Vanity, All Is Vanity
A SERMON FOR THE 5TH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY
The Rev’d Jason VanBorssum, Homilist
In the Name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
The Old Testament lesson appointed for this morning includes most of the Second Chapter of the Book of Ecclesiastes. The full name of this text from the Hebrew Bible is “The Book of Koheleth, Son of David, King in Jerusalem.” Quite a mouthful. It is more commonly known as the Book of Koheleth (the pseudonym of the author of the text) or simply “Koheleth.” Koheleth means “preacher” or “teacher.” And our name “Ecclesiastes” is an Anglicized version of the Greek title of the text. The book has traditionally been attributed to Solomon, who built the Temple in Jerusalem and reigned during the golden age of Israel. Some of the richest sayings in the English language come to us from the Book of Ecclesiastes:
“There is nothing better for a man than that he should eat, drink, and be merry.”
“To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven.”
“Better is it that you should not vow, than that you should vow and not pay.”
“The race is not to the swift.”
“There is nothing new under the sun.”
And the recurring refrain “Vanity of vanities! All is vanity!” In the original Hebrew of the text, “Hevel havalim, hakhol hevel!” More on hevel in a moment.
I’d like to go beyond the Second Chapter and expand upon the text more broadly. Ecclesiastes is part of the “wisdom literature” of the Bible. It concerns itself with universal philosophical questions. Koheleth, the speaker in this book, ruminates on what – if anything – has lasting value, and how – if at all – God interacts with humankind. Koheleth expresses bewilderment and frustration at life’s absurdities and injustices. He grapples with the inequities that pervade the world and the frailty and limitations of human wisdom and righteousness. His awareness of these discomfiting facts coexists with a firm belief in God’s rule and God’s fundamental justice, and he looks for ways to define a meaningful life in a world where so much is senseless. Sound familiar? Ecclesiastes has therefore seemed to many to be self-contradictory. At times Koheleth seems miserable, at other times, joyous. He is capable of hating life and loving life. That also may sound familiar to some of us.
2020 has been a difficult year. But difficult times can be transforming times. Without minimizing the pain, suffering can be a life-changing experience if we let it open our eyes to the true sources of happiness. Koheleth is a victim of “affluenza.” He has everything: houses, servants, gardens. He is the richest man on earth. Yet it does not bring him happiness. The more he has, the more pointless it all seems.
I would suggest that much of the seeming contradiction in Ecclesiastes lies in the translation of the key word that is the theme of the book. Again, that word is hevel. The King James Bible translates it as “vanity.” Other translations render it as “meaningless, empty, pointless, futile.” But none fully captures the real sense of the word, and as a result we might miss the point of the book. In Hebrew, all words relating to the soul, the spirit, the life force, have to do with the act of breathing. So does the word hevel. It means a short, shallow breath. That is Koheleth’s fundamental insight. Life is uncertain, fragile, and brief. It is a mere fleeting breath.
Koheleth is about mortality. At first, the knowledge that he will die threatens to rob Koheleth of all meaning. What use is wealth, power, and wisdom if one day we will no longer be around to enjoy them? Nothing lasts. We all suffer the same fate. Good or evil, we all die. Koheleth realizes that all the time he was pursuing wealth and possessions, he was chasing after substitutes for life, instead of celebrating life itself. He learns that “Whoever loves money never has money enough.” He also knows that “there is nothing better for people than to be happy and do good while they live.” Koheleth does not find life meaningless, futile, mere vanity. That is an error of translation. Koheleth finds life fleeting and short. The prospect of death threatens to rob him of all happiness, until he realizes that mortality is the very condition of our happiness.
Ecclesiastes is an account of the attempt to find happiness by a man who has everything. It is also sacred text that explores the relationship between faith and reason. The author struggles to believe that life is meaningful despite his experience of the world. The book’s inclusion in the canon of Scripture is somewhat remarkable, testifying to Hebraic interest not only in divine revelation, sacred law, and covenantal history, but also in man’s exploration of the meaning of life. Koheleth sets out on his inquiry from the perspective of a man with vast fortune and endless opportunity. He takes as his starting point not revelation, but man’s personal need for meaning. In other words, Ecclesiastes is not about what God wants of us, but about what we want for ourselves. This approach may resonate especially strongly with Western readers of today, since few Westerners appreciate doing things simply because they are told, regardless of who does the telling – like being mindful of public health concerns, wearing a face mask in public or practicing social distancing, for example. We moderns are thus in a unique position to identify with Koheleth’s quest.
