Eighth Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 13) July 31, 2022
ECCLESIASTES 1:2, 12-14; 2:18-26
2 Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity.
12 I the Preacher have been king over Israel in Jerusalem. 13 And I applied my heart to seek and to search out by wisdom all that is done under Heaven. It is an unhappy business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with. 14 I have seen everything that is done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and a striving after wind.
18 I hated all my toil in which I toil under the sun, seeing that I must leave it to the man who will come after me, 19 and who knows whether he will be wise or a fool? Yet he will be master of all for which I toiled and used my wisdom under the sun. This also is vanity. 20 So I turned about and gave my heart up to despair over all the toil of my labors under the sun, 21 because sometimes a person who has toiled with wisdom and knowledge and skill must leave everything to be enjoyed by someone who did not toil for it. This also is vanity and a great evil. 22 What has a man from all the toil and striving of heart with which he toils beneath the sun? 23 For all his days are full of sorrow, and his work is a vexation. Even in the night his heart does not rest. This also is vanity. 24 There is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil. This also, I saw, is from the hand of God, 25 for apart from him who can eat or who can have enjoyment? 26 For to the one who pleases him God has given wisdom and knowledge and joy, but to the sinner he has given the business of gathering and collecting, only to give to one who pleases God. This also is vanity and a striving after wind.
IN THE NAME OF JESUS.
The Lord blesses the work you do. Your work as a 9-5 laborer, or a clerk, or a teacher, or a business owner; your work as a father or mother, as a son or daughter, or a wife or husband; your work as whatever you do according to your several callings, vocations you are given to serve your family, your neighbor—the Lord blesses your work.
Does it seem like that? The drudgery or the repetition or the thankless hours or the dealing with headaches or chasing after projects which never seem to complete, does it seem like the Lord blesses your work?
Ecclesiastes 1:12:
It is an unhappy business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with.
Solomon, the wise king said that: The work we are busy with.
With his line “the work we are busy with” Solomon drives us into the ground with the weight of pointless tasks repeated daily, of redundant programs, of reports that must be filled in before closing time, of tax forms and insurance forms and writing out goals, of harvesting the hay or loading the lumber—are we just walking on a treadmill till closing time?—it is an unhappy business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with.
The work we are busy with. It rings with emptiness. What you do, are you doing it to make things better, to help someone’s life, to stand as a person of God doing his work on Earth, or is it just the business you are busy with—this unhappy, never-ending line of tasks. It’s just the work we are given to be busy with—it’s an unhappy business.
But then we notice how Solomon describes it. He describes it not as pointless, but as a gift from God. Not empty; not just an old treadmill. It’s gift from God.
Ecclesiastes 1:12:
It is an unhappy business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with.
God who loves all people, who created each of us in our mother’s womb, giving each of us the gifts particular to us, our work is his gift.
In these gifts God gives us, he gives us also our needs and appetites.
We need food. So, God gives the farmer to put the seed into the ground and give it water.
We need drink. So, God gives a man to drill the well or run the pipe or even build the dam.
God gives some to bind our wounds, some to fashion a guitar out of wood, some to protect our homes, some to cook our food—all tasks God gives for persons to be busy with. All gifts from God, vocations from our Lord who loves all people.
But, says Solomon, I have seen everything that is done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and a striving after wind. [Ecclesiastes 1:14]
What is it that takes a God-given task, a holy calling to love our neighbor by the work of our hands, and makes it into an unhappy business you’re just busy with—just punching the clock, just filling in the blanks?
What reverses it is what happens to you on the day you die. It’s a man building new barns to store his crops. He’s doing the building, he’s stacking the crops, but why?
You don’t know why. You don’t know why, that is, until you know what he thinks happens to him on the day he dies.
If he thinks that on the day he dies, he just dies, and he thinks that when he dies this death, he’s nothing then but a dead body in the ground, then he thinks there’s no more him left.
He’s just stuff in the ground, but there’s no him, no person, no one to laugh with loved ones, to eat good food, to drink good wine, to love neighbor—it’s just over, gone, dead bones in the ground, nothing but memory.
If that’s what happens when he dies, then to build a barn is just striving after wind. It’s to build up wealth today, only to be dead tomorrow. And when you’re in the ground, who knows who’s going to get that barn you built? Maybe an ungrateful heir who never cared for you anyway, maybe an enemy who files a lawsuit, maybe the government—but whoever gets it, it’s not you; there’s no more you; you’re dead in the ground. If that’s the way we view ourselves upon our earthly death, then that changes everything; and everything is left as being a striving after wind, a vanity of vanities.
But, there’s life!
If on the day you die, you do not die; if on the day you breath your last breath you are with your Lord; if death has been conquered so that all those belonging to Christ Jesus are united with him in his resurrection; if in Baptism you have already been given your death to your life of sin and your life is now hidden in Christ Jesus, then when you build that barn, you are building it as one who belongs to Christ Jesus. And now, all your work to build that barn is a task of how you may serve your neighbor by providing good food to him and his family over the long winter.
Colossians 3:3:
For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.
This promise of Baptism changes everything! Now your tasks are brimming with life. The mother changing the diaper, she belongs to Christ Jesus, to eternal life, she is his servant, and Jesus is using her hands to serve that baby with the gifts of life.
The high-schooler flipping hamburgers, that’s no dead-end job. It’s a servant of Jesus serving neighbor by providing food. And if that high-schooler ends up later in life serving neighbor by being a police officer, or by helping a business thrive by doing the bookkeeping, what better way to be a servant of Jesus and serve your neighbor?
In Baptism, you have died. Your life is hidden with Christ in God. All which you are given to do, you do as one belonging to Christ, to eternal life, and your God is now honoring you by setting you as his servant to family and to neighbor.
This is the gift our Lord gave us to witness this morning as he placed his Name on little Macy, calling her his own. She, along with us, belongs to him, belongs to life.
Now, when one who bears the Name of Christ reports to that so-called dead-end job, that daily task that never seems to end, it may still be boring at time tedious even, but it is gift from God. Your job, your tasks, your callings—this is gift to you from your Lord who loves all people and wants every person to be well fed, well-taught, to hear good music, to enjoy good drink, to know all his gifts of creation. And when the Lord uses our hands to do even a small part of that, it is never just a striving after wind.
So Solomon, who belongs to the Lord, is able to say,
There is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil. This also, I saw, is from the hand of God, for apart from him who can eat or who can have enjoyment?
[Ecclesiastes 2:24]
Eat your food. Laugh with your friends. Drink your wine—if that’s the drink you like, or your coffee or tea or whatever is good to your taste—drink it with a smile and rejoice in your work.
For apart from God, no one has true enjoyment. For how can the man rejoice who knows that tomorrow he dies and is thrown in the ground and is no more? But belonging to the God of Life God, knowing that in Baptism you have already died and now your life is hidden in Christ—for you, there is no death. All that you do is not a striving after wind. Rather, it is your Lord caring for your neighbor through you.
So, eat good food; enjoy good drink; find joy in your work. Your sin has been put away in Christ Jesus; he has forgiven you guilt, covered your shame, he stands you before his Father in honor, for in Baptism, your life is hidden with him in God. When Christ, who is your life appears, you also will appear with him in glory.
IN THE NAME OF JESUS.