What Do You Hope For?

Have you ever secretly indulged in the fantasy of what it would be like to be wealthier, more accomplished, smarter or more popular? It may seem like if only you could have those things, the dissatisfaction you feel in life would magically melt away.

Of course, we need only look at the lives of people who have achieved the success we long for to see that the things we desire don’t solve all the problems. That’s why we see even many accomplished celebrities dying deaths of despair.

Pop culture is full of celebrities who took their own lives: Kurt Cobain, Robin Williams, Ernest Hemmingway, and Virginia Wolf, as well as many who died as a result of drug and alcohol abuse: Amy Winehouse, Jim Morrison, Prince, Michael Jackson, Truman Capote, Jimi Hendrix, Matthew Perry and Marilyn Monroe to name a few.

It seems that people often aspire to things that don’t fix them. This can lead to despair.

Long before there was a celebrity culture, other people were learning these lessons and writing about them too.

One book in our Bible most clearly identifies the false hopes we put in the things of this world, and that is the book of Ecclesiastes.

Just listen to it get going:Ecclesiastes 1:2NIV

2 “Meaningless! Meaningless!” says the Teacher. “Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless.”

You may be confused what this book is even doing in the Bible. You’re not alone

When Jewish Rabbinic teachers decided on which books to include in the Hebrew Bible Ecclesiastes was one of the more controversial picks.

The book seems pessimistic.

Yet Ecclesiastes puts its finger on some important theological truths.

Today I want to look at what seems like a representative section of the book.Ecclesiastes 1:12–2:11NIV

12 I, the Teacher [Qohelet], was king over Israel in Jerusalem. 13 I applied my mind to study and to explore by wisdom all that is done under the heavens. What a heavy burden God has laid on mankind! 14 I have seen all the things that are done under the sun; all of them are meaningless, a chasing after the wind. 15 What is crooked cannot be straightened; what is lacking cannot be counted. 16 I said to myself, “Look, I have increased in wisdom more than anyone who has ruled over Jerusalem before me; I have experienced much of wisdom and knowledge.” 17 Then I applied myself to the understanding of wisdom, and also of madness and folly, but I learned that this, too, is a chasing after the wind. 18 For with much wisdom comes much sorrow; the more knowledge, the more grief. 1 I said to myself, “Come now, I will test you with pleasure to find out what is good.” But that also proved to be meaningless. 2 “Laughter,” I said, “is madness. And what does pleasure accomplish?” 3 I tried cheering myself with wine, and embracing folly—my mind still guiding me with wisdom. I wanted to see what was good for people to do under the heavens during the few days of their lives. 4 I undertook great projects: I built houses for myself and planted vineyards. 5 I made gardens and parks and planted all kinds of fruit trees in them. 6 I made reservoirs to water groves of flourishing trees. 7 I bought male and female slaves and had other slaves who were born in my house. I also owned more herds and flocks than anyone in Jerusalem before me. 8 I amassed silver and gold for myself, and the treasure of kings and provinces. I acquired male and female singers, and a harem as well—the delights of a man’s heart. 9 I became greater by far than anyone in Jerusalem before me. In all this my wisdom stayed with me. 10 I denied myself nothing my eyes desired; I refused my heart no pleasure. My heart took delight in all my labor, and this was the reward for all my toil. 11 Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind; nothing was gained under the sun.

The author is identified as Qohelet. This gets translated as teacher or preacher. It can mean assembler, or it could be a proper name.

Since there isn’t a consensus, most scholars refer to the teacher simply as Qohelet (which is what I’ll do).

Whether he is Solomon or someone adopting Solomon’s persona is a matter of scholarly debate).

Whoever Qohelet is, he he is desperately seeking solid footing in life

He sought wisdom, pleasure, and accomplishments and found them all ultimately unsatisfying.

He describes it all as Hevel, a word that literally means ‘vapour’

Mist at daybreak is quickly burned away by the morning sun.

In the same way, the things from which we seek meaning are passing pleasures that can’t give us permanent satisfaction.

Seeking ultimate satisfaction becomes a futile endeavour, akin to chasing after the wind.

