The Trouble Is…

This is the evil in everything that happens under the sun:  The same destiny overtakes all.  The hearts of men, moreover, are full of evil and there is madness in their hearts while they live, and afterward they join the dead.  Anyone who is among the living has hope—even a live dog is better off than a dead lion!

For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing; they have no further reward, and even the memory of them is forgotten.  Their love, their hate and their jealousy have long since vanished; never again will they have a part in anything that happens under the sun.  Ecclesiastes 9:3-6.

 

I grew up memorizing verse 5 because my denomination believed in soul sleep or unawareness in death’s state.  Since then I’ve puzzled over the two or three basic interpretations of this passage in conjunction with others that seem to say the exact opposite.  I’ve concluded I just don’t have any definitive answers as to what happens to the dead once they die.  What the state of the dead is, as in where their spirits/souls go at death, we only have clues but no concrete enough evidence for a verdict.  I know, I know, there are plenty of stories about people who have had visions of heaven on the operating table but these stories could be based on chemical or a dying brain’s hallucinations fed by preconceptions.  I’ve also met and heard of people who have had visions or dreams, which could be inspired by desire more than actual visions.  I’m not cynical just merely pointing out the human capacity to interpret experience as fact even when it’s illusion.

So here’s my take on it and you can do what you will with it:  I don’t necessarily buy into purgatory but I do believe the soul goes back to God who gave it.  I also believe that the dead are barred from contacting the living again because of two passages, Isaiah 8:19-22 and Luke 16:31.  The first passage talks about consulting mediums, spiritists and witches to contact the dead, which in our modern setting is equivalent to a séance or psychic.  The second comes from the story of Lazarus and the Rich Man where the rich man begs Abraham to send someone from the dead to warn his brothers about his suffering.  Abraham refuses and tells him, “If they won’t listen to Moses and prophets, they won’t listen even if one comes back from the dead.”  Jesus gave them clues they missed because when He was resurrected they displayed their firm disbelief—or you could call it rebellion—by claiming the disciples stole His body while the soldiers slept.  They refused to believe even when One came back from the dead.

What I get out of these is that death is a final goodbye to being involved in everything done under the sun.  At this point in my Christian journey I worry very little about the state of the dead, the afterlife or rewards and punishments.  I do have my opinions, obviously, but I’m not worried about being right about them since I know the rules above are universal.  Yet all that said I believe what matters most about our reward in eternity is how we live right now between birth and death.  I don’t believe God worries as much about all our victories and defeats as He does the continuous trend which dominates the journey while we live.

I like Solomon’s conclusion in every point he makes, since his emphasis pushes the idea that eternity is in God’s hands so what we do now is what matters.  None of us knows what comes next really.  Oh we can claim we know by faith, which is a valid argument to me, but actual factual (that rhymed) knowledge is non-existent.  I was growing up with the view that if I didn’t have all my facts straight before I died or Jesus comes, my salvation would be in question.  Then I realized the very people teaching me this “fact” worried about whether they had their facts straight all the time.  Some flat out didn’t include all the evidence available to draw the conclusion they preached.  That last issue disturbed me.

I am now at a point where I allow myself to care about truth but don’t worry about my grasp of it as much, since I know I don’t have all my facts straight anyway.  Paul and the rest of the apostles claimed we were growing in our knowledge of Jesus and the truth of the gospel.  I take it from this none of us have our ducks in a row where truth is concerned—even them.  Growth implies immaturity or a need to become, so if the apostles were growing, what can I expect for myself or others?  Getting all the facts lined up doesn’t mean anything if we sequence them wrong.

I want to explore this a little more so bear with me please.  I watched a movie years ago (and own it now) where a scientist was working on a formula for renewable energy based on cold fusion.  The protagonist in the story wondered why she hadn’t published her findings and she said, “I have to work out the sequence first.”  The formula was intact but the sequence made a difference.  As far as I can see the truth about our dominant characteristic, humanity barely gets their facts complete before they draw conclusions about what they mean.  This is dangerous because then we have a Galileo problem on our hands all over again.  You know the problem?  Galileo discovers the sun doesn’t really move around us but we move around the sun yet the opinions based on the known facts of the day put his life in jeopardy to the point where he has to retract his claims.

He was right of course and the people threatening him were dead wrong.  Those who fight against truth are…?

Most of us wouldn’t consider ourselves evil because of the connotation we put on the word.  Our interpretation of it comes from extreme examples such as Hitler, Genghis Khan, Ted Bundy, or pick your favorite example from history and modern times we would all agree committed great crimes.  The Bible calls anything outside the character of God evil, which means that Adam and Eve became evil the moment they ate the fruit.  This doesn’t imply they were mass murderers or heinous people (though through their one act of disobedience they guaranteed the death of everyone) rather it signifies a departure from the character of God.

One of my favorite sayings follows Solomon’s assertion about madness above:  The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results.  Humanity keeps attempting to solve its problems by dent of human effort, planning or philosophy.  Oddly enough (insert sarcasm here), history has never demonstrated a period where their efforts, planning or philosophy actually worked but we keep trying.

This is madness.

Humanity is basically insane with ignorance, superstition and pride.  Our ignorance remains in spite of the leaps in knowledge we have made over the last century.  We struggle with panic attacks in our collective psyche because we are ignorant of the outcome.  We have a few facts for example about climate change yet without an historical precedent we don’t really know what they mean.  Every scientist I’ve listened to recently gives the disclaimer “This is our best guess” about the facts they have uncovered.  This should inform the rest of us that they are making educated guesses from the facts based on their ability to assess them not from conclusive historical or even empirical evidence.  The heated arguments over what the facts mean dominate our public forum.  Very few voices are reasoning for a moderate approach—that of taking care of pollution while not being paranoid about it.

