Looking for the Not Empty Thing – Ecclesiastes 1

A text – Ecclesiastes 1:2, 12-14, 18-23

² Vanity of vanities, says the Teacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity.

¹² I, the Teacher, was king over Israel in Jerusalem. ¹³ I applied my mind to seek and to search out by wisdom all that is done under heaven; it is an unhappy business that God has given to humans to be busy with. ¹⁴ I saw all the deeds that are done under the sun, and see, all is vanity and a chasing after wind.

¹⁸ I hated all my toil in which I had toiled under the sun, seeing that I must leave it to my successor, ¹⁹ and who knows whether he will be wise or foolish? Yet he will be master of all for which I toiled and used my wisdom under the sun. This also is vanity. ²⁰ So I turned and gave my heart up to despair concerning all the toil of my labors under the sun, ²¹ because sometimes one who has toiled with wisdom and knowledge and skill must leave all to be enjoyed by another who did not toil for it. This also is vanity and a great evil. ²² What do mortals get from all the toil and strain with which they toil under the sun? ²³ For all their days are full of pain, and their work is a vexation; even at night their minds do not rest. This also is vanity.

A reflection:

Does this little reading from the Old Testament remind you of anything? The writer is regretting all the work he did to build up riches, because he can’t take them with him when he dies and he isn’t even sure their inheritor will use them wisely. We might as well chase after the wind, he declares. He begins this chapter with the famous phrase, “Vanity of vanities, All is vanity!” He is using the word vanity in the earliest sense of the word vain – as we do when we say “in vain” – as in “all his work was in vain” – for nothing. This is different from using vain to mean conceited or shallow. That use has developed more recently, but the original comes from the Latin word vanus, meaning empty or futile.

Those who determine the texts for each week surely link this text with the gospel parable about the man who is considering building bigger storehouses for what he owns even though the man may die that very night. His attention is on his “stuff” when it should be on his life and his relationship with God.

It also reminds me of the Mary and Martha story, when Jesus tells Martha that she may be missing the best part of life available to her at that moment. Martha is chasing around doing tremendous work while Mary is soaking in the words of God Incarnate. We are all given the gift, the riches, of time. We can choose how we use that gift. How much time do we spend on acquiring money for our supposed security, and how much on faith and relationship, in which our eternal security rests?

Having been in exactly the position the speaker in this passage describes in verses 22-23 – having toiled and strained (mentally if not physically, in my case), have I not also tossed and turned at night in vexation? So what do we do when we realize our daily labors for the accumulation of wealth/security frustrate us, and we can’t take that wealth/security with us when we die? What does the frustrating line “all is vanity” bring us to? If we are lucky, it brings us to remembering that we have something many people don’t: a relationship with God that is eternal and not empty or vain. Any time spent in the deepening of that relationship is not vanity. So the writer is not completely right – All is not vanity. Because the love of God is not vanity.

A prayer:

Lord God, Thank you for loving us. Thank you for being the not vanity in our life. Thank you for sticking with us when we forget that and strive too hard for what is not permanent. Help us to remember to spend our gift of time on what is not vain or empty: our relationship with you. Amen.