On second thought, maybe Qohelet is Mick Jagger, who can’t get no satisfaction.

I know what you’re thinking: “Thank you, pastor, for inspiring me. Now I know I’ll never find fulfilment or satisfaction.”

You’re welcome.

But seriously, the beauty of Ecclesiastes is that it deconstructs the lies that we tell ourselves.

Qohelet’s terrible experience allows him to see that the pursuits that we all commonly look to to give us a sence of transcendent purpose don’t work in the ways we expect.

Only after he realizes that these things are unable to do what he wants from them will he be free to look in new directions.

We are invited to learn from Qohelet’s experience. Rather than needing to go through our own similar experience.

Learning lessons from others is a great way of profiting off someone else’s pain.

Why go through all of that, when I can just take to heart what Qohelet is telling me?

“I tried all that. It didn’t do it for me like I thought it would.”

He’s not the only one to make that observation.

Matthew Perry Had It All: I’m reminded of a story Matt Perry told. He and his friend Craig Bierko both desperately wanted to be famous. Bierko caught a big break when was offered a choice between two roles on two different television pilots. One of them was the role of Chandler Bing on the sitcom Friends (the roll that went on to make Perry famous). Despite the advice of all of his friends (Including Perry) Bierko chose the other show, leaving the door open for Matt Perry to be cast in Friends.

Bierko’s show never got past the pilot phase while Friends became the biggest show on TV. This created some awkwardness between the two friends. They didn’t speak for 2 years. When Bierko did finally approach his old friend, Perry tried to explain to him how all the fame he had achieved didn’t do anything to address the hole inside. Perry explained that he didn’t think Bierko actually believed him.

But Matthew Perry never found enough satisfaction in fame and fortune that he was able to get free of his addictions. He died of complications from a drug overdose.

The teacher of Ecclesiastes and Matthew Perry from Friends know the same truth: the things we put our hope in are vapour.

Good Gift; Bad Hope

It’s not that the things we put our hope in are necessarily bad things. Many of them are good.

Wisdom is a gift from God

Accomplishment means that our lives make a difference to others

We’re not pursuing murder, mayhem or tooth decay, for goodness sake.

The problem itself isn’t that the things we seek are necessarily bad in and of themselves. It’s just that they don’t do what we suppose.

The Misuse of Sand: When Carolyn was a little girl, she was playing in the sand near the car port where her Father’s snowmobile was parked for the summer. She decided that what the snowmobile really needed was sand so she took her plastic shovel and put some into the gas tank. When snowmobile season started, the snowmobile wouldn’t run.

The lesson is that while sand isn’t an inherently bad thing—It’s great on beaches or in sandboxes—as a fuel to run a snowmobile, it doesn’t cut it.

When we put things in the wrong place, they don’t work as we intend them to work.

Idolatry is really about often good things at the wrong location—at the centre—of our lives

Ancients didn’t understand science. They thought the unpredictability of life was due to the capricious nature of ‘the gods.’

Placating these supposed deities became a survival strategy.

If you believed a god controlled the rains, you prayed or sacrificed to that god because if you had rain at the right time your crops would flourish, and you and your family could eat.

If you believed that a god controlled fertility, then you did what you had to placate that god so that your livestock would have lots of babies.

In our modern day, we just look to other ‘gods’ to satisfy our deep longings. For example:

We all have a deep desire for connection. Hollywood tells us that this need is best met by finding the right romantic partner.

We watch movies about people meant to be together, who tell each other things like, “You complete me”

The truth is that no romantic partnership holds up to those expectations after the infatuation inevitably wears off.

So People can become deeply dissatisfied with their marriages because they expect their marriage to do for them what no relationship possibly can.

Now regardless of whether we’re Qohelet seeking wisdom, ancient farmers seeking good weather and prolific livestock or modern Canadians looking for love, we’re seeking good things, but for the wrong reasons.

Apologies to Johny Lee: We’re lookin’ for transcendence in all the wrong places.

Finding Hope in the Giver

Everything good thing we get is a gift from God.