Again, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results.  I celebrate the increases of knowledge and understanding but I see our inability to deal with our ignorance as a liability.  Circumspection is a good way to live.  Surrounding ourselves with as much perspective as possible allows us to see the facts differently while at the same time giving us the freedom to forgo conclusions which might be more harmful than helpful.

Humanity in general is mad—in every sense of that word.  We are angry about our ignorance, helplessness against the elements, state of being and general luck of the draw.  We resent being out of the loop, relegated to the fallible, stumbling, and often times devastating efforts on our part to solve our problems.  Death is a cold comfort for most, while a few welcome it with open arms.  Yet even those who welcome it do so in ignorance, thinking death as a better alternative to their life on earth.  That’s not guaranteed.

All this is to say, in my opinion there is no solution but God alone through Jesus Christ.  All other solutions might be part of God’s method but without Him to guide our efforts we are going to blow ourselves up.

The Great Equalizer

So I reflected on all this and concluded that the righteous and the wise and what they do are in God’s hands, but no man knows whether love or hate awaits him.  All share a common destiny—the righteous and wicked, the good and the bad, the clean and the unclean, those who offer sacrifices and those who do not.  As it is with the good man, so with the sinner; as it is with those who take oaths, so with those who are afraid to take them.  Ecclesiastes 9:1, 2.

 

After nursing school and a stent in Alaska working in an alcohol center’s detox unit, I ended up as a nurse assistant between the spring and fall quarters at college.  During my tenure there I met a man who, from all accounts, had been one of the most influential and well-to-do men in the area.  I don’t recall his name because, you know, he was a patient and it’s been 30 years or more, but what I do remember is he was dying a slow painful death from prostate cancer.  As a nursing assistant they would assign me a wing or set number of rooms to take care of and I’d be pretty busy keeping up with all the patients.  Even so, there would be lulls in the craziness where I could go talk to my friend/patient for a while.

As I got to know him I found out he was a believer.  This set us up for many cool, thoughtful discussions.  The day before he died he asked me to read Scripture to him.  I chose Psalm 71 since it spoke to old age and death a bit with hope.  I watched as the words washed over him bringing peace in his physical agony.  The next day he died and for the next month or more I chewed on the significance of a life lived well.

In the end it really doesn’t matter who we’ve been or how brilliant our career, life or family connections were, death takes us all.  The great disaster among the greatest disasters of all time levels the playing field to the point of dust.  I mean, we hear this pretty much all our lives without probably taking it in.  Until, of course, someone close to us dies or we face death ourselves, then life takes on a whole new meaning and value.  My friend/patient spent all his money on a cure, then, once the cure failed, the rest of his money went to the health support system to ease his pain while he died.  Everything he worked for came down to spending it on his death in the end.

Solomon calls death’s equalizing effect a great evil.  In a sense it definitely is, on the other hand, I’m kind of glad death sets limits on us.  Think of it:  what if some of the most despotic rulers lived eternally?  What would the world be like if they had been able to not only continue in their power grab but had no end in sight for their rule?  At the same time, many good people who blessed the world with their wisdom, kindness, generosity and good example also died.  Almost everybody agrees that evil people should die but good people?  It seems a shame.

We humans enjoy being self-actualizing beings.  As wacky as it sounds on paper (or in this case a blog entry in cyberspace) even the more righteous among us love self-determination.  Weird isn’t it?  We say we believe in a God who set the limits of the heavens and boundaries around our lives all the while taking the reigns of life’s horse by worry, anxiety and often just pushing our way through the crowds to whatever we call success.  All our accomplishments will be forgotten as likely as not before one generation past us dies out, yet we still fight to make a mark.

Working to be remembered is good, I believe.  The entire law and history in the Bible stories tells of men and women who will be remembered.  David grew humbled and thankful when God told him his line would be remembered for not only his deeds but those of future generations in his line.  While I’m sure most of us in America barely grasp the significance of that experience, we do however get the need to be known, recognized and canonized in history.  A Jew of David’s era found his or her identity in their nationality, customs and family traits.  David’s progeny took their identity and pride of heritage from Israel’s greatest king—him—as a means of value, claim to power and generally their relationship to others in the world at large.

Yet David died, so all we have now are stories. Nothing remains of his possessions and even the stories get garbled or distorted as we project our modern grasp of life onto the past.  His historical value continues to be contemplated in books, articles, documentaries and movies, each of these, in turn, adding myth to the legend.

Death, the equalizer, leaves us with only one perfect memory, God’s.  I think this is why Jesus taught so fiercely about seeking God’s will, opinion and perspective over other people’s viewpoints.  If I’m concerned with God’s view of me over all the others, my decisions will reflect it; how I live will reflect it.  Jesus came to bring reconciliation between God and mankind, and then to have that peace overflow to humanity.  The world is not a peaceful place as of this writing, to my knowledge.  The sheer hate demonstrated by people of different faiths, ethnicities and tribes is still very evident and clear.  I don’t think I will see peace in the world in my lifetime unless Jesus comes back to take over.

But, no matter.  The truth of death’s great leveling agent cannot be denied.  If we believe in God, a god or just mankind as an accident of evolution, we are all in the same situation:  we will all die.

So, what do we do with this fact?

Frankly, not much besides use it to inspire us to live.  What we do between birth and death, however, can make the difference for those who come after us as well as our own lives.  Here’s the deal breaker for me:  Life isn’t about birth or death, it’s about what we do with ourselves while we breathe.  What happens between the lines is often more important than the lines themselves, you know what I mean?

When Solomon declares there is nothing more that a person can do but to eat, drink and enjoy one’s life while we got it, I think he establishes another pure fact of God’s design.  I know, I know, Evangelical Christianity constantly harps on the verses which declare we must glorify God, but that’s just it—everything I am and do can be a part of that process—especially my happiness.