It would seem that his quest is doomed from the start, however. In the opening passages of Ecclesiastes, Koheleth despairs over what he sees as the futility of life’s labors. He says:
“Therefore, I hated life, because the deeds that are done under the sun were depressing to me, for all is vanity and grasping for the wind. Then I hated all my work, which I work at under the sun, because I must leave it to the man who will come after me – and who knows whether he will be wise or a fool?” Disillusioned with life because he believes it is all in vain, he abhors the idea of leaving his life’s work behind for someone else to enjoy or to squander. Whereas all the great kings of old strove to achieve immortality by erecting grand monuments to themselves, Koheleth understands that such attempts are illusory. He therefore poses the elementary, existential question: “If I die anyway, why does anything matter?” As contemporary theologian M. James Sawyer writes, according to Ecclesiastes “Man is compelled to seek for an answer to the meaning of life. It is a task which wearies him and causes him grief and is doomed to ultimate failure” (The Theology of Ecclesiastes, 2004). The first words, however, are not the last. There are numerous passages in Ecclesiastes that move in the opposite direction, affirming the positive value of a joyful life. The same Solomon who appears to say so often that “all is vanity” also exclaims that “there is nothing better than man rejoicing” and that “nothing is better for man under the sun than to eat, drink, and be merry.” He also exhorts his fellow man to “Go, eat your bread with joy, drink your wine with a content mind; for God has already graced your deeds.”
Having rejected the notion of achieving immortality through material gains, Koheleth must seek another way. One possibility is the negation of this life in favor of being singularly focused on the world to come. But this can lead to a detachment from life, a dismissal of material existence. Why, then, was the cosmos – including us – created at all? For certain Protestants, detachment from the world is the definition of true piety, which wholeheartedly embraces the meaninglessness of mortal existence. This is merely a rehash of the heresy of Gnosticism, in my view. The Gnostics believed that only a select few were given secret and hidden knowledge, and it was these spiritual elites, the elect, who would be saved. For the Gnostics, this world was viewed as a dark, entirely evil place – a crucible in which we would be tormented until, if God predestined it, the elect would escape to a far-off, celestial realm in the clouds. This is a fundamentally pagan view, frankly. It is theology which sees Sisyphus, not Christ, as the ultimate representative of the human condition, with life nothing but an endless, meaningless, cyclical hamster wheel of despair and toil, signifying nothing. It also views God the Father not as loving Creator but as Zeus or Jupiter, all-powerful but petulant, always ready to hurl lightning bolts at unsuspecting mortals, who are merely playthings of the Olympian pantheon.
In contrast, Catholic theology, of which Anglican thought is a part, places an emphasis on Incarnational theology. After all, if physical existence were something from which we hope to be delivered, why did God, the Divine Logos, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, become incarnate in the person of Jesus Christ, who “became flesh and dwelt among us?” God in His Omnipotence surely could have pronounced an extraterrestrial, ethereal verdict of salvation without being “conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, suffering under Pontius Pilate” and being “crucified, dead, and buried.” Incarnational theology sees and recognizes God’s Grace and Divine Mercy in the birth, baptism, ministry, teaching, miracles, passion, death, burial, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. Simply put, matter matters. As a result of the prevalence of this neo-Gnosticism among Christians, many people have unconsciously become accustomed to seeing everyday life as separate from spiritual existence. As Fr. Michael often instructs, this is an erroneous – and bad – metaphysic. It is a belief that the spiritual and the physical have no relation to one another. That the Sacraments of the Church have no reality, no actuality, no efficacy.
