way of evil…

This is all good stuff! Solomon is on the right track! He’s getting it! He’s using his God-given wisdom to share hope and joy through his writing and instruction. It’s a good use of his gifts!

And righteousness, by the way, is one of the most repeated words in the Proverbs:

Proverbs 29:7

The righteous is concerned for the rights of the poor; the wicked does not understand such concern.

Proverbs 31:8-9

Open your mouth for the people who cannot speak, for the rights of all the unfortunate. Open your mouth, judge righteously, and defend the rights of the poor and needy.

Have a good and right-relationship with all of God’s creation… stand up for all the people around you: the poor and needy, the widow, the orphan, foreigner. Bear God’s image onto this world and be righteous!…

Proverbs 4:18-19

But the path of the righteous is like the light of dawn that shines brighter and brighter until the full day. The way of the wicked is like darkness; they do not know over what they stumble.

Then it starts to get personal…

Proverbs 16:8, 12-13

Better is a little with righteousness than great income with injustice…

It is an abomination for kings to commit wicked acts, because a throne is established on righteousness. Righteous lips are the delight of kings, and one who speaks right is loved.

Righteousness is better than wealth. A king and his throne is established on the basis of righteousness. 

Was Solomon a “righteous” king, by God’s definition of righteousness? That was our question a few weeks ago… and we discovered that, “no… Solomon was not very righteous”. In fact, if you recall, he started to look very much like Pharaoh did in the Exodus story.

Solomon’s throne was not established in righteousness and it ended up falling apart. Although he had 700 wives and 300 concubines, only three of Solomon’s children were named in the Bible… two daughters, Taphat & Bas’mat, and one son, Rehoboam. And the reign of Rehoboam, Solomon’s heir, was an absolute disaster which fractured the kingdom… it split in two and weakened until foreign invaders tore the whole thing apart and Israel was exiled to the principalities of the world. The heirs of Solomon lost control of the kingdom. All the wealth and power couldn’t hold them together… In fact, it’s likely what tore them apart.

And assuming that Solomon was the writer of Ecclesiastes, he seems to have seen the writing on the wall. He recognized that everything he devoted his life to was pointless… like grasping for wind.

Ecclesiastes 1:1-3

The words of the Preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem.

“Futility of futilities,” says the Preacher, “Futility of futilities! All is futility.” What advantage does a person have in all his work which he does under the sun?

It’s pointless! It’s all pointless! Emptiness… striving for things that can’t be grasped. What’s the point of it all…

This word futility is repeated 38 times in Ecclesiastes. In Hebrew the word is hevel… and it’s like smoke or fog. You can see it, but you can’t grasp it, and then it fades into nothingness. Life is hevel… you can feel the weight of it, but you can’t fully grasp it before it slips away. Our lives are short blips in time that just fades away… and it’s all meaningless/futile/pointless.

Hevel is a word that captures time and substance… Time: life is fleeting. Substance: life is empty. Isaiah and Jeremiah used hevel to describe idols… they were an illusion. An idol looked like it had some weight to it, but really it’s nothing… empty, meaningless, nothingness. And according to the book of Ecclesiastes, life was much the same… an empty, fleeting, futile exercise of existence.

I’m sorry, were you looking for a peppy, upbeat, sermon before our Church picnic?? Cause, ya, this ain’t it, folks!! Are we really going to tackle the meaning of life before we eat hot dogs? Yep, it looks like we are.

Ecclesiastes 1:12-13, 16-18

I, the Preacher, have been king over Israel in Jerusalem. And I set my mind to seek and explore by wisdom about everything that has been done under heaven. It is a sorry task with which God has given the sons of mankind to be troubled…

I said to myself, “Behold, I have magnified and increased wisdom more than all who were over Jerusalem before me; and my mind has observed a wealth of wisdom and knowledge.” And I applied my mind to know wisdom and to know insanity and foolishness; I realized that this also is striving after wind. Because in much wisdom there is much grief; and increasing knowledge results in increasing pain.

