Living Wittily

When the Preacher Contradicts One Text by Prioritising Another.

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Long before the Rev I M Jolly, the lugubrious melancholic cleric, there was Qoheleth, The Preacher, the one who wrote Ecclesiastes. When it comes to incurable negativity, one foot in the grave complaining, and brutal honesty about what life can be like at its worst, Ecclesiastes is up there with the most convincing of pessimists. Here he is at his most unendurably and contagiously miserable:

Again I looked and saw all the oppression that was taking place under the sun:

OppressedI saw the tears of the oppressed—
    and they have no comforter;
power was on the side of their oppressors—
    and they have no comforter.
2 And I declared that the dead,
    who had already died,
are happier than the living,
    who are still alive.
3 But better than both
    is the one who has never been born,
who has not seen the evil
    that is done under the sun.

4 And I saw that all toil and all achievement

spring from one person’s envy of another.

This too is meaningless, a chasing after the wind.

5 Fools fold their hands
    and ruin themselves.
6 Better one handful with tranquillity
    than two handfuls with toil
    and chasing after the wind.

7 Again I saw something meaningless under the sun:

8 There was a man all alone;
    he had neither son nor brother.
There was no end to his toil,
    yet his eyes were not content with his wealth.
“For whom am I toiling,” he asked,
    “and why am I depriving myself of enjoyment?”
This too is meaningless—
    a miserable business!

This Sunday is Remembrance Sunday. This is the text I'm to preach on. It's about the tears of the oppressed, a world stripped of comfort, the flourishing of injustice, and power acting with impunity to take, and hurt and break; it's about competitive markets and endless toil, and the capacity of such misery to drain life of joy, meaning, purpose and hope. It's about human life dragged down into the gnawing teeth of meaninglessness, tragedy and futility.

30416267def0b2ee59fc6771e205db85This is an Old Testament text to argue with, to stand up to, to answer back. Preaching is an act of faith even if it sometimes feels like an act of presumption. I hear what Ecclesiastes is saying; I know what he means and have often enough watched the news and heard me muttering his low toned angry words, "I see the tears of the oppressed and they have no comforter; power is on the side of their oppressors…."

But for all that I don't believe the dead are happier than the living or that it's better for a human being never to have been born. Why? Because I see the world differently, through the lenses of love incarnate, love crucified and love risen.

DSC01895

 

So this Sunday, Remembrance Sunday, I will contradict this text. Not because Ecclesiastes is wrong in what he sees; but because he only has one way of seeing. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is about seeing beyond the vision-limited obvious, contradicting the despair of all our evidence based pessimism, and seeking to cure the spiritual colour-blindness that so afflicts us we sometimes miss the visions of hope, mercy, peace. The Gospel of Jesus Christ tells of the love that dies to give life in a divine gesture of redemption born in the heart of Eternal God. The Christian response to Ecclesiastes isn't to prove his perception about the world and human existence is wrong; but to challenge the conclusion that death is better than life. The hopeless resignation of Ecclesiastes should be read alongside the equally realistic world-view of Paul who saw the groaning creation through the eyes of hope; because in the death and resurrection of Jesus this fallen, broken, groaning creation has been visited by God, reconciled, renewed and promised a future and a hope:

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. Rom.15.13

Paul arrived at that Benediction only after writing this, which is where Christian faith comes nearest to claiming finality for truth:

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written:

“For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Rom 8.35-39.

……………………….

By the way, our First Minister, Alex Salmond does a great take off of REv I M Jolly for Children in Need. You can catch it over here.

Comments

6 responses to “When the Preacher Contradicts One Text by Prioritising Another.”

  1. Mark Thomas avatar
    Mark Thomas

    Dear Jim
    I don’t know if you’ll receive this message, it being a comment on something you wrote last year. But I will press on, in the hope that you do.
    Having read your blog for many years, I’d like to thank you for the insights and words of wisdom that you share. They are constantly an inspiration to me and I’ll freely confess that occasionally I share one of your insights with my congregation (I always give you the credit).
    To the point of this comment. I read again this entry from 7th Nov 2014 a few days before last Remembrance Sunday and came to it from the context of a family bereavement – the unexpected death of my 50 year old sister.
    I know that we each read Scripture through the lens of our particular context, and the experiences of life form part of its makeup. So,a number of your comments have been really helpful, and I just wondered if you might be willing to ‘expand’ on them a little for me.
    Two of your comments in particular struck me:-
    1. But for all that I don’t believe the dead are happier than the living or that it’s better for a human being never to have been born. Why? Because I see the world differently, through the lenses of love incarnate, love crucified and love risen.
    Could you expand a little on the ‘why?’ here
    2. The Christian response to Ecclesiastes isn’t to prove his perception about the world and human existence is wrong; but to challenge the conclusion that death is better than life.
    Sometimes I hear folk allude to Paul in Phil 1 as though the ‘deceased one is better of now’, especially if they have suffered in life. I’ve never been entirely happy with that. I’m very struck by your phrase ‘challenge the conclusion that death is better than life’ and just wondered if you might add a little to that.
    Apologies that this comment is overly long. But it comes from the heart of cone very appreciative of your wisdom.
    The Lord Bless you,
    Mark