Rather than finding purpose, meaning, hope and satisfaction in the gifts, we need to find them in the giver.

Gifts, after all, are really about the relationship between the one who gives and the one who receives.

This past Christmas Carolyn and the kids gave me a new electric guitar that I had had my sights on for quite some time.

It’s a great guitar and I enjoy playing it, I appreciate that my wife would allow me to get it.

But the gift would miss the mark if I now spend every waking moment playing the guitar while totally ignoring my family.

The gift was something they gave me to express their affection for me, and that, properly received is about deepening the relationship.

In the same way, God gives us good gifts because he loves us and wants to draw us deeper into a relationship.

The deeper relationship itself becomes a gift.

This is because the satisfaction we long for, that fills the empty places, can only come from God.

Notice that while Qohelet looked for meaning in wisdom, wealth, pleasure and accomplishment, he didn’t look to God for that ultimate meaning.

No wonder he came to the conclusion that everything was meaningless!

David faced a lot of difficulties. While, yes, he did get to be king, but he spent years on the run from Saul and faced all sorts of family drama, yet he writesPsalm 37:3–6NIV

3 Trust in the Lord and do good; dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture. 4 Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart. 5 Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him and he will do this: 6 He will make your righteous reward shine like the dawn, your vindication like the noonday sun.

Take especial note of verse 4, “Take delight in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart”

This verse is often quoted by prosperity theology folks who say that if we want God he will give us the big bank accounts, private jets and flawless health that we really desire.

But that would set our ultimate hope on the stuff God gives us, rather than on God

Instead what he’s saying is that when we seek God and put him at the centre of our lives, he satisfies us.

And all of this has the added bonus that it frees us to enjoy the gifts that God has given us because they no longer have to bear the weight of our ultimate expectations.

Keeping God in the centre means that we enjoy our marriages, our friendships, our professional accomplishments and our possessions more than if we tried to find our ultimate satisfaction in them.

How To Centre Our Hope on God

It’s all well and good to say we need to centre our hope on God, but how do we do this in a practical sense?

Prayer

The first way is through prayer.

Prayer is unnatural to many of us (especially those who have grown up in the hyper-stimulation of the internet age).

When we do pray, it’s often like a letter to Santa Clause:

Dear God, I’d like a better paying job, I’d like my kids to make better life choices, and can you make my arthritis hurt less?

While there’s nothing wrong with asking God for things—in fact, we’re invited to—when that becomes to total of our prayer life, we miss out.

How should we pray?

Instead, When you pray, make it a conversation:

“God help me to connect to you. Help me to be still and know that you are God.”

God may speak to us (most likely not audibly), but we may gain a sense of his leading.

and we gain his companionship.

He may also tell us about the things that hindering our relationship

places where we’re holding a grudge, or where we’re proud, or places where we’ve built idols for ourselves.

God doesn’t do this because he likes to nit-pick, he does this because he wants us to be able to be fully engaged in our relationship with him so we can get the full blessing he intends.

Other useful insights into prayer.

Another helpful thing is specifically to pray the Lord’s Prayer.

Don’t just recite the words, but as you pray them, reflect on what they mean for you today.

The prayer reminds us of our transcendent purpose:

to portray God as Holy by living in line with his instructions

To seek his kingdom, his will here on earth as in heaven, beginning with you.

The prayer reminds us that we accomplish these things in three principal ways:

First, by Recognizing and living consistently with our dependence on a faithful God (along with the implied need to share with others when we are amply supplied)

To receive God’s forgiveness and to likewise pass it on to others

and to resist the temptation to do evil – unfaithfulness to God and harm to people, his image bearers.

A prayer life aimed at being with God and submitting to his good purposes focuses our lives on transcendence rather than on meaninglessness.

Fasting

The next way we can centre on God is through fasting.

Here, I’m not necessarily thinking about food, but about fasting from the things that seem too important.

Man does not live by TV alone: When I was a teenager, I watched a lot of TV. I didn’t think I could live without it. But when I went to university, I didn’t have a TV, and quickly realized that I didn’t miss it like I assumed I would. We may be looking to something to meet our needs and taking a break from it can help us put our need in perspective.