Why bother doing all the work when it just results in pain? It’s like chasing after wind… it hits you, you feel it, but you can’t grasp it… and you certainly can’t control it. And it doesn’t matter if you’re good or you’re bad, hard things, uncontrollable things, are going to happen to you… and there’s very little you can do about it. So why bother striving for wisdom or righteousness, or anything for that matter, when we’re just going to die anyway?

Yay! Let’s picnic! …Okay, I guess we can’t just leave it there. Let’s see where the Book of Ecclesiastes takes us.

There’s a pattern of grumpy, bitter, and (honestly) depressed, men in the Bible… These were men who thought they knew best. Last week Ed talked about Jonah… Jonah didn’t like God’s plan so he spent a great deal of time whining about it… and then God’s plan happened anyway. And then there’s Solomon who was so obsessed with his own self interests, that he never bothered to ask YHWH what the plan even was.

Solomon’s desire for riches, power, and notoriety clouded his judgement. The world didn’t look like God’s kingdom… and as king and leader of Israel, Solomon was a big part of that problem.

Ecclesiastes 4:1-3

Again I looked, and I considered all the oppression taking place under the sun. I saw the tears of the oppressed, and they had no comforter; the power lay in the hands of their oppressors, and there was no comforter. So I admired the dead, who had already died, above the living, who are still alive. But better than both is he who has not yet existed, who has not seen the evil that is done under the sun. 

I don’t know for sure, but it might be that Solomon recognized his role as oppressor. He had all the power in the world… power to force people into slave labour, the power to tax the poor. He didn’t offer comfort. 

God gave him riches, but he wanted more riches… and he became an oppressor to gain it all. Solomon had everything he wanted… all the riches in the world… but he recognized that it really meant nothing:

Ecclesiastes 2:15-18

So I said to myself, “The fate of the fool will also befall me. What then have I gained by being wise?” And I said to myself that this is meaningless… For there is no lasting remembrance of the wise, and same with the fool; both will be forgotten in the days to come. Alas, the wise man will die just like the fool! So I hated life, because the work that is done under the sun was grievous to me. For everything is meaningless and a pursuit of the wind. I hated all for which I had toiled under the sun, because I must leave it to the man who comes after me.

Solomon can’t take his wealth with him, so why did he devote so much of his life to the gathering of riches? Solomon’s upset because someone else will inherit his great wealth and they didn’t do a thing to deserve it.  Then he says:

Ecclesiastes 7:23

I tested all this with wisdom, and I said, “I will be wise,” but wisdom was far from me.

There it is… confession time. Solomon recognized that he wasn’t the wise-guy he had hoped to become. 

Solomon’s ego overshadowed the wisdom he received from God… in fact, it swallowed his wisdom up. 

All his choices became ego driven… at the expense of the world around him… constantly searching for more wealth, more power, more notoriety. And at the end, he was left with nothing but a handful of idols… because he forgot the promise: that real joy and beauty and wealth comes at the moment we reunite with God in Paradise.

In the 8th chapter of Ecclesiastes Solomon lamented that those who were righteous seemed to suffer, whereas the wicked prospered. So his conclusion was this:

Ecclesiastes 8:15

So I commended pleasure, for there is nothing good for a person under the sun except to eat, drink, and be joyful…

As a whole, life is unfair. It is no picnic!… but that doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy a good picnic when we’re blessed with one! Right?!  And yes, we should enjoy the good things in life, but Solomon took it a step too far. He wanted to party now because he felt there was nothing else to live for:

Ecclesiastes 3:19-20

For the fate of the sons of mankind and the fate of animals is the same. As one dies, so dies the other; indeed, they all have the same breath. And there is no advantage for mankind over animals, for all is futility. All go to the same place. All came from the dust and all return to the dust.  

What is he saying?… We’re going to die like animals, just like everyone else… so the tedious exercise of being good, and wise, and righteous is all pointless. There’s one fate for everyone… the wicked and the righteous, so why bother being righteous at all? 

Really? Is this what the Bible teaches us? What did Solomon’s father, David, say to God:

Psalm 16:10

[David:] For You will not abandon my soul to Sheol; You will not allow Your Holy One to undergo decay. 

Psalm 30:3

[David:] YHWH, You have brought up my soul from Sheol; You have kept me alive, that I would not go down to the pit. 

