can i believe you when you say i'm good

i didn't need to when i wished you would

A sermon on the 7th chapter of Ecclesiastes:

Ecclesiastes, the book today’s passage comes from, is a hard-nosed pursuit of wisdom distilled down to its very essence. And after a few weeks with the Quester, we’ve got to hand it to the guy, he’s up to the task. Isn’t he?Ecclesiastes isn’t afraid of an unpleasant observation. It doesn’t blanch in the face of a disagreeable facts. And it’s not about shrink from making a difficult verdict, either.

This book is willing to follow an argument all the way to its bitter end. But, in the end, here in today’s passage, what does the Quester discover for all his trouble? Does he come to one grand unifying theory of everything? Does he learn the great secret of it all? Or, does he, at least, come to one single certainty he can hang his hat on?

…No, he doesn’t! Does he?!? On the contrary, at the end, the Quester doesn’t learn anything! Well, that’s not right, exactly. The Quester does learn something. But it’s not a logical something. 

No, it’s a personal something! Ultimately, all the Quester discovers is his own breaking point! Wisdom, that power the Quester has plied on anything he can lay eyes on, only shows the Quester the limit of this power! Wisdom, finally, just proves to be incomprehensible! 

In the final analysis, the Quester only learns that the answers are beyond him! They’re too deep to get to the bottom of! And trying only leads to its opposite, madness! Apparently, the only conclusion to draw here is our own. Our own.

Don’t sleep on this insight, though! After all, consider Socrates! That’s all Socrates wanted to figure out. Socrates said he just wanted to learn what he didn’t know. And we say Socrates was one of the wisest people who ever lived! Don’t we?

Truthfully, you can go a long way if you're willing to figure out what you don’t know. First of all, you can learn a lot if you’ll just say “I don’t know.” Secondly, you’ll have a jump on all those people trying to force reality into how they think it ought to go! It’s as Luther said: The world runs on opinions. GOD rules by reality! 

That’s a helpful little quip, too. Isn’t it? The fact is, you don’t have to be a philosophy professor to understand Ecclesiastes. No, life will teach you this lesson all by itself. And if we’re honest, we’re enrolled in this school of hard knocks way more often than we wish.

For instance, the ancient Greek’s mined this canard for all its worth. The Greek tragedy is all about the paradox that the more you pursue something the further you get from it. It’s like Shakespeare’s Scottish Play, Macbeth. Isn’t it? Macbeth thought he could fulfill, and even subvert, the witches’ prophecy. Ultimately, though, Macbeth’s efforts only lead to his own downfall. It was Macbeth himself who put into motion the events the witches foretold!

Fittingly, the speech Macbeth gives after he learns Lady Macbeth has died of guilt, has similarities with Ecclesiastes. Tired of the constant plotting, Macbeth gives that “Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow” soliloquy. Tell me this doesn’t sound like something the Quester might say:

“Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, 

Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,

To the last syllable of recorded time; -

and all our yesterdays have lighted fools

The way to dusty death. - Out, out, brief candle!

Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player,

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, 

And then is heard no more. - It is a tale,

told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, 

Signifying nothing.”

…Of course, it goes without saying that you don’t have to be a character in a Shakespeare play to bear this out either. Do you? And you don’t have to be as morose or eloquent, either. No, sadly, we’re all still rehearsing this same, tragic tale. Yes, it often happens in smaller ways. But this by no means makes it’s any less upsetting. 

Speaking for myself, when I was in high school, I decided all this religion stuff was for the birds. I was tired of being told what I could and couldn’t do. So, once I didn’t have to go to church, I resolved I wasn’t going to anymore. And when I got to college, that’s exactly what I did. 

But you know what? I didn’t find much of that freedom I was so eager to get my hands on. On the contrary, I found its opposite. It wasn’t long before all that so-called fun stopped being much fun. The thing, though, was that I didn’t have anywhere else to turn. Those cheap approximations of good time were all I had. And it didn’t take long for it all to turn into a pretty bad time.

I bet you know what I’m talking about, too. Sure, the details may be different. But the outcome isn’t. Is it? We all have some place in our life where we’re the ones working against ourselves! We’re all our own worst enemy where it really matters. 

It’s like that Amy Mann song, “Save Me.” In the song, she sings of wanting to be saved from the ranks of the freaks who suspect they could never love anyone. But then, as the song goes on, it’s clear she’s one of those wrecks. And the twist comes when Amy adds an line to the refrain. 

Amy sings she doesn’t just need to be saved from the ranks of the freaks who suspect they could never love anyone. She needs to be saved from the ranks of the freaks who suspect they could never love anyone except the freaks who could never love anyone! It’s not other people Amy needs to be saved from! It’s herself! Amy needs to be rescued from her own destructive desires.

But it’s not just in love and war that this dynamic plays out, either. Is it? It happens in humdrum ways, too. A while ago, a few of us read the book Seculosity. The author’s contention is that our day and age isn’t less religious. It’s actually the more religious! Now, though, instead of being religious about God we’re religious about everything else! And without God, we’re very religious about it all!

This is why health, career, politics, sports, entertainment, and even hobbies have all become so blasted heated! Now we expect health to protect us, careers to give us meaning, politics to cure the world, entertainment to tell our deepest stories, sports to form our character, and hobbies to satisfy us, too! Is it any wonder it’s not working?!? It’s all just too much! Isn’t it? Of course we feel less safe, rooted, civil, understood, grounded, and relieved than ever! Heck, an objective observer might think we’re intentionally trying to sabotage ourselves!

…But we’re not. Are we? No, it always comes as a surprise to learn that we’re the ones tripping ourselves up! And this is never a pleasant discovery, either.

