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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.
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?
Micah 4 But when all is said and done, God’s Temple on
the mountain, firmly fixed, will dominate all
mountains, towering above surrounding hills. People will stream to it and many
nations set out for it, saying, “Come, let’s climb God’s mountain. Let’s go to the Temple of Jacob’s God – who will teach
us how to live. We’ll know how to live God’s way.”
True
teaching will issue from Zion, God’s revelation
from Jerusalem. Justice will be established in the rabble of nations and settle
disputes in faraway places. They’ll trade in their swords for shovels, their
spears for rakes and hoes. Nations will quit fighting each other, quit learning
how to kill one another. Each man will sit under his own shade tree, each woman
in safety will tend her own garden. God-of-the-Angel-Armies
says so, and he means what he says.
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The Book of
Ecclesiastes is part of a genre of writing in the Hebrew Scripture known as
Wisdom Literature, which also includes Job, Proverbs, Psalms are other
examples. 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 - and I am not convinced that’s what the passage means.
Ecclesiastes
is a pen-name which means ‘preacher’ or ‘teacher’; and in this case the writer was
pessimistic about life, politics, God, people - everything;
So for the
writer - the world is hopeless; and yet
he says people are going to kill, but someone will come along who tries to
bring life. A time to tear down and a time to build up - but in the end it is all a test that God
gives to prove humans are animals.
Does God
cause war, and then the process of peace? Is this something God will do without
us? Or is this something God will do together with us, once we have the will? Does
planting just happen by itself, and harvesting? Or is it something we have to
work at? 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?
I think peace
will only happen when people have such a collective desire for war to be ended
that there will be no other option, and there will be 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.
It seems to
me that 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. But we also make choices in the life we
are given..” The book of Deuteronomy says - “This day I call the heavens and
the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death,
blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live.
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.
If you look at the opening of
Ecclesiastes, here’s what it says: “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.”
If we spent
as much time and effort on making peace as we do 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. Leaders who sell arms because of jobs, they
say, regardless of the people who will die. Leaders who threaten nuclear war.
People who really have no interest in other people.
Into this
pessimistic piece comes the optimism of Micah. There WILL be a time when war
ends. Weapons won’t be made or sold any more; instead we will make more tools
for growing food, so whole nations like Yemen will not starve, children won’t
die in pain and fear. God’s way is the way of peace, where everyone has a full
and productive life. Micah says with certainty that people will learn to live
the way God wishes us to live.
Linda’s
story….
Each year in
the Commonwealth countries, we stop on the 11th of November to remember
and honour those men and women who lost their lives in war; but for me, too
often it stops there. Ive been going to cenotaph services almost all my life.
We did in school when I was a child. Has war ended? One way or another, over
the last 222 years, there has been a 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 choosing to remain 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 life and death, blessings and curses - are ours
to choose - and that God wants us to make the right choices - but make no
mistake, the choices *are* ours. And 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.
It seems to
me that this passage is a perfect description of the human condition, and I
suspect that was at the root of Ecclesiastes’ pessimism. 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..” May it be so.
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