A Happy Recommendation

So I commend the enjoyment of life, because nothing is better for a man under the sun than to eat and drink and be glad.  Then joy will accompany him in his work all the days of the life God has given him under the sun.  Ecclesiastes 8:15.

Reading this for the first time my reaction was different than it is today.  In the beginning, when I was a young man and fledgling Christian, my take on everything filtered through the heroic stories of martyrs, missionaries and sacrifice for God.  I wanted to be one of those heroes, ignoring whatever didn’t seem to support “self-denial”.

Time passes and either we become more entrenched in our beliefs or we adjust to the reality around us.  I’m attempting to do the latter while holding onto certain ideals of the former from Scripture which I believe are true, albeit holding them lightly since I know my interpretation of the facts could be skewed by bias undetected.  I’ve come to understand self-denial differently for one thing.  The underlying teaching we are to be unhappy here so that we can experience the joy of eternity has lost its grip on me because I see God differently now.  Where before I interpreted Solomon’s words as earthly (Christian catch-word meaning sin-infected or base) and lacking the message of Jesus, I now understand Scripture through the eyes of my Master a little better, which is to say He taught this happiness stuff too in a clarifying way.

The idea that suffering for Christ is somehow more worthy than being happy in Him has been steadily growing silly to me.  I know, I know, the preachers of all stripes teach us there’s a difference between joy and happiness…but there really isn’t.  Where the problem lies with us is our sinful nature not the mores of God.  In the beginning He created us to be happy, productive and to live a long time, we are the ones who messed this up and lost track of His intentions.  Where we go wrong is narcissism, selfish ambition and a host of other things we would rather do than conform to the Author and Finisher of our faith.  Now this is not to say we hate God, rather our self-absorption gets in the way of being our true selves.

For instance there is absolutely nothing wrong with being good in business, making lots of money, living a comfortable life, and being happy.  Where this style of living becomes harmful is when we come to the belief we are somehow the author of all of it rather than the recipient of God’s bounty.  Then there’s the problem of attitude, where we come to the belief we are somehow deserving of all the bounty.  And, when we take into account Solomon’s pretty sobering pronouncement that the race is not to the swift, the battle to the strong, nor does wealth come to the brilliant or favor to the learned or food to the wise but time and chance happen to them all, the reality of our place takes the edge off any form of conceit.  It’s the luck of the draw or, rather, life hasn’t accosted some folks same way because they were—by chance of circumstance or choice—out of the way when the wind of change came around.

Solomon is an example of what wealth, power, and wisdom gone awry does to us.  He wasn’t necessarily more evil than other people or weaker in certain areas than everybody else.  No, what happened is he gave into evil by degrees until his wisdom did him no good.  I believe Ecclesiastes is his attempt to shed light on hard lessons learned.  The book becomes a confession of what lead to his own downfall, though not one of self-revelation, his rhetoric here reveals what wisdom can and cannot do for a person submitted to it.

This is the most compelling point he makes to me, because, let’s be honest, it appeals to my missionary/martyrdom conditioning:  Even if we are poor and have barely anything to speak of, happiness can be an option if we keep it simple and decide to be satisfied with the essentials.  The recognition that wealth and power are fleeting or tenuously held at best, can comfort those blessed with one or both by helping them live in contentment.

The recommendation in our text above declares happiness to be a state of being rather than the cause or effect of circumstances; a choice.  I don’t believe Solomon is talking about all circumstances or every situation because he does say just a few verses prior that oppression can weigh heavily on people.  I do accept, however, a person can live in such an attitude of happy contentedness with what he or she has instead of being discontented with what isn’t.  I might be wrong but I believe the message of Matthew 6:25-34 or Luke 12:22-34 at their essence speaks to this principle Solomon espouses.

In my short life I’ve met people representing all spectrums of human strata.  I’ve met wealthy people who are happy or unhappy as well as the poverty stricken dominated by either state of mind.  Some people are happy in nature because that’s how they are wired, I get that, but some choose to find satisfaction in with what is in front of them.  Others of us struggle because of our “wish list” of things we think will fulfill us.

Let me speak to a couple of mine.

I am a romantic soul.

When you read the word “romance” what’s the first thing that comes to mind?  Love, marriage, hearts, flowers, kisses, etc?  Hmmm…then you don’t grasp the real concept of romanticism.  For instance, I read Huckleberry Finn nearly 10 times by the age of 12 or so.  Forget the lack of food, income or anything else, I wanted to float down the Mississippi River on a raft lost in the idyllic life of adventure.  So, when I say “romantic soul” understand it encompasses more than just love feelings for a woman.

How this works out is my perception of a music career.  I romanticized the rock n roll lifestyle to the point of putting it up on a pedestal with the belief that the only place I would ever be satisfied would be there.  I was wrong of course, in the process of growing up I found satisfaction in other places as well.  Yet (and this is a big addendum) I’ve experienced the musical stage and know it is about the only place I’ve ever felt at home.  Some of you might look at artists as odd and strange, which many of us are; but what you find uncomfortable is my comfort zone.  I have never felt as at home in the company of people until I began to hang out with other people who were creative in the arts.  For me it represents that life of floating down the river with Huck and Jim, free of the worries of politics, slavery, oppression and judgmental attitudes.

The other area of romanticism is marriage.  While I was married, I loved being married.  Yet it was a troubled union and not very fun to be with a woman who claimed she loved and liked me but did everything to undermine the man I am.  Still, even after that disaster, I put marriage up on a pedestal in my emotions.  Intellectually and spiritually I know real life is nothing like my imagined relationship, but my emotional/passionate side still hopes.

I guess what I’m driving at here is that happiness can be a state of being rather than tied conditionally to a situation or lifestyle.  I’m happy in a general way.  I don’t like being single—and in saying that I’m not advertising—but I’m still happy.  It’s been a condition of mine for years.  I’m not always in a good mood, joyful or even satisfied with things around or inside me, but I default to happiness—by choice if necessary.