    Reply
  2. Mark Thomas avatar
    Mark Thomas

    Dear Jim
    I don’t know if you’ll receive this message, it being a comment on something you wrote last year. But I will press on, in the hope that you do.
    Having read your blog for many years, I’d like to thank you for the insights and words of wisdom that you share. They are constantly an inspiration to me and I’ll freely confess that occasionally I share one of your insights with my congregation (I always give you the credit).
    To the point of this comment. I read again this entry from 7th Nov 2014 a few days before last Remembrance Sunday and came to it from the context of a family bereavement – the unexpected death of my 50 year old sister.
    I know that we each read Scripture through the lens of our particular context, and the experiences of life form part of its makeup. So,a number of your comments have been really helpful, and I just wondered if you might be willing to ‘expand’ on them a little for me.
    Two of your comments in particular struck me:-
    1. But for all that I don’t believe the dead are happier than the living or that it’s better for a human being never to have been born. Why? Because I see the world differently, through the lenses of love incarnate, love crucified and love risen.
    Could you expand a little on the ‘why?’ here
    2. The Christian response to Ecclesiastes isn’t to prove his perception about the world and human existence is wrong; but to challenge the conclusion that death is better than life.
    Sometimes I hear folk allude to Paul in Phil 1 as though the ‘deceased one is better of now’, especially if they have suffered in life. I’ve never been entirely happy with that. I’m very struck by your phrase ‘challenge the conclusion that death is better than life’ and just wondered if you might add a little to that.
    Apologies that this comment is overly long. But it comes from the heart of cone very appreciative of your wisdom.
    The Lord Bless you,
    Mark

    Reply
  3. Mark Thomas avatar
    Mark Thomas

    Dear Jim
    I don’t know if you’ll receive this message, it being a comment on something you wrote last year. But I will press on, in the hope that you do.
    Having read your blog for many years, I’d like to thank you for the insights and words of wisdom that you share. They are constantly an inspiration to me and I’ll freely confess that occasionally I share one of your insights with my congregation (I always give you the credit).
    To the point of this comment. I read again this entry from 7th Nov 2014 a few days before last Remembrance Sunday and came to it from the context of a family bereavement – the unexpected death of my 50 year old sister.
    I know that we each read Scripture through the lens of our particular context, and the experiences of life form part of its makeup. So,a number of your comments have been really helpful, and I just wondered if you might be willing to ‘expand’ on them a little for me.
    Two of your comments in particular struck me:-
    1. But for all that I don’t believe the dead are happier than the living or that it’s better for a human being never to have been born. Why? Because I see the world differently, through the lenses of love incarnate, love crucified and love risen.
    Could you expand a little on the ‘why?’ here
    2. The Christian response to Ecclesiastes isn’t to prove his perception about the world and human existence is wrong; but to challenge the conclusion that death is better than life.
    Sometimes I hear folk allude to Paul in Phil 1 as though the ‘deceased one is better of now’, especially if they have suffered in life. I’ve never been entirely happy with that. I’m very struck by your phrase ‘challenge the conclusion that death is better than life’ and just wondered if you might add a little to that.
    Apologies that this comment is overly long. But it comes from the heart of cone very appreciative of your wisdom.
    The Lord Bless you,
    Mark

    Reply
  4. Jim Gordon avatar
    Jim Gordon

    Bob asks two questions, but they touch on the same experience for people of faith – how we think of death, ours or those we love in the light of our faith in Christ and the promise of eternla life. My post was an honest argument with Ecclesiastes and the underlying weariness of that ‘gentle cynic’. A human life is a precious and unique gift, initiated and called into being by the creator God. Each human life is an unprecedented act of creative love. We are created for life, and Jesus said I have come that you might have life and life more abundant. Yes, that saying looked to what John the Evangelist called eternal life – but eternal life is not about duration or location, but about the deepest fellowship with the Father through the Son made possible by the Spirit. So I believe the life we live is to be lived, enjoyed, endured, experienced through the lense of a love eternal that created us for this, for life. To ever say or think it would be better not to be born, or death is better than life is to return the gift of ourselves to God, unopened.
    As to Paul’s words being universalised as an attitude that says the dead are better off than when they were alive, that is to overlook two things I think. First, Paul knew his life was a story nearly finished; his dilemma of whether to stay or go is one of those holy soliloquy’s in which he imagines the moment of being in the presence of Christ in heaven, and then looks at his chains and thinks of those Philippian believers. But remember, when push came to shove, as it were, to stay and live for Christ was the better choice. But it wasn’t his choice – and I guess I am simply saying that the well meant ‘she is in a better place’ doesn’t always mean, or need not always mean, that any Christian is entitled to devalue or wish to abbreviate the time that God gives.
    There is a fatalism in wishing ourselves in heaven prematurely, or privileging death as if life was mere prelude, or preface. We were created to live, to image the Creator, to walk in the new creationand new life that is in Christ, and to do so in the life God has given. Ecclesiastes is a book that shows why, exactly why, the revelation of God is in a person whose life is the source of life, and whose love, incarnate, crucified and risen, calls us to live out our days in life abundant. But when those days are completed we are called into the life of God…I don;t think that is ‘better’, I think it is different, and the next stage of what it means to be ‘In Chrst’.