Fasting is a regular Christian practice at lent, because it reminds us that many of the gifts God gives us crowd out the giver.

It becomes a way of telling myself that there’s more to life.

Jesus invites us to put these things in their proper perspectiveMatthew 6:25–33NIV

25 “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? 26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27 Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life? 28 “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29 Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30 If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? 31 So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.

Sometimes we need to put away the gift so we can pay attention to the giver.

In Jesus’ day, people were obsessed with the basic necessities (because they lived on the edge). In our age, we live with different preoccupations, but the effect is the same.

In our case, it’s the pursuit of things like status, comfort, pleasure and adventure

Just as how the pursuit of basic necessities in Jesus’ day became an all-encompassing pursuit, so the pursuit of these things becomes a full-time preoccupation in our culture.

Fasting can mean fasting from the pursuit of these things and the worries that go along with the pursuit.

When we realize we can leave behind the rat race and actually find greater contentment, it changes our lives.

Worship

The final way we’ll talk about for centring our lives on God is through worship.

Worship isn’t just singing ‘worship’ songs. It is any activity that we do that ascribes worth to God.

This involves actions done as a way of pleasing God

So someone serving at a soup kitchen because they know God values the poor is worshipping.

It might mean certain types of prayer, where we focus on the things that make God holy

Or it might mean singing songs of praise to God.

Paul has some helpful advice for the Ephesian Church that we could use tooEphesians 5:17–19NIV

17 Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is. 18 Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit, 19 speaking to one another with psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit. Sing and make music from your heart to the Lord,

What’s Paul saying here?

We need to understand what the will of the Lord is – we have to focus on his agenda for the world.

Our tendency is often to escape the world, distracting ourselves

in their case with wine, in ours, perhaps with retail therapy or binge-watching Netflix.

Rather than getting distracted, we’re invited to be attentive to the Spirit and focus on God

Paul specifically references songs. They often help us with words we can’t express.

I couldn’t have said it better: There have been times in my life when I felt deep emotions I didn’t know how to express, but then I’ve heard songs that expressed my heart so totally, it’s as if I could have written it myself, if I were just a more talented songwriter. As unique as my particular experiences are, the emotions we have are often very common, and their songs can help me express the seemingly inexpressible things in my heart.

This is true with spiritual experiences as well. The power of David’s Psalms, in their cries of rejoicing or distress is that they gave voice to emotional realities that we all experience from time to time. Singing praise songs and hymns can be a useful way for us to process our feelings. They can be prayers to God that speak the words we don’t know how to express ourselves.

One bit of practical advice: modern worship music tends to do a great job of reflecting on the positive aspects of the life of faith. But because worship music is a business, stuff that doesn’t sell, doesn’t get written. Let’s just say, no one would be lining up to put Ecclesiastes to music (with the exception of Turn, Turn, Turn) So when you’re trying to express your pain to God, it might take more digging to find something that speaks to you. A great place to start could be the Psalms, many of which deal with these themes.

As we learn to express the depths of who we are to God, we’ll find it deepens the relationship.

Conclusion

So what have we learned in this reflection on Ecclesiastes?

When our lives centre around the pursuit of something other than God, the pursuit leaves us feeling empty.

It’s true when our pursuits are base: money, pleasure, status

But also when the pursuits seem more admirable: things like wisdom or accomplishment.

None of these things meet the deep spiritual need at our centre that only God can meet.

While the things we seek have some beauty and value, as our highest pursuits, they can’t bear the weight of our expectation, and so they become meaningless.

But Qohelet’s despair isn’t inescapable. When we put God, rather than the good gifts God gives, at the centre of our lives, we can find the meaning Qohelet didn’t find.

This pursuit of God takes shape in spiritual practices that open us up to God and include things like prayer, fasting and worship.

In seeking God in this way, we discover as St. Augustine wrote: “You stir man to take pleasure in praising you, because you have made us for yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in you”*

*(Augustine Confessions. Henry Chadwick’s translation)