The prophet Hosea recorded YHWH’s words, saying:

Hosea 13:14a

[YHWH:] I will ransom them from the power of Sheol; I will redeem them from Death. Where, O Death, are your plagues? Where, O Sheol, is your sting?

Solomon thought he had nothing to look forward to… life was like a wisp of smoke: we all just die and fade away… but what he failed to remember was that we can look forward to true riches when we see the face of God. The righteous will see His face in Paradise because they are truly reflecting Him. Listen again to the words of David. He said…

Psalm 11:7

[David:] For YHWH is righteous [tsadiq], He loves righteousness [ts’daqoht]; the upright will see His face.

Yep, we all die. We all have an expiration date in this lifetime. But unlike Solomon’s statement: “there is one fate for everyone”, we know that there is a good end to our story.  There is a beautiful reunion that awaits us!

There is joy in this world, to be had! And yes, there is a greater joy to come, when we go to the next life, walking in the Garden with God… but there is much good to be done here and now, first and foremost. Find the beauty in the world, smell the roses, eat meals with your loved ones. We’re off to a picnic after this… rain or shine, that is a joyful human endeavour! God delights in seeing us break bread together! Sharing a meal. Having fellowship! Living joyfully. We’re made to share joy, find the goodness, shine our light in the darkness. Be glimmers of hope and happiness.

Life. Is it all meaningless? No! We’re here for a purpose! To show the world what life looks like in God’s Kingdom. It is our goal… our purpose!

Listen, regardless of what you’ve been taught, the Bible is not a document of God’s good and righteous men. It’s a document outlining the very damaged human beings that God promised to save. We should see ourselves in these people, including Solomon, flaws and all… and then recognize the beauty of the story, that God wants to save us anyway. Despite all our faults, He still wants to save us. At the end of Ecclesiastes we read this:

Ecclesiastes 12:13-14

The conclusion, when everything has been heard, is: fear God and keep His commandments, because this applies to every person. For God will bring every act to judgment, everything which is hidden, whether it is good or evil. 

God is in control so stop trying to control your life to the umph degree. There is freedom in the statement, “letting go, letting God”. Solomon’s statement that, “all is futile/meaningless/empty” sounds harsh to our ears. And it is… because there is meaning. There is a purpose to your life. Here’s what we can learn from Solomon. He teaches us a lot of what NOT to do:

• Don’t strive after human desires: wealth, sex, consumerism, power… it is a meaningless pursuit of the mundane. This was the path that Solomon took and it failed him.
• Don’t blatantly disobey God’s commandments. Solomon did the very things that kings were not supposed to do! And so he failed to be a righteous king.
• Don’t squander away your God-given gifts. Use them, nurture them, encourage them to grow. Solomon was given the gift of wisdom, but he threw it away and turned to paganism
• Don’t abandon your prayer life. Have a conversation with your Creator; at the very least He deserves a bit of your time and effort every day. Solomon forgot to go to God with his difficult questions and, instead, he made his own Gospel of Fatalism. In comparison, if you read the book of Job, he took every question directly to God in prayer… even the most difficult and accusatory questions… and God blessed him for it.

The book of Ecclesiastes, in many ways, is very similar to the Book of Job. But that’s the difference: Job, who was highlighted as a righteous man, brought all his hard questions to God in prayer. In Ecclesiastes we just get a bunch of statements, said like they are hard truths: 

“Life is a meaningless drivel of endless work and then you die”. Full stop. 

Okay. Where is the conversation? Where is prayer? In the entire book of Ecclesiastes, Solomon never spoke directly to God. There is no prayer anywhere in Ecclesiastes. If you’re going to learn anything from Solomon’s story, it should be this: Communicate with God. 

Pray. And ask the hard questions! Recognize that you are challenged by these questions… and then have that difficult conversation with God. Have I lived my whole life just to die? What is the point of my existence? God wants to wrestle with these questions alongside you! He wants you to be passionate about life… fight for it! Challenge God. Ask questions. Some of the greatest pray’ers in the Bible were people crying to God saying, “Why God? Why?” 