We can’t do very little about the tide of human opinion, the political leanings or even the choices our spouse, children and extended family will make. However, we can choose to be content with our internal world, and at peace with God and mankind as far as it depends on us.  In this, I believe, is the source of all happiness.

Who Can Tell?

Since no man knows the future, who can tell him what is to come?  No man has power over the wind to contain it; so no one has power over the day of his death.  As no one is discharged in time of war, so wickedness will not release those who practice it.  Ecclesiastes 8:8.

 

The biggest revelation of Ecclesiastes for me is the concept of time and chance.  I know that might not resonate (I like that word today, it somehow fits my head space) with some of you but for me just the idea that every good or bad thing which happens is not somehow dictated to me through God’s control-freakish hand is a comfort.  The concept leaves room for improvisation (a musician’s creative dream) and options for a myriad of combinations.

Say there’s only eight options for everyone to choose from in any category.  The combinations are more than simply 8 x 8 since each choice can be combined with more than two options at a time.  In fact, one could arguably go with all eight at once.  This leaves the outcome open to a nuanced state of the equation.  For instance, if I combine six out of eight, the outcome will be different than with four, depending on the weight of the two added to the four.

Solomon explains the problem of predicting the future by bring up the wind as an illustration of the death clock.  No one understands what makes the wind so unpredictable; God’s “algorithms” are much more sophisticated than anything we’ve ever invented to date.  A person’s time of death is subject to past or present choices made either in innocence or contrivance that affect the now.  It is also subject to the whim of other people’s involvement in the now.  For instance if I eat too much raw meat, the chance of getting heart disease increases, though we can’t consider it a foregone conclusion.  I’ve known people who ate badly all their lives and barely struggled with their health yet also know of many who have done pretty much the same thing and died early.

Also the involvement of other people in our timeline dictates what may happen to us as well.  Say one of us gets in a fist fight with someone and that other person throws a right hook which breaks his or her neck, the day of the person’s natural death becomes trumped by the results of the fight.  What couldn’t have been expected happened.

Again, as a means of illustrating further the unpredictable nature of our lives (for us that is), he brings up the tenaciousness of wickedness as another example.  Now his declaration sounds like a prediction of the future but actually points to something else entirely.  What Solomon sees is a trend or well worn path which predicts a general outcome rather than a specific one. He mentions in a later verse that the wicked oftentimes receive in this life what the righteous deserve and visa versa.  The nature of time and chance dictate this “bad” outcome due to sin/wickedness being a part of the equation of the aforementioned time and chance.

In one of my earlier discussions about this subject I spoke of crossing the street and the choices which led up to doing it safely or being harmed by it.  In true Hebrew fashion Solomon revisits this factoid in order face deflect the human desire to know the future.  His conclusion is it can’t be known.  We need to get over it, accept it and move on.  Only God knows the future—because to Him it is the eternal now.  Even prophecy in Scripture doesn’t give any details only “headlines” as my mother likes to call them.  Without those details we all crave so much, we end up with far too many interpretations of these prophecies that it confuses everyone as to what Christians really believe.  I have no desire to go into all the differences on this subject.  Suffice it to say, I don’t know who’s right and I really don’t care.  If you read Revelation, Daniel, Ezekiel, Isaiah, Jeremiah or any other prophetic book you desire, you won’t get anything but the headlines and speculating on the details might be a fun exercise but any conclusion will be off.

Just like the Pharisees and other leaders of Israel in Jesus’ era, we get the specifics right but not the manifestation or the outcome.  When Jesus arrived, they recognized Him as a man of wisdom, knowledge and power, but rejected Him because He didn’t fit into their conclusions about the facts.  With either spiritually jaundiced or veiled eyes they tried to interpret the things of God and failed to accept the very one they looked for.

This taught me a lesson about my own understanding of Scripture:  no matter what I know, I can always grow; no matter what I think I understand, I must hold my perspective and conclusions loosely so that truth can do its work in me.  Bias is dangerous and out of line for those coming out of spiritual blindness.  Humility is the evidence of not only spiritual growth but sight.

There is a good reason we don’t know the future:  We can’t handle it.  We would try to change the outcome which is self-defeating because then our “changes” would make what we “know” about this future a lie, thus making our ability to change it suspect.

The “No Matter What” Part of Wisdom

For there is a proper time and procedure for every matter, though a man’s misery weighs heavily upon him.  Ecclesiastes 8:6.

 

In the place misery and hardship hit us the hardest and longest is where wisdom’s rubber meets the road.  It’s easy to be “wise” when we live in isolation (wise man or woman on a mountain somewhere in the Himalayas) or life is going so good with no disasters in sight; it’s quite another when tragedy strikes.  Wisdom often isn’t necessarily a given for those who have life going their way, rather its biggest impact is for the time when everything seems to be against us and we’re floundering.

The above text speaks to a person who sticks with a king though the decisions this leader makes create a bad atmosphere or go against all wisdom.  While a person is going through heartache or misery, they still have to live and cope with the world as they find it.  Not every situation allows for either a quick solution or any kind of mutually beneficial resolution.  What we know in retrospect is not what we know without experience.  Even the idea that somehow we should be able to know what only the experience of the now will teach is a fool’s paradise.  Hindsight always plays “what if” no matter what the circumstances faced.  The guilt we all feel when we can’t control the outcome may be palpable and real, yet unrealistic in the grand scheme of things.

Solomon points out that a king’s word is supreme (see why in my previous post) so fighting such power does no good.  Timing based on wisdom becomes the key here to knowing when to act and when to wait.  Yet this isn’t as easy as it sounds.  In my own lifetime I’ve seen bad decisions bring profit, flying in the face of history and all conventional logic.  And, if the truth be known, it wasn’t the decisions themselves which brought the profit but the luck of the draw—that old time and chance philosophy.  The scariest part, of course, is that those involved in the bad decision(s) declare the outcome as justification for continued bad choices, again defying all commonsense.