God is the ultimate and supreme reality; He is the answer to the metaphysical question, “What is there?” And an adequate account of God’s nature – at least, as adequate as we can articulate and comprehend – must be a high priority for Christian thought. Therefore, a Christian metaphysic must also speak of Creation, which reflects the glory of God. And it must speak of man as bearing the imago Dei – the image of God. The Gnostics of the early centuries of the Church, like the Puritans, non-Sacramental Evangelicalism, and Dispensationalism ironically diminish God’s Sovereignty through twisted theological calisthenics which try to systematically explain and intellectually master every possible facet of the Sovereignty of God. If we embrace involvement in the real world, hoping like Solomon to make our mark in it by remaining faithful and following the commandments of God, does this makes our life less meaningful or more meaningful? In other words, if we focus on earthly reality through the lens of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, are we, therefore, necessarily distancing ourselves from God? Again, matter matters. Life matters.
Visions of Heaven are relatively few and not crystal-clear in Scripture. But Scripture reveals to us that God places great value on man’s actions in the material world. “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.” The Parable of the Talents: “Well done, thou and faithful servant!” “Faith without works is dead.” The Parable of the Laborers in the Vineyard. And so on. There are many more clear examples in both the Old and New Testaments. As such, Ecclesiastes concludes that our involvement in the world is not without meaning. Yes, Christians are “in the world, not of it.” But this does not mean that once we “get saved” by accepting Jesus as our “personal Lord and Savior” we can abrogate or neglect our responsibility to boldly live a Gospel-centric life as disciples of Christ.
If we are to make better sense of this challenging text, we must read it another way. We should approach it as a text that is part of, and speaks to, a broader Biblical tradition. To the ancient Israelites, the famous opening line: “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity” would have been instantly recognizable as an allusion to another text: the story of Cain and Abel. The most important clue to the mystery of Ecclesiastes, therefore, is found in the striking reference it makes to Genesis. The central message of Ecclesiastes may be encapsulated in a single word: hevel. Usually translated as “vanity,” “futility,” or “meaninglessness,” the word appears 38 times in the text. It is most commonly understood to mean that anything we do is in vain. Yet Hevel is also the Hebrew name of Abel, the son of Adam and Eve. Therefore, we must first remind ourselves of the original text in Genesis to which Ecclesiastes is referring:
Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, saying, “I have acquired a man from the Lord.” Then she bore again, this time his brother Hevel. Now Hevel was a shepherd, but Cain was a tiller of the ground. And it came to pass that Cain brought an offering of the fruit of the ground to the LORD. Hevel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat. And the LORD heeded Hevel and his offering, but he did not heed Cain and his offering. And Cain was very angry, and his countenance fell. So the LORD said to Cain, “Why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen? If you better, you will transcend. And if you do not better, sin lies at the door. And its desire is for you, but you must master it.” And it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Hevel his brother and killed him.
In light of the preoccupation with death in Ecclesiastes, the reference to Abel is striking. Abel was the first human being to die a physical death. Just two verses after humankind was denied the tree of eternal life, his story becomes the embodiment of human mortality. It is in this context that we may re-read the verses of Ecclesiastes: “Man sets out for his eternal abode, with mourners all around in the street.… And the dust returns to the ground as it was, and the life-breath returns to God who bestowed it. Hevel havalim, says Kohelet. All is hevel!”
However, Abel’s representation of death is only one side of the story. He is also the first human being to offer a sacrifice that God accepts! This is significant. In contrast to his parents and older brother, all of whom were rebuked by God, Abel was the first human whom God clearly favors. When we read that “the Lord heeded Hevel and his offering,” the verb “heeded,” in Hebrew, vayisha, carries a powerful overtone of deliverance as well as acceptance. Furthermore, God is deliberately accepting, or as the Hebrew connotes, “delivering,” not only the offering, but Abel himself. Not until the crowning moment of Exodus, as God forged His eternal bond with the people of Israel, is the cognate word for “deliverance,” yeshua, used again. Yeshua is the Hebrew name of Our Lord. Yeshua = Jesus. This is not a coincidence.
