Ecclesiastes
3
There
is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens: a
time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, a time
to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build, a time to
weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance, a time to
scatter stones and a time to gather them, a time to embrace and a time to
refrain from embracing, a time to search and a time to give up, a time to keep
and a time to throw away, a time to tear and a time to mend, a time to be
silent and a time to speak, a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war
and a time for peace.
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Moreover I saw under the sun that in the place of
justice, wickedness was there, and in the place of righteousness, wickedness
was there as well. I said in my heart, God will judge the righteous and the
wicked, for he has appointed a time for every matter, and for every work. I
said in my heart with regard to human beings that God is testing them to show
that they are but animals. For the fate of humans and the fate of animals is
the same; as one dies, so dies the other. They all have the same breath, and
humans have no advantage over the animals; for all is vanity. All go to one
place; all are from the dust, and all turn to dust again. Who knows whether
the human spirit goes upward and the spirit of animals goes downward to the
earth? So I saw that there is nothing better than that all
should enjoy their work, for that is their lot; who can bring them to see
what will be after them? |
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One of
the pictures in my head, which has never gone away – as fresh today as it was
then, and still brings tears even as I speak of it, was sitting on the organ
bench in the chapel at Tan Son Nhut airbase in Saigon, watching a young man
crying his heart out, calling for his mother. He had to be over 18 but he
looked twelve. He had signed up convinced that there was an enemy which
threatened the US, only to find that it was all a sham. There was no threat to
the United States. Like many young men who went over there, the only way to
survive his year of duty was drugs, mostly marijuana, and often cocaine. He
didn’t survive Viet Nam. One Sunday when I came for church, he was no longer
there. He went home to his mother – in a body bag.
Another
memory – sitting in an ice-cream parlour with my friend Hong – and being
approached by a young mother holding a baby with a cleft palate – except that
as she got closer I could see that the cleft had been made worse to make the baby
more pitiable. My immediate response was to want to take them both to hospital
– but Hong said if I did that, they would be on the street again anyway.
Better, she said, to give money so they would be able to get off the street. I
went home that afternoon, and sat holding my own infant son – the first – born
beautiful and clean, not like babies usually look. And I wept – for the
privilege even there of being protected – if there was a crisis there were six
different embassies which would take us out. For my beautiful healthy son, and
for that mother born into a war she had nothing to do with, a life forced on
her by the circumstances of dishonest corrupt people and geo-political
manipulations.
I
remember my second job – working with the YMCA Refugee Service headquartered in
Geneva but active wherever refugees are
found. Office administration, bilingual French-English communications, and
working in the refugee camps – cleaning people’s hair and cutting it, picking
out lice, distributing food where possible – Norio digging latrines out behind
shelter tents which didn’t even reach the ground or keep water from flowing
through in rainy season.
Or
sitting around a lunch table in the elegant back yard of a French-style villa,
at lunch with the United Nations Human Rights Ambassador and his wife, his
daughter our friend, and one of those incredibly macho US military generals who
sat over lunch talking with glee about how many ‘gooks’ they had killed the
night before, and how many ‘captured’ weapons. And his assumption that everyone
agreed with him. Those ‘gooks’ were people who wanted their country free of any
foreign occupation – they were human beings with husbands, wives, children –
relatives on the other side.
Most
people don’t know that front-line deaths in the war were the tenth cause of
death in Viet Nam. Cholera, typhoid, cancer, ectopic pregnancies were the top
four. Agent Orange was used as a
defoliant. It is a primary cause of cancer and neurological disorders, and it
never leaves the system. Once you’ve been exposed, that’s it. So even if that
war is over, the deaths continue – everyone who was exposed carries it. There
are still land-mines throughout southeast Asia, particularly Viet Nam and
Cambodia. People still die from unexploded ordnance, poisoned water and food.
The
book of Ecclesiastes is part of a genre of writing in the Hebrew Scripture
known as Wisdom Literature. This particular passage is most often read at
funerals, but the more I hear it the more I wonder if we are hearing it with
the right pair of ears. We tend to hear it as if everything is preceded by “God
has ordained........” as if everything is out of our hands, as if it’s going to
happen no matter what we do.