    Reply
  5. Jim Gordon avatar
    Jim Gordon

    Bob asks two questions, but they touch on the same experience for people of faith – how we think of death, ours or those we love in the light of our faith in Christ and the promise of eternla life. My post was an honest argument with Ecclesiastes and the underlying weariness of that ‘gentle cynic’. A human life is a precious and unique gift, initiated and called into being by the creator God. Each human life is an unprecedented act of creative love. We are created for life, and Jesus said I have come that you might have life and life more abundant. Yes, that saying looked to what John the Evangelist called eternal life – but eternal life is not about duration or location, but about the deepest fellowship with the Father through the Son made possible by the Spirit. So I believe the life we live is to be lived, enjoyed, endured, experienced through the lense of a love eternal that created us for this, for life. To ever say or think it would be better not to be born, or death is better than life is to return the gift of ourselves to God, unopened.
    As to Paul’s words being universalised as an attitude that says the dead are better off than when they were alive, that is to overlook two things I think. First, Paul knew his life was a story nearly finished; his dilemma of whether to stay or go is one of those holy soliloquy’s in which he imagines the moment of being in the presence of Christ in heaven, and then looks at his chains and thinks of those Philippian believers. But remember, when push came to shove, as it were, to stay and live for Christ was the better choice. But it wasn’t his choice – and I guess I am simply saying that the well meant ‘she is in a better place’ doesn’t always mean, or need not always mean, that any Christian is entitled to devalue or wish to abbreviate the time that God gives.
    There is a fatalism in wishing ourselves in heaven prematurely, or privileging death as if life was mere prelude, or preface. We were created to live, to image the Creator, to walk in the new creationand new life that is in Christ, and to do so in the life God has given. Ecclesiastes is a book that shows why, exactly why, the revelation of God is in a person whose life is the source of life, and whose love, incarnate, crucified and risen, calls us to live out our days in life abundant. But when those days are completed we are called into the life of God…I don;t think that is ‘better’, I think it is different, and the next stage of what it means to be ‘In Chrst’.

    Reply
  6. Jim Gordon avatar
    Jim Gordon

    Bob asks two questions, but they touch on the same experience for people of faith – how we think of death, ours or those we love in the light of our faith in Christ and the promise of eternla life. My post was an honest argument with Ecclesiastes and the underlying weariness of that ‘gentle cynic’. A human life is a precious and unique gift, initiated and called into being by the creator God. Each human life is an unprecedented act of creative love. We are created for life, and Jesus said I have come that you might have life and life more abundant. Yes, that saying looked to what John the Evangelist called eternal life – but eternal life is not about duration or location, but about the deepest fellowship with the Father through the Son made possible by the Spirit. So I believe the life we live is to be lived, enjoyed, endured, experienced through the lense of a love eternal that created us for this, for life. To ever say or think it would be better not to be born, or death is better than life is to return the gift of ourselves to God, unopened.
    As to Paul’s words being universalised as an attitude that says the dead are better off than when they were alive, that is to overlook two things I think. First, Paul knew his life was a story nearly finished; his dilemma of whether to stay or go is one of those holy soliloquy’s in which he imagines the moment of being in the presence of Christ in heaven, and then looks at his chains and thinks of those Philippian believers. But remember, when push came to shove, as it were, to stay and live for Christ was the better choice. But it wasn’t his choice – and I guess I am simply saying that the well meant ‘she is in a better place’ doesn’t always mean, or need not always mean, that any Christian is entitled to devalue or wish to abbreviate the time that God gives.
    There is a fatalism in wishing ourselves in heaven prematurely, or privileging death as if life was mere prelude, or preface. We were created to live, to image the Creator, to walk in the new creationand new life that is in Christ, and to do so in the life God has given. Ecclesiastes is a book that shows why, exactly why, the revelation of God is in a person whose life is the source of life, and whose love, incarnate, crucified and risen, calls us to live out our days in life abundant. But when those days are completed we are called into the life of God…I don;t think that is ‘better’, I think it is different, and the next stage of what it means to be ‘In Chrst’.

    Reply

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