Text of sermon from Sunday, February 20, 2011.
Last Sunday evening I got home from youth group later than usual. After chatting in the Great Room with some parents, I did not get home until a little before 9:00pm. It had been a really good night in youth group following a great morning of worship. My adrenaline was pumping and my energy level was high. I was exhausted, but I was finding it difficult to wind down. Too tired to comprehend anything I might read, I decided to watch a little television to help me relax.
Have you ever tried to watch television after 9:00 on a Sunday night? There is nothing on that I want to watch. So I wound up doing what most guys do, flipping channels – seeing lots but watching nothing. At one point I decided to rest the remote on a television preacher whose sermon was taking up space on one of the channels where I can usually find something fun to watch. He is a proclaimer of the prosperity gospel – my shorthand for preaching that promises money, power, and success if you have enough faith. I tuned in just in time to hear him say that with enough faith, God will provide you with everything you desire.
As the congregation began to applaud this idea, the director cut to a view from behind the preacher, showing the enormous crowd there to hear him and applaud this message. I muttered to myself asking how people could receive and applaud that which does not fit their experience. If only they were to think this through, I thought, they would know that this is not how the world works, not how God works. This is the logic of Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar from the book of Job. This is not the message of the Bible.
The congregation seemed to be receiving without thinking. They were hearing what they wanted to hear and applauding it. If only those in the audience would stop and think, rather than allowing this preacher to think for them, they would see that this did not match their experience. But then again, stopping to think is not something we are encouraged to do. As mentioned in a quote I used in last Sunday’s sermon on time management, when we stop and think we are thought to be “wasting time.”
For those who haven’t been with us, the author of Ecclesiastes who calls himself Qoheleth in Hebrew, has come to his mid-life crisis. He has reached the pinnacle of success, the top of the corporate ladder. He has everything he ever wanted – money, power, security, family, all of it – but has come face-to-face with his own mortality and is questioning if it has all been worth it.
In the first sermon in this series we learned the Hebrew word habel, which is best translated as vapor or smoke. Throughout Ecclesiastes, Qoheleth evaluates all he has done, and he has done it all, and says it is all habel. It is all just a vapor. It is all like smoke – here for a moment then gone. We talked about how we can spend a large portion of our lives in “vapor management” – keeping the habel going. Instead we need to focus our energy on that which really matters, that place of call rather than working out of a drive to succeed – whatever that means to you. This idea of knowing your call, knowing your motivation, is central to ordering your private world.
Last week we picked up a theme from chapter 3 of Ecclesiastes where Qoheleth addresses our time – relentlessly moving forward. Through a well-crafted poem he reminds us that time marches on from “a time to be born and a time to die.” We talked about time management and about how when we choose to give time, rather than allowing time to be taken from us, we can be more fully present in each moment, and learn to enjoy life through all of its ups and downs.
Today we hear Qoheleth addressing another part of our life. He writes, “Watch your steps when you enter God’s house. Enter to learn. That’s far better than mindlessly offering a sacrifice, Doing more harm than good. Don’t shoot off your mouth, or speak before you think” (Ecclesiastes 5:1-2a MSG). Enter to learn. Do not just go through the motions because you are supposed to. And think before you speak.
Qoheleth is encouraging us to grow in knowledge and wisdom; to receive information, process it, and apply it. Qoheleth is advising us to take the time to stop and think.
While Qoheleth never reveals in this writing who he is – choosing instead to simply call himself the Quester, or preacher, or teacher, or wise one – many have assumed him to be King Solomon. The book of Ecclesiastes opens with these words, “These are the words of the Quester [Qoheleth], David’s son and king in Jerusalem” (1:1 Msg). Solomon is David’s son who immediately succeeded him on the throne. Sure sounds like it is him, although like much authorship in the Bible, there is some dispute. Few scholars would argue though that it is at least in Solomon’s tradition if not him.
If I were to ask you something you know about Solomon, what would you say? Many have heard and used the expression, “the wisdom of Solomon” or “the judgment of Solomon.” We may not know the source, but we know there was a guy named Solomon who must have been wise. The Bible tells us in the Old Testament book of 1 Kings that Solomon prayed for wisdom to rule, and God granted his prayer:
God gave Solomon wisdom—the deepest of understanding and the largest of hearts. There was nothing beyond him, nothing he couldn’t handle… He was wiser than anyone… He created 3,000 proverbs; his songs added up to 1,005. He knew all about plants, from the huge cedar that grows in Lebanon to the tiny hyssop that grows in the cracks of a wall. He understood everything about animals and birds, reptiles and fish. Sent by kings from all over the earth who had heard of his reputation, people came from far and near to listen to the wisdom of Solomon (4:29-34 MSG).