Ecclesiastes
is a pen-name which means ‘preacher’ or ‘teacher’; but this writer was
completely pessimistic about life, politics, and God. So the questions: Does God do these things? Is this
something God will do without us? Or is this something God will do together
with us, when we have the will to do it. Does planting and harvesting happen by
itself? Does loving and hating happen by itself? Does God make us hate? Does
peace just happen? Is it just the absence of violence? Or is it a collective
choice? For me, peace will only happen when there is such a collective desire
for an end to war, that there will be no other option but the will to make it
happen. It is not that the differences between nations cannot be overcome - it
is that we make choices, and get so attached to believing in the rightness of
our way, that we cannot see beyond those things to a different way of being and
doing.
This passage is a perfect
description of the human condition, and I suspect that was at the root of the
pessimism in Ecclesiastes. For each of us there is a time to be born and a time
to die - and there are times between birth and death where we have a life to
live; when there is death we mourn and where there is new life we celebrate
Look at the second part of this reading –
wickedness present even in the places of righteousness and justice. This is
another comment on the human condition – that the wealthy, the powerful, the politicians
will manipulate even processes of righteousness. Is this something God makes
happen, or is it choices made by human beings who know their choices are wrong?
Jesus says beware of those who go about in long and fancy robes, praying in
public and giving huge gifts to the synagogue, while the ordinary people who
struggle from day to day give everything they have without complaint, even if
it means giving their life. Extrapolating from that, one can read politicians
and military leaders who are hypocrites in their search for greater power, at
the expense of the ordinary people whom they govern.
So let’s
re-read Ecclesiastes now - but read it this way -
*we*
choose the time to plant and the time to uproot,
*we*
choose a time to kill and a time to heal,
*we*
choose to tear down or to build up,
*we*
choose to weep and to laugh,
*we*
choose to search and to give up,
*we*
choose to embrace and to refrain from embracing,
*we*
choose to keep or to throw away,
*we*
choose to love or to hate,
*we* choose
to be silent or to speak,
*we*
choose war, and *we* choose peace..
As I wrote this I had in the back of my mind
the phrase “history repeats itself”, and a kind of niggling memory that it has
its roots in Ecclesiastes. What has been described is precisely the case of
humanity now – memory does not exist, and lessons have not been learned. Sure
enough, in the very opening passage of the book, we read (1:9-11)
“What
has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing
new under the sun. Is there anything of which one can say, ‘Look - this is
something new?’ It was here already, long ago; it was here before our time. No
one remembers the former generations, and even those yet to come will not be
remembered by those who come after them.”
In Viet Nam I saw enough of war to realise that
if we spent as much time and effort on making peace as on making war, we would
have had real lasting peace a long time ago. As I watch the news, and people
who have become so obsessed by power and control that they will crush others,
it becomes almost too much to bear. It seems as if even the possibility for
change is not there. There are days when I understand how the writer of
Ecclesiastes felt, because some days it becomes too much to bear, the thought
of such things happening to my grandchildren or great grandchildren.
And yet, the Revelation of John tells us that
God creates a new thing, God can do something new, and will bring about a time
when there is no more suffering or sorrow, no more pain, only peace and
fulfillment for humanity. The question for me is, again, does God do it alone?
Or are we the ones who make choices to work for those things, and God inspires,
moves and strengthens us. As human beings there are lessons we need to learn, and
choices which only we can make. As long as we choose hatred, or tearing down,
we will not find love, or building up. As long as history is erased, textbooks
sanitised, and leaders who would take us back to a more destructive time are
not stopped, there will always be evil, violence and war.
The birth of Jesus, and the life and teaching
of Jesus, were a statement that it *is* possible to choose love over hate; it
*is* possible to choose peace instead of war; it *is* possible to speak out
instead of remaining silent. The question for us is, do we take the birth, life
and death of Jesus seriously? If we do, we have to believe that God wants us to
make the right choices - but will not make the choices for us. We want to make
sure that the generations which follow will remember those lessons, instead of
repeating the cycle, as we have been doing. Doing nothing is also a choice we
make, and with every choice there are consequences.
For
each of us there is a time to be born and a time to die - and there are times
between birth and death where we have a life to live; when there is death we
mourn and where there is new life we celebrate. But we also make choices in the
life we are given..”
For
such a time as this, when once again we realise there is truly nothing new
under the sun, I turn to the words of Deuteronomy – God says ‘I have set before you life and
death, blessings and curses. Choose life, so that you and your children may
live.” Choose life. May it be so.
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