Don’t ignore these questions in your head. These are human questions and God wants to walk through the challenges with you! Prayer is a conversation with your Creator… and He aches to hear your voice. Don’t shut Him out.

Life is not defined by all the meaningless stuff that happens in it… it is defined by the great joy in reveling in all the goodness God has given us. The sky. The sea. The kind-hearted family and friends we are blessed with… A kitten. A raindrop. A rainbow. A firefly. A snapdragon. 

A chocolate chip cookie. We should rejoice in the simple, delightful, gifts we’ve been given?! But here’s the thing… how can we have been gifted all of these wonderful things and yet never have a conversation with the Gift-Giver?

When Solomon stopped praying he forgot who YHWH was… the God of Life and Living. Death is not the end and life is not meaningless. But life IS a little out of our control… and that’s okay when you accept the fact that God is in control so that you don’t have to be.

Life can be “futile” when all you’re doing is obsessively striving for control. Solomon is a lesson for all of us. Without God, even the wisest, the richest and the mightiest fall flat. We weren’t made to feed our egos, we were made to nourish others, help them grow and flourish, sharing God’s love to the world. Setting the table and inviting the whole world to the feast! 

We read a lot of “don’ts” but here’s what we should do:

• DO… TRUST that God has your best interest at heart!

Did you know that Jesus referenced Solomon? When talking about worrying Jesus said:

Matthew 6:28-30, 33

“And why are you worried about clothing? Notice how the lilies of the field grow; they do not labour nor do they spin thread for cloth, yet I say to you that not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, will He not much more clothe you? You of little faith!”

“…Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be provided to you.”

Solomon was all about wealth and opulence, but God’s creation is much more elaborate than anything Solomon could make or buy. So why do we put such an effort in consumption and the striving for earthly goods? Instead, seek God’s kingdom; emulate His righteousness (His right-relationships) and the goodness of His kingdom will come to you.

Should we be hard on Solomon? Maybe. When you take a public role, you should expect public scrutiny.  Solomon was a glaring example of a human who didn’t live up to his God-given potential. God gave him everything but he gave very little back to God. He was supposed to have a right-relationship with the God who gave him everything. Instead he blatantly disobeyed God’s commandments and turned to paganism. 

But here’s the thing: have we lived up to our God-given potential? Can we judge Solomon? Yep. Should we judge Solomon?… probably not.

Solomon was as human as you and me. We won’t ever have the kind of earthly riches Solomon did, but do we give God the credit for anything we have? Are we better than Solomon? Do we have a right and good relationship with God, with our fellow humans, with the planet? Have we followed God’s commandments to the letter? 

It’s easy for us to point our fingers at Solomon as an unrighteous man, but why do you think God wanted his story to be in our Bibles?  And why is this hard, kind of depressing, philosophical book that we call Ecclesiastes in our Bibles? 

This book forces us to point the finger, not at Solomon, but at ourselves. Ecclesiastes does us a favour. It compels us to address some hard questions. Maybe you yourself are grumpy, bitter, and depressed… and you can relate to Jonah, and Job, and Solomon. Maybe you’ve asked yourself: 

What’s the point of my life? Why do bad people seem to live a better life than myself? What do I get for working hard all my life… because it seems like I don’t have much of anything after all this hard work. What’s the point?

The point isn’t to gain riches, or notoriety, or to become wiser than anyone else… it’s to live with kindness, and integrity, and love, and compassion… despite our own troubles… and to reflect God’s character on this planet and everything in it. Simple.

Be the face of God this world needs to see. 

Listen, the writer of Ecclesiastes wasn’t completely wrong… you can be super righteous and yet still suffer. Job was a testament to that. Life is tough. Life can be brutal. And life can be unfair. But we shouldn’t live life in fear of suffering or failure. We have to live life in the midst of suffering and failure… and yet still reflect God’s goodness and mercy to others.  It’s our calling to be a light in dark places, when all other lights go out (to quote Galadriel from Lord of the Rings). Suffering in this world is inevitable… but there is a beautiful end, when God will provide everything for us.

So yes, be righteous, be wise, even when it feels like all the work gets you nowhere… because there is a reward waiting for us. It might not be in this lifetime, but it will certainly be in the next.

Next week: HIDE!