The most famous example of his wisdom given in the Bible is a dispute between two women about who was the real mother of a particular baby. The two women, wives of the same man, had children, and one was killed by accident in the middle of the night. The mom took her dead son and swapped him for the other woman’s son, creating the dispute. They bicker in front of Solomon, “He’s mine.” “No. He’s mine.” How do you know in the world before Maury Povich and DNA testing?
Solomon has the solution. He asks one of his servants for a sword and orders that the baby be cut in two so that each woman can have half. One of the women appears to accept this solution. The other is horrified by it and releases her claim on the child. She would rather the child live without her than be killed. Solomon then knows that this woman, willing to lose the dispute so that the child can live, is the real mom (1 Kings 3:16-28).
Even Seinfeld knows this story. Remember the episode where Kramer and Elaine are fighting over a bicycle and they allow Newman to decide who the rightful owner of the bike is? Newman says they should cut the bike in half. When Kramer gets upset with this solution, he is awarded the bicycle. A 1990’s reference to Solomon.
Qoheleth knows that of which he speaks. Back in chapter 1 he calls wisdom habel – vapor. Then here in this 5th chapter he is encouraging us to “enter [the house of God] to learn.”
What’s the Difference?
Watson on Jeopardy!
For the first time in years I, like many of you, watched an entire episode of Jeopardy! this week. I could tell you it was because Kristi’s teacher suggested the class watch it, and I was just watching it with her, but that is not true. I was interested to see Watson – the IBM computer that competed against two of Jeopardy!’s all-time champions.
Watson was fascinating. As soon as a question was asked, Jeopardy! showed those of us at home a graphic at the bottom of the screen which showed Watson’s “thought process.” In a matter of seconds, Watson had interpreted the nuance of the question – all of those little hidden clues, puns, etc. that appear in the Jeopardy! answers. Then processed the best guess from among 3, and processed if the guess was worth the dollar amount that would be gained by a correct answer or lost by a wrong answer based on how certain Watson seemed. Amazing.
Watson was even wrong from time to time, making news by missing the Final Jeopardy! question on the first night. It was fascinating to watch for an amateur tech-junkie like me. The computer wasn’t just processing information, it was listening to nuance and, in essence, making decisions.
Watson won. His prize was $1 million which he divided between two charities. Half went to World Community Grid – an organization dedicated to making public computing networks across the globe. The other half-million was donated to World Vision – a Christian ministry that does child sponsorship much like Compassion International – prompting one blogger to declare that Watson is a Christian!
But in the long run, what good is all of that knowledge. Sure Watson was a show-off who made the programmers look great. But the knowledge was fairly useless. My fear is that the same is true for some of us. We are filled with facts, figures, and statistics but we are never taking the time to process that information so that we can use it in an ordered private world. Instead, like a computer, we are just spouting off information that has been programmed into us. We allow others to think for us.
This is the knowledge and wisdom that Qoheleth is calling vapor, habel. The reputation he had, the knowledge he had amassed was, in the long run, just smoke, temporary, passing. So he encourages us to find a new kind of knowledge here in the house of God. This is not just an amassing of bits of information, but a way of life. We need to become rather theologically astute so that our knowledge of God is not compartmentalized for Sunday morning, but is effecting the way we live every day. For example, what you believe about the human race matters. If you are one who believes that we are divided beings of body and soul and that the soul is our true-self and the body doesn’t really matter your idea of missions will be all about preaching to “save the soul.” On the other hand, if you see that God created us as integrated beings then your idea of missions will lean toward caring for physical needs. We talked about this a couple of weeks ago when we were addressing the problem of evil. What you think about evil will eventually affect the way you respond to it.
Tim Hawkins
Unfortunately there are many who have a stunted Christian education, as our friend Tim Hawkins pointed out in the video clip. We have accepted the 1st grade Sunday School cuteness of the story of Noah and the flood, and have not allowed that story to challenge us. We think we know the stories, but we haven’t read them in a long time, and so we are living with a grade school theological education.
As you know, we value Christian education here at our church. We want to expose you to good theological insight that will help you wrestle with difficult questions. We are not going to give you answers though – neither Bob nor I see that as our role. Rather we want to give you tools that will help you seek, explore, and discover for yourself the ways in which God is guiding you. We want to stop the notion of compartmentalized theology, and instead have our theology impact our living.
As you shared around our discussion question this morning, I imagine a whole host of topics came up. Some of you are avid musicians. Brad is constantly sharing with me things he is learning about music theory and styles of guitar playing and all of that. Some of you are hungry to learn as much as you can about the animal world, or history, or computer science, or something else. Some of you like spending time learning about yourself – what makes you and others tick differently. Some of you are into the arts – painting, sculpting, writing, acting, photography. Oh, I’m guessing that when we went around the room many disciplines were mentioned that just turned you on. Those passions are our call.