You know what, though? It is information. And it’s valuable information, too! In fact, it’s nothing less than a introduction to faith itself! The unpleasant realization that we’re our own greatest liability is where we learn to cling to the greatest creditor there is, the Lord, the Almighty!

We’re so cowed by Ecclesiastes’ blunt assessments, that we stop listening. But don’t mistake honest advice for cruelty. The truth is, the beautiful illusion is much more painful than the clear-eyed advice. It’s like that Van Morrison song. You know Van Morrison, “Brown Eyed Girl.” 

But I’m not talking about “Brown Eyed Girl,” I’m referring to a more obscure song, “Wonderful Remark.” But trust me, “Wonderful Remark” is just as good as “Brown Eyed Girl.” It might be better, even!

“Wonderful Remark,” fittingly, was recorded for the Martin Scorsese film The King of Comedy. The King of Comedy features Robert De Niro, and it’s all about the blurring of reality with entertainment. And the song “Wonderful Remark,” as you might expect from a Scorsese film, is just perfect for the subject matter.

Wonderful Remark is about the painful aftermath of believing those beautiful fantasies. The narrator laments, “How can you tell us something / just to keep us hanging on? / Something that just don’t mean nothing. / When we see it you are gone.”

Yes, those airbrushed depictions of the easy life always look good. But when reality is stark, those fabrications only make the facts that much harder to bear! Ecclesiastes isn’t depressing! No, it’s a steadfast refusal to indulge those convenient lies that only leave you more depressed every time!

…Let’s be honest, compared to what we’re usually offered, square-shooting is pretty darn good. Isn’t it? But you know what? That’s not all Ecclesiastes has to offer you! 

Remember, this is holy writ! This book didn’t get included in the Bible because it’s so candid! No, you don’t need God for that. Although, it doesn’t hurt. Nevertheless, the Greek’s didn’t need anything more than everyday disappointment to perfect cynical philosophy. 

No, Ecclesiastes was added to the canon because there was a conviction that this book had more to offer! And it most certainly did! After all, Exodus is all about God saving the Israelites from something as awful as slavery. But it was when God Thyself became human and entered this rough and tumble ol’ world that Ecclesiastes really began to sing!

We want to fix up reality because we think we’ve got to be the ones to get ourselves through. And this is how human religion always works, too. Human religion tries to get to God. Human religion takes the ordinary, like health, career, politics, sports, entertainment, and even hobbies and tries to make it extraordinary, like suffusing it with the power to give the good life.

However, that’s all just a bunch of smoke that the Quester warns you about! It’s a scheme! And like all schemes, it doesn’t work! It’s futile! It’s vanity! It’s smoke! 

And it’s not about to start working now, either! As Luther said, if the climbing our way to heaven would have ever worked, it would have worked by now. Moses and Ten Commandments would have been enough. But they’re not. Are they? And adding a bunch of new commandments, like health, career, politics, sports, entertainment, and even hobbies isn’t going to improve our chances, either! Odd are, they’ll just make life harder!

…But you know what? Now that you’re at that place all our schemes try to avoid, the ashes of all those vanity projects out there, you’re right where real faith really begins! Now that you’re losing faith in those pretend gods, you might be ready to place your trust in the real one! And he’s not about to let you down, either!
In fact, when Jesus turned the tables at the temple, his disciples remembered that old psalm: “Zeal for your house will consume me.” Jesus, you understand, lets himself become your offering! And he’s completely burned up by his red hot passion for you, too! That means, hiding in the smoke of all your charred plans, is the one who will save you from the never-ending fire, come hades or high water!

Jesus, he takes your self-salvation scheme, and he turns it on its head! Jesus goes to you! He brings his finish line to you! In Christ, you don’t have to get to God! No, in Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit, God comes to you! Salvation is God’s one-way love! Salvation is God’s one-way love.

Not only are all those attempts to rescue yourself futile, they’re also utterly unnecessary! When Christ became the offering, your salvation was paid in full! Your life isn’t a problem to solve. It’s a mystery!

But, like all good mysteries, and make no mistake, in Christ, your life is the best kind of mystery there is! The mystery of your life isn’t riddle! It’s a romp! You’re life is a mystery as thrilling as falling in love, as meaningful as friendship, and as sacred as a song! And in Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, it’s all yours! 

Christ is the inversion of your tragedy! Instead of seeking glory and ending in despair, Christ meets you in your calamity! He becomes it even! And in doing so, he blows it to pieces!

But that explosion rebuilds! In Christ’s body broken for you, you are put back together! And in Christ’s blood shed for you, you are filled back up! In your baptism, you died. But in that death, you began to live! And live in Christ, no less! With God, what begins in disappointment, ends with triumph! 

Christ is the end of all our disastrous manmade religion! And he’s the beginning of true worship! And that always starts with faith! And faith only ever begins at the end of your rope!

God takes what is extraordinary, like, oh, I don’t know, salvation itself, and in Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit, brings it to bear upon the ordinary, like real life, like right here, like *right now, like you! Let me say it again: Salvation is God’s one-way love! Salvation is God’s one-way love.

…In Christ, God goes to you. In the Holy Spirit, God saves you! In the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the Quester’s unsentimental look at reality is simply the description of where God meets you! This life, with all it’s tough breaks, is just the staging ground for redemption! 

And now that you have all that, you don’t have to make reality any better! No, you already have it all! And you even have eternity, too! But best of all, it all begins right *now! 

God is moving heaven and earth to transform your tragedy into his eternal triumph! This is as good as it gets! Better even! So let’s not try to do something futile, like improve perfection. That can’t be dome!

Instead, let’s just add our voices to that great chorus praising God’s never-ending goodness! Our Hymn of the Day is hymn number 636, How Small Our Span of Life. Hymn number 636, How Small Our Span of Life. Let’s sing!

How Small Our Span of Life, ELW 636