Some decisions, unfortunately, take a generation or so to see any returns on the investment.  Like in the case of Hezekiah with the Babylonian envoys who came to the Jerusalem to understand why their clocks (sundials) went backwards (read this story in Isaiah 38, 39).  His decision to show off his wealth instead of declaring God’s bounty and grace resulted in his country being a target for the Babylonian armies a few generations later.  What’s so disheartening about this story is his attitude of “at least it won’t happen in my lifetime.”

With this idea firmly in mind, it’s no wonder we see some pretty bad behavior from his successor and son, Manasseh, who is reputed to be one of the most wicked kings in Jewish history.  (His story is remarkable in that later he repented and turned back to God who restored him to the throne.)

We humans love to kick the can of consequences down the road for our immediate gratification.  For instance, no one in their right mind would declare the cars of yesteryear clean burning and non-polluting, which simply means what we are not able to breath and makes us sick if we take in too much of it (carbon monoxide) can’t be good our world.  Yet we hear people arguing that it hasn’t really affected the atmosphere.  Now I’m not a doomsday prophet or anything of that sort, I just believe in commonsense.  If we can’t stand behind a vehicle and breathe normally without getting either nauseous or passing out, then having a 100,000,000 of these things our roads going 24/7 has to do something.  Not to mention all the fuel burning in our fireplaces or keeping our electricity on.

I’m not in any way defending or decrying global warming fanatics, what I am saying is we can’t abuse our world without consequences of some sort.  I don’t know what effect all this pollution has on our planet, but it can’t be good.  Denying the harm is both silly and dangerous.  It takes thoughtful people to invent things like this, granted, but it also takes thoughtful people to build devices and machinery which operate safely and with environmental wisdom.  The wind farms all over the place displace wildlife and hurt birds; coal has already shown its toxic side; solar is awesome but it takes acres and acres of panels to equal just a small portion of what coal and water dams do easily.

Fiscally our country is kicking the can down the road, which will create a huge disaster for our children or theirs.  You can’t overspend and over borrow then expect to get off with a free pass.  And by saying this I’m definitely not defending the Republican viewpoint of the world nor will I condemn it.  In this matter of spiritual truth their view is fairly immaterial.

Jesus said, “Wisdom is justified by her deeds.”  And His wisdom is being proved out in the real world constantly.  A man who loves will continue to do without or without the permission of his king, family, friends or any other entity which holds power over his life.  And make no mistake, other people hold power over us whether we admit it or not.  Anyone in business can tell you how hard it is to get a start up off the ground.  The sacrifices are tremendous, the advantages very few in the beginning, and the pay off costly even in the long run.  If no one comes to a market to buy, the market will cease to exist, thus proving we cannot survive without one another.

A king is simply a man trusted to rule over the people he serves.  That last word is vital to understanding the best way to see power of any sort:  those in charge do so to serve others not themselves.  Unfortunately, too often those in power either live to please themselves or believe in some god-awful philosophy or ethic which makes them force their “good” down the throats of all—much of the time at the pain of death or confiscation of the “opposition’s” property.

Daniel advised Nebuchadnezzar; Joseph served under Pharaoh; Esther became the wife of the king of Persia…Time and again wisdom has been served by those who would not back away from the unpleasant, though it cost them dearly.  Those mentioned here are but a fraction of the biblical heroes and heroines who served God despite all odds.  They influenced Hebrew history because they stuck with their place instead of running away from the awful circumstances they found themselves in.  The message here is clear:  We cannot desert our nation, work, family or friends just because we find sinners there.

We are the salt of the earth.  What does salt do?  It flavors and preserves.  Wars have been fought over rights to salt; whole nations have been destroyed by other nations coveting their salt sources.  Jesus used this parable as an illustration to tell us how valuable we are and to stress that we are the flavor of God in the world set not only to make it palatable but to preserve it.  If the world loses the flavor of His love (which is the essence of His holiness), it will be destroyed as too evil to exist.  I believe this truth is one of the reasons holding back the winds of strife right now.  Many Christians somehow have come to believe they must create heaven on earth through earthly government but the fact is our very lives are salt which preserve the people of earth’s life.

So do not be in a hurry to leave the presence of those on earth, for according to our Master we are the reason it hasn’t been destroyed.  Don’t be in a hurry to leave an unpleasant situation for God can use us anywhere.  Be a light in a dark place.  It’s a waste of time to turn on a light in a well lighted room.  It’s much better to shine where the light will do more good.

Don’t Be In Such A Hurry To Walk Away

Do not be in a hurry to leave the king’s presence.  Do not stand up for a bad cause, for he will do whatever he pleases.  Ecclesiastes 8:3.

Solomon warns us not to be in a hurry to leave the presence of a ruler for they do as they please.  There are good reasons for this:  1) who will influence them differently if all they have around them are “yes” men and women?  2) What if this particular ruler is different and truly needs our perspective to make a wise decision?   3)  What if the only voice of reason is yours?

We can’t guarantee our influence or the outcome, but if we quit the game, we lose by default.  If we continue playing the game, we might lose anyway but at least we put in our best effort.  I personally don’t want to live with the former as a memory over the latter because on my death bed I want to know I did my best to live for what I believed in.  We who follow Jesus know the Way to Life.  If we refuse to live in the world and participate as a part of its journey, we refuse to be the salt and light our Master told us we should be.  Our witness is not about preaching with words but living examples of righteousness, kindness and truth.

            Whoever obeys his command will come to no harm, and the wise heart will know the proper time and procedure.  For there is a proper time and procedure for every matter, though a man’s misery weighs heavily upon him.  Ecclesiastes 8:5, 6.

What does this say to you?