Art
I remember taking a class in college on John Milton – the 17th century poet that wrote those massive poems called Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained. Milton, who was blind, spoke often about how he felt called to glorify God through his poetry. He did such a good job with that call that much of our common imagery about Biblical stories sometimes are Milton and not scripture. Charles Wesley, John’s brother, felt similarly. He used his gifts for poetry to write many of the great hymns of the Methodist movement. He deserves quite a bit of credit for the popularity of John’s preaching. One can only wonder how many came to for the music. It was the church that commissioned Michelangelo to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, and had Leonardo DaVinci paint a fresco of the Last Supper on a wall of the dining hall at the monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan, Italy. It was for the church that Handel wrote his materpiece Messiah and it was for the church that Bach did a great deal of his composing. So much great art produced for the church.
Today much of what Christians produce is copy-catting what is being done in the secular world. We are not innovating. We are not leading. We are following. And that, in my mind needs to stop. I get so tired of the church producing “B” versions of others work. The Christians YouTube, or the Christian author, or the Christian artist. The church needs to lead again – to innovate, create, adapt, write, sculpt, paint again. I long for the day when the church is once again a primary patrons of the arts and not just a critic – not just offering counters. The people of God need to begin again to be inspired (breathed into, spirit-filled) to think, create, solve, and teach. We, as individuals and corporately need to stop letting others think for us, and begin to think with our God-given ability to fulfill his will for our lives and for the world.
In the New Testament book of Romans, the Apostle Paul puts it so right for us when he writes: “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect” (Romans 12:2 NRSV). Or as our friend Qoheleth has so eloquently put it, “Watch your steps when you enter God’s house. Enter to learn” (Ecclesiastes 5:1 MSG).
Your mind must be…
Gordon MacDonald offers some helpful suggestions:
1. The mind must be disciplined to think Christianly – Ok, let me tell you when I read that sentence it really turned me off. I don’t like when the word Christian is used as anything but a noun. Here as an adverb, and when used as an adjective, I often bristle. Keep reading, and we discover what MacDonald means is that we need to allow our theology to influence our living. We need to stop making this artificial division between secular and sacred. It doesn’t exist. As I mentioned earlier our theology, our ethics, our understanding of the sacredness of human beings, the created world, etc. all needs to be integrated.
2. The mind must be taught to observe and appreciate the messages God has written in creation. I remember sitting in a biology in high school or middle school and seeing evidence of God in the cycle of the creation of oxygen. The very fact that animals – including human beings – inhale oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide, while the plant world uses the carbon dioxide in the process of photosynthesis and gives off oxygen, just astounded me. That interdependence. As I have grown theologically, I continue to see that interdependence in all kinds of relationships.
Are you receiving those lessons from God in the created world? What do you see that tells you about the nature of God?
I would like to expand MacDonald here to include, as I believe Wesley would, about our experience – remember that Wesley used a four-fold expression for learning about God – the Bible, the tradition, our reason and our experience. We should not sit in church and uncritically accept whatever is preached. We need to check it against our experience and our reason. Take the time to stop and think.
3. The mind must be trained to pursue information, ideas, and insights for the purpose of serving the people of the world. Whenever the Apostle Paul talks about gifts he always speaks in the plural. Our spiritual giftedness is not about doing things for our own good. It is not about benefitting ourselves – making money, reputation, amassing power, or anything like that. In the words of Qoheleth that is all habel, vapor. It is always, according to the Apostle Paul, about benefitting the greater good.
Three keys
MacDonald then gives us three things to do to develop our minds.
- Listen – Many of us don’t listen enough. We think we’re listening, but we’re not. We are instead working out ways to counter the one with which we disagree. Listen, really listen, not only to those with whom you agree, but with those whom you disagree, or even distrust. In other words, if you think Fox News is right, go to CNN regularly too. Listen to your non-Christian friend, or the one who was hurt by the church. Don’t just work at formulating “answers” for them, but listen. Try to hear the other side.
- Read – Not too long ago I decided that life is too short to read bad books. Get your head in really good stuff. Read what challenges you. There are some very popular books that are the equivalent of television preaching with all the spiritual nutrition of cotton candy. There are much better choices. Seek out the experts.
- Study – MacDonald uses the phrase disciplined study. In other words, take that class, read methodically, get with a small group of people to discuss difficult topics. Don’t just do drive-by looks at an issue. Really study.
Always remember that knowledge and wisdom matter. We are not seeking to be Watson in the flesh. Rather we are working to increase our knowledge that we may be wise in the ways of God for our lives, to benefit others, and to glorify God with the gifts with which he has gifted us.
Getting our private worlds in order should include growing in wisdom and knowledge. It is good use of our time that furthers our call.
May you and I be innovators. Using our knowledge to build up the kingdom of God.
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Bibliography
MacDonald, Gordon. Ordering Your Private World. Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2003. (Kindle edition)