But who was Abel? Was he really affirmed by God? His life was too short to attain material success. Abel was also childless. His life, therefore, left no trace. He “walked without footprints,” to use the ancient idiom for being without descendants. If we translate Abel’s name, Hevel, as “vanity,” as readers of Ecclesiastes have long been accustomed, it is impossible to reconcile the term with Abel’s acceptance by God. Indeed, the story of Abel teaches the exact opposite: the possibility of salvation despite the fleeting nature of life. Precisely because of the tragic nature of Abel’s interrupted life, we learn its deepest message: In turning one’s life into an offering, one is not dependent on any life circumstance or on any worldly, material achievements.
A better reading of hevel, then, is one that provides us with an understanding of both Genesis and Ecclesiastes. What is important about the life of Abel is not its futility, but its transience. It was as fleeting as a puff of air, yet his life’s calling was nonetheless fulfilled by finding favor with God and having his life sacrificed. This, too, is the meaning of hevel in Ecclesiastes: Not “vanity,” but the more objective “transience,” referring strictly to mortality and the fleeting nature of human life. “Hevel havalim! Hakhol hevel” says Ecclesiastes. “Fleeting transience! All is fleeting!” Or, read another way: Abel (Hevel) is every human being. Without the negative connotations of “vanity,” we discover in the author of Ecclesiastes a man who is tormented not by the meaninglessness of life, but by how swiftly it comes to an end. Life is gone so very quickly, and likewise man’s worldly deeds. We now understand the significance of Kohelet’s opening proclamation that “all is hevel.” As we are solemnly reminded every Ash Wednesday, “Remember, O man, that thou art dust, and unto dust shalt thou return.”
Ecclesiastes does not offer a single, static teaching from beginning to end, but a thematic progression, one that follows its author’s own discovery of meaning, a somber acceptance of the fact of mortality. Ecclesiastes teaches, however, that temporal existence is not an end in itself. A long, “successful” existence in the world, without merit, is worse than no life at all. By understanding the fleeting nature of life, Koheleth is no longer paralyzed by the burden of death. Life’s transience is dynamically transformed into a powerful motivational force: an urgency to live, to experience joy, to take action, to learn and grow in holy wisdom, being faithful to God. In today’s Epistle, St. Peter’s letter complements these themes: “Finally, be ye all of one mind, having compassion one of another, love as brethren, be pitiful, be courteous: not rendering evil for evil, or railing for railing: but contrariwise blessing; knowing that ye are thereunto called, that ye should inherit a blessing. For he that will love life, and see good days, let him refrain his tongue from evil, and his lips that they speak no guile: let him eschew evil, and do good; let him seek peace, and pursue it…. But and if ye suffer for righteousness’ sake, happy are ye.”
This ultimate lesson – fleeting life yielding eternal truth – touches on the very core of the Bible’s metaphysical, mysterious imagery. It is found in the Book of Exodus, at the very point where Moses begins his own spiritual path. He is tending his flock when he experiences a life-changing revelation: “And the Angel of the LORD appeared to him in a flame of fire from the midst of a bush. So he looked, and behold, the bush was burning with fire, but the bush was not consumed.” In the burning bush, Moses perceived the powerful image of ephemeral, physical existence sustaining in it a fire of the eternal: two realities which seemingly cannot coexist but in truth are inseparable. And in this Christophany, this early manifestation of the Divine Logos, the Great I AM reveals His Holy Name to Moses. YHWH, which in addition to meaning “I am” or “I will be what I will be,” also means “I AM Present.” I AM Present.
As in the burning bush, so in the Eucharist. We encounter the Divine Mystery of the Real Presence in the Body and Blood: physical substance of bread and wine, made sacred by the Holy Spirit. The ephemeral, transitory elements of the Sacrament point beyond themselves to an efficacious actuality, a vivifying reality, an eternal truth in which the physical and the spiritual coexist. In the Sacrament of Holy Communion, the transient elements of bread and wine are thus inseparable from the eternal, Divine reality which they signify. Our lives are transient and fleeting, but they are not meaningless. Because we are made one body with Christ, that he may dwell in us, and we in him.
To restate the Collect of the Day: Grant, O Lord, we beseech Thee, that the course of our lives – although transient and fleeting – may be so peaceably ordered by Thy governance, that we may joyfully serve Thee, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