What it says to me is if we “leave the king’s presence” in a hurry due to our misery and dissatisfaction with the current trends, we lose whatever voice we might have had to turn the tide of authority to good.  Look at the stories of Daniel and Esther.  Daniel became a ruler in the kingdom of Babylon, first, then Persia.  Both nations were heathen, meaning Daniel probably dispensed with commands of a king he neither agreed with nor supported on specific issues.  Yet look at the results.  Esther became the wife of a man who worshiped violent, immoral and pretty much capricious gods, yet she saved her people by being a place she otherwise would have preferred not to be.

Where has God called you to be?  Remember the above examples from Scripture and settle your mind on being a light in a dark place.  If lights shine where there is already plenty of light, they get lost in the brightness.  But if a light is placed in a dark corner of the room, it dispels the dark—even if it’s just a little bit.

My Rant On Authority

Obey the king’s command, I say, because you took an oath before God.  Do not be in a hurry to leave the king’s presence.  Do not stand up for a bad cause, for he will do whatever he pleases.  Since a king’s word is supreme, who can say to him, “What are you doing?”  Ecclesiastes 8:2-4.

 

I have a bad attitude about and towards authority…well, more to the point, politics in general.  In my short lifetime (I’m 52 while writing this) I’ve seen a lot of abuse of power where those in control of the laws make sure they and their cronies are profiting even if others are suffering.  Cynicism knocks at my door quite a bit to the point I find myself struggling to enter into the whole of the human experience over checking out of this phase of it.

So, with that explanation, anyone reading this will get why my gut reaction to this passage was less than harmonious or the text seen by me as anything other than Solomon (a king) planting blind obedience to his authority into a book on wisdom.  Recently, however, while I typed it out, a different meaning began to dawn on me as I opened myself up to wisdom over my emotional rejection.

Once I believe someone’s motives are not what they seem, I see dark shadows behind everything they say.  You don’t want to be in a car with me when I’m listening to a politician sidestep direct questions with platitudes, misdirection and rants that only serve to take the spotlight off of their own stuff.  Yet whether I like it or not, rulers exist and MUST if order is to be maintained.  My “favorite” power mongers, though, do so with a hint of discretion and subtlety, at least; never really cheating the public blind but using minor graft (pennies on the dollar) to fleece their constituents.  I know that sounds cynical, but my view of most of politicians is they love being in charge first and foremost, developing good policies is secondary to the power and money.

Once I read the statement in context, however, Solomon said something different than my gut reaction made me want to think.  Herein lurks a big problem for all of us, I believe:  Instead of listening we sit or stand ready, preconceptions in hand, with our agenda on the tip of our tongue ready to pounce the moment someone takes a breath.  Never mind that they are probably not even on the same page philosophically as us, our goal is to get our words down on the page before they can convince us otherwise.  In other words, we desperately want to convince them before they persuade us.

A wise good king is preferable to a foolish president.

A people who base their very existence on whether or not they have a big screen TV (or the equivalent) really don’t care who’s in charge as long as the powerful leave them alone, take care of the roads, etc, and generally make sure there’s enough money to go around.  This latter type of person dominates the world, from what I know of it.  The average person couldn’t care less about the powerful, all they want is to make a good living and enjoy life.

Unfortunately, good kings and presidents in general are in short supply.  But the problem doesn’t stop there does it.  No, the attitude of capricious rule permeates even the family structure—down to elder siblings “lord-ing” it over the younger.  The perception that age brings knowledge and, by default, wisdom makes sense only in theory, since those with habitual spiritual, social or whatever myopia tend to think they are “in-the-know” whether or not they really are.  It’s like the educated “expert” declaring the best way to make bread by decrying all other methods.  These critics usually confuse style for content.  What they refuse to acknowledge about style is it is neither right nor wrong but simply different.  Bread goes together a certain way in so much that it won’t bake correctly unless specific steps are taken.  While the basic methods remain the same, the time allowed for raising, kneading, baking and cooling dictate how it turns out.

The powerful only get the last word because someone below them agrees with their viewpoint or lets them get away with it.  When several “someone-s” agree to follow the leader, we get a government for better or worse.  Herd instinct (tribalism) runs deep in the human psyche to the point that the toughest alpha “dog/human” attracts those like-minded to his or her cause and thus a command structure is born.  Every despot ever in power did so at the behest or capitulation of the ruled in some form.  Just as every abused spouse stuck in the marriage for reasons that still baffle those unwilling to do such a thing.

Solomon points out that the king’s word is supreme.  What he doesn’t need to mention is that the king rules by the agreement of the ruled not by any invincible, all-powerful or godlike abilities in and of themselves.  The ruled choose a king based on who makes them feel safe or good about themselves.  A king cannot be obeyed unless others agree that he should be.  Again, a king cannot command a person killed for treason unless his sycophants agree and take steps to carry out the sentence.  History is pockmarked with examples of kings who were assassinated or deposed for a variety of reasons.  A man is just a man no matter his title, which is proven time and again throughout annals of human interaction.

The American Declaration of Independence only stated the obvious by acknowledging that “We hold these truths as self-evident…”  A king will do as he pleases sans the objection of his ruling cabinet.  Psycho rulers like King George, Hitler, Stalin and Hussein enacted their atrocities with the full agreement of their underlings otherwise they could not have pulled it off.  A lot of participants must agree in order to kill 6 million Jews and millions of other innocents.  No one pulls off such evil on a large scale without complicit help from a nation of those with either the same belief or the herd instinct played to perfection.  The democratic system has always been in place though, up until recently, it was only available for a few at the top with the rest being simply fodder for their pleasure.  Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Yet, Jesus claimed something which affects both the meaning of Solomon’s declaration and thus our understanding of it.

 

“You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life.  These are the Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life.”  John 5:39.

 

Christ’s government is not based on a democracy but a dictatorship.  A friend of mine who is fluent in Hebrew and Aramaic claimed the word used in Isaiah referring to God as the absolute ruler is the root word from which we get the word “despot”.  The difference between Jesus and human despots, however, is that the Master already holds all power and has shown His willingness to forgive through redemption, reconciliation and restoration.  Human despots?  We have plenty of examples to show what they do…

Wisdom: The Latest in Fashion

Who is the wise man?  Who knows the explanation of things?  Wisdom brightens a man’s face and changes its hard appearance.  Ecclesiastes 8:1.

 

I find it strange to think about how often dark thoughts permeate even the brightest moments.  Or, that sense of entitlement which comes along with being human may have nothing whatsoever to do with what I think about myself overall but it sure spits out a lot of nonsense at times.  For instance, I might be aware that few people really pay attention to me but still think that the prettiest girl in the school should be my girlfriend, even though she probably couldn’t pick me out of a lineup.  It’s this odd juxtaposition which causes so many people not to work in harmony with one another.

A guy who won’t date that girl over there because the person in question is just too “weird” or out of sync with what he thinks of as cool, pretty or acceptable declares his own self-image.  It doesn’t matter that he doesn’t have the evidence to back it up from his social circles or even internally, the fact that he considers himself to be above the girl states he thinks he deserves “better”—whatever that is.  And, using a guy as an illustration doesn’t mean girls are off the hook because they do the same thing.  The other thing I’ve noticed is taste differences are squashed by the strongest mouth in a proverbial room.  As far as I can tell, there are as many tastes in food, love and career, etc., as there are people in the world, yet we see many people dumping their own tastes for the sake of not being criticized by those who appear more “in the know” or popular.

Both sides are foolishness.

Wisdom explains the reasons for life, the universe and everything.  Sure there are some “reasons” which escape our grasp or even ability to find out, yet when we study the big picture, the reason for much it begins to be clear.

Just take science for instance:  a lot of what we thought was supernatural turned out to be nature working in small ways.  Leprosy is not God’s direct judgment on anyone but a virus which kills the nerves; bubonic plague is simply an infection spread by fleas and other insects—which is easily treatable by the way when caught early enough.  Elves, if they ever existed, were creatures of myth leaving no trace anywhere on earth—no fossils.  The earth rotates around the sun as do all the other planets in our solar system, which in turn rotates around the Milky Way galaxy, which then rotates around our universal core.  Flies do not spontaneously generate from meat, as thought in even medical circles during the 19^th century before Pasteur proved otherwise.

Wisdom eliminates the need for conjecture, assumption and tabloid gossip fodder since by it we examine the essence of things to wring the truth from them.  It isn’t that it knows all rather it recognizes what it does and what doesn’t know, or, what can’t be known in the present moment.

We can conjecture all we want about the habits of a famous person but until we actually live with them in the daily we don’t know.  How often do we assume about another person’s motives only to find out they weren’t even on the same network as us thought-wise?  We assume what we understand the universe, God, the after life, and a host of other concepts either invented by us or discovered in some incremental way, then jump to conclusions about the meaning or purpose behind it all.

When I was a kid we were taught that God would be taking everyone to a heaven somewhere beyond our universe.  I’ve heard variations on this theme my entire life and believed it till I read the Scriptures to find out that “God’s dwelling” will be with men.  It’s stated in two major books—Isaiah and Revelation.  There will be a new heaven and a new earth, for the old is passed away and the new has come.  The New Jerusalem will come and rest on earth where the earthbound Jerusalem is now.  I assumed the people who taught me heaven only came after death or Jesus’ return knew what they were telling me to be fact, when in fact it turns out they ignored certain scripture references in order to promote their own bias.

Wisdom sees through the inflated opinions we have of our own theology.  Even though I know my original grasp of truth was more than likely mistaken, my current attitude towards eschatology (the study of prophecy), end time events, and what eternity will look like are more “wait and see” than anything else.  I took a warning from Jesus first advent:  The people in-the-know recognized Him as someone special, saw His miracles then crucified Him anyway because He scared them.  We don’t like to be wrong.

I’ve decided He’s right and I’m wrong and I’m in this walk with Him no matter what comes.  I don’t understand the big picture nor can I grasp all the details of prophetic truth.  What I do know is this:  Jesus loves me.  I know His word changed my life and gave me a different attitude about it.  I know that His promise of heaven beginning in the here and now on earth is a fact in my own heart—whether or not anyone else appears to accept it or experience it.

Have you ever seen a woman who you didn’t consider to be a “beauty” by whatever standard you measure such things, suddenly become gorgeous once you get to know her?  By the same token, women who fall in love with a man often don’t declare how “handsome” he is rather they focus on a trait that just endears him to them.

Wisdom changes a person’s appearance by its very nature to create a more peaceful, happy and contented outlook—Solomon claims it softens one’s hard facial expressions.  By dent of this very result, I hereby declare wisdom as the most effective fashion upgrade of any in the history of human effort.

In Search of Many Schemes…

So I turned my mind to understand, to investigate and to search out the wisdom and the scheme of things and to understand the stupidity of wickedness and the madness of folly.  Ecclesiastes 7:25.

 

To illustrate his point, Solomon uses the following analogy:  I find more bitter than death the woman who is a snare, whose heart is a trap and whose hands are chains.  The man who pleases God will escape her, but the sinner she will ensnare.  Before anyone gets all huffy about this “diatribe” to women, remember Proverbs 31 praised the woman of virtue.  Solomon collected the sayings in that book, which means he wasn’t against women in general, just bad girls.  If you want to compare the amount of times he spoke against women to men, the weight of evidence will be on the male side.

Then what’s he trying to say about women and men in this rather hard observation?

Well, for one thing he’s not saying women are bad in general.  So let’s ask a question:

 

Is the woman the trap or is the man’s desires for her the problem?

 

I say both.  James 1:14…but each one (man) is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed.  Then after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.

Our biggest “fail” as humans is our unwillingness to look our own desires full in the face.  Or, to be more precise, to look at ourselves in the mirror—literal or figurative—and see who we are without blinders, philters or anything which might hinder a true reading.  Solomon declares that women can snare, trap and chain a man, yet he also chides men for being fool enough to go looking for easy sex.  Oh, he doesn’t mention that word but it is implied.  Men act as their own worst enemy in a quest for sex without consequences.  I’ve know a few women who want this too, but women pursue sex for slightly different reasons than men as a general rule.  That’s not to say a woman can’t be narcissistic because everyone knows better than that; rather, their general goals make sex a means.

Earlier in this chapter we read: There is not a righteous man on earth who does what is right and never sins.  If this is true, then when Solomon says at the end of the chapter:  Adding one thing to another to discover the scheme of things—while I was searching but not finding—I found one upright man in a thousand, but not one upright woman among them all.  This only have I found:  God made mankind upright, but men have gone in search of many schemes.  Ecclesiastes 7:28, 29.

What we see here is a “connect the dots” kind of logic.  If there is not a righteous man on earth who does what is right and never sins, then even that one upright man in a thousand is in search of sex outside godliness.

Why is there not an upright woman with that upright man?

Because, though God made mankind upright, they have gone in search of many schemes.  We are the product of our own desires.  Our world’s condition is a direct result of mankind’s search for anything to quench the thirst for pleasure outside of God’s design.

I refuse to condemn any sinner for being such since I know I am one myself.  If everyone who claims Christ as their savior looks in His perfect mirror, they will know the truth and humbly accept they have no right or place to condemn anyone.  Wisdom is justified by her deeds.  A man who conforms to wisdom realizes his own weaknesses; a woman who does the same recognizes her own failures to hit the bulls eye.

The biggest fail in my view is the refusal to admit our own sinfulness.  For if we not only admit it but gladly point it out—not in general but in fact, we become a true light for grace, mercy, forgiveness and restoration.

For All have Sinned…

There is not a righteous man on earth who does what is right and never sins.  Ecclesiastes 7:20.

 

The rest of this chapter is tied together in an odd way so I will have to take a couple of posts just unravel it all in order to show how I believe it connects.

Like any good writer/philosopher Solomon gives his readers an emphatic statement he believes is fact then sets about supporting it.  In a seemingly non sequitur he immediately jumps into the human tendency to gossip about one another behind each other’s backs.  For the purpose of illustration he reveals the heart of the problem—i.e. that even “righteous” people have badmouthed someone so shouldn’t get their panties in a wad if someone does the same to them.

When I was a teen my younger brother tried to get me to ask girls out.  I was rather shy about it because I didn’t think I would be up to par.  In exasperation he’d exclaim that girls stink too.  While I could admit he was right, I still put women up on a pedestal of more than human—or better than me anyway.  I look back and smile because I understand what he said as fact, since now I know from experience that no one is above being human.

Silly as that might sound to some of you reading this (and me at this point in my life) pedestals seem to be as natural to us as eating.  For instance many of us put ourselves up on this pedestal thing every time we resent being gossiped about or put down to our faces.  Each of us must admit to our own nature just confess to being a failure at righteousness.  When we get all huffy or offended because someone took one of our idiosyncrasies to task in a conversation, we put ourselves up on a pedestal as above being gossiped or talked about in this manner.  It’s almost strange that few of us make the connection between our own tendency to talk about others in the same manner and what others do to us.

But Solomon doesn’t stop there.

In a truly fascinating way he brings it around to his own failure to understand wisdom and the scheme of things.

 

All this I tested by wisdom and I said, “I am determined to be wise”—but this was beyond me.  Whatever wisdom may be, it is far off and most profound—who can discover it?

 

What Solomon faced remains a problem for us today.  Wisdom, as I understand it, is the ability to use knowledge in a way that benefits.  Yet sometimes even this is beyond us, like we know something must be done but how to get there or where to start just doesn’t compute.  The more we learn, more we have to unlearn and readdress reality for the truths we place as all important in our ignorance often times equals childish reasoning when the light of knowledge dawns.

Another problem, however, is knowledge without wisdom is useless.  Trying to understand what we know and apply the right perspective to it without the Source of wisdom is simply futile.  The conclusions we draw from the perspective of no god or God, for instance, will color how we see the evidence.  Yet the issue of knowing what the actual facts are continues to haunt us where the five senses are limited to faith.  No matter what we say we know by faith, without firm evidence to support our belief we leap off the bridge of knowledge into the murky waters of guessing games.

Every righteous person alive sins…

If this last sentence isn’t true, then why do the scriptures claim all have sinned and fall short of the example and reputation of God?

So everyone needs correcting; everyone needs humility, since everyone sins and requires repentance.  To say otherwise is to refute scripture.  If scripture cannot be broken and where it speaks about the nature of humanity it does so authoritatively and decisively, then those who believe themselves to either be better than others or above reproach sin by default of their estimate of themselves.

All this contributes to our inability to grasp wisdom in its full capacity.  The inability to grasp wisdom in its capacity leaves us with gaps in our reasoning, which in turn results in bad choices.  Even the spiritual minded man is gonna’ struggle with this one for we are products of where we come from first and foremost.  Denial of who we were before we knew Christ only results in unwarranted spiritual arrogance which history demonstrates time and again how devastating that is.  All have sinned, therefore all are sinners.  If all are sinners saved by grace, no one has any advantage over anyone else.

Last point:  If Paul, at the end of his life, wrote, Not that I have already attained all this, or have already been made perfect…declaring his need to grow still further in the faith, then anyone who claims more than this man of God must be looked upon with skepticism at best and downright distrust at worst.