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Holy Trinity Anglican Orthodox Church
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Twentieth Sunday after Trinity |
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Psalms 1 and 15 Ecclesiastes 9:4-10 Ephesians 6:1-9 The
Main Thing The
Rev. Garth Neel, speaking at the Convention in North Carolina, said,
“the main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.”
Truer words were never spoken, and in our world of disintegration
that extends from the culture to the individual due to our pursuit of many
things that are not the main thing, we need to hear the call to keep the
main thing the main thing. But
what is the main thing? Or,
as post-modern man might frame the question, is anything the main thing? This
is a question that has plagued mankind since the demise of paradise.
It is no wonder that Solomon applied himself to this question too.
We saw him dealing with it in our reading from Proverbs two weeks
ago, and we see him taking it up again today in our reading from
Ecclesiastes. The Book of
Ecclesiastes probably comes from the latter part of Solomon’s life.
You may recall that he started out as a God-fearing king who
delighted to serve God’s people. But,
through the years, he became ensnared in the privileges and power of being
the king. He began to think
of the people as his servants rather than himself as theirs.
He saw the spice trade from the east sailing past his country up
the Gulf of Suez, and discovered he could establish a port at Ezion-geber,
off load the merchandise and take it by caravan to the Mediterranean
Sea, where it could be loaded onto his ships and sent on to Europe.
He established the port and became fabulously wealthy because of
it. In the process he pressed the Hebrew people into forced
labor, making them his slaves for a period of time, taking them from their
homes and farms to serve him. Thus,
they lost time and money themselves, but made him rich.
In this he set task masters over them and their labor was made
bitter with whips and suffering. As
Solomon became rich, he found himself in a position to indulge his every
whim, and he denied himself nothing.
No pleasure was too exotic, too sensual, or too expensive.
He took whatever he desired, for he had the power and wealth to buy
everything and almost everyone. Pleasure
became his “main thing.” Of
course he could not live this excessive life-style and walk with God at
the same time, so he left the ways of God and lived in wantonness and
dissipation for many years. Writing
the Book of Ecclesiastes in the afternoon of his life, he was reflecting
on his past, probably weeping bitter tears for all the evil he had done
and all the good he could have done, but didn’t.
I truly believe our greatest regrets on Judgment Day will not be
the evil we did by commission, but the good we neglected by omission.
“We have left undone those things which we ought to have done.” Having been consumed with ourselves and our own pleasures
while Lazarus sat at our gates in misery we could have ameliorated, will
hang heavy on our hearts, will shame us before the Judgment Seat of the
One who gave even His very life for us.
As William Meade, who was consecrated bishop in Virginia in 1829,
said, “’a capacity to do good not only gives the title to it, but
makes the doing of it a duty’ … to which we may add the neglect of it
[is] a crime” (Rt. Rev. J. Johns, A
Memoir of the Life of the Right Rev. William Meade, D.D., p. 114). Solomon,
now in the last decades of his life realizes that he was never really
happy with all his riches and indulgences.
We look at Solomon and say, “of course.
Money can’t buy happiness.” We
know from experience that the idle pleasures of life do not last.
Barely have we begun to enjoy one before it fades into indifference
to us. The toy that brings so
much joy on Christmas morning is cast into the toybox and almost forgotten
by Christmas evening. Once at
a social event I happened to be standing beside members of very wealthy
families, whose names you would recognize.
After a while the adults walked to another area, but their
children, youths in their late teens and early twenties, stayed behind and
began to speak rather loudly and openly and there was no way to avoid
hearing them. Of course they
discussed their toys; cars that cost more than my house, ski trips that
cost more than my car. I
expected that. What surprised
me was the absolute boredom they felt toward life.
They had everything, and were totally bored with all of it.
The only time their conversation became animated was when they
talked about getting drunk or high. I can still hear them.
“Get drunk last night?” “Yeah,
wasted. You?” “Oh yeah. It
must have been good, ‘cuz like I don’t remember nuthin.” I thought, how sad, to have all of that money, and the only
thing that gives them any pleasure is to become so drunk they can’t
remember what happened. Pleasures
are like that. Possessions
are like that. We require
more and more of them, and more intensity in them because they loose their
power to please us. We become
bored with them. That
is one reason riches and pleasures can never bring happiness.
Solomon made that point earlier in this book, but he made another
point here that I think is very important, and it is one many people miss
in his book. He said
pleasures cannot bring happiness because they cannot stop the trials and
problems of life, and finally, because they cannot stop death.
Solomon, here, had begun to realize he was going to die like all
other men, and what good, then were his riches and pleasures?
Where is the wisdom of “eat drink and be merry, for tomorrow we
die?” It is folly.
It is madness. The
rich die, the poor die. Their
conditions in this world, “under the sun” last but for a little while,
and they go down to the earth in death together.
Wealth and poverty are vanities.
They are like a breath that is exhaled from the body and vanishes
away. That is why pleasures
cannot make us happy. In fact, they may work against true happiness because we
realize we must part with them. “You
can’t take it with you.” Still
there is more to Solomon’s argument.
Death, he insists, makes all of life vanity.
Death makes all of life hopeless and useless.
What good is life, since we all die anyway?
What’s the use of working and loving and going to church and
having children and getting an education and a job?
What’s the use? Isn’t
this exactly the question we hear from the youth of our own time?
They say all the props have been knocked out from under them.
All the things that once gave support and meaning to life are gone.
Truth, they say, has been shown to be a figment of our
imaginations. God has been
shown to be a figment of our imaginations.
Honor, justice purpose, love, family, and culture are not the
wisdom of a loving God handed down to us by Divine Revelation.
They are the products of wishful hearts and active imaginations,
and have been the cause of much misery, strife, and killing over the span
of man’s time under the sun. I
remember the 1960s when these views were really becoming prevalent, and
people hailed them as the advent of the age of understanding and the
coming of world peace. The
boomer generation was going to make the world a better place by
eliminating poverty, oppression, bigotry, and religion, and all the things
they believed separate people and cause war and strife. There is no god, they claimed, but we don’t need one.
We have everything we need in us.
We can create prosperity and peace on earth, all by ourselves. Today’s
youth often don’t have those ideals.
Their motto, if they wanted one, could be “why bother?”
Or, “don’t bother.” All
of life is empty and meaningless, and there is no reason to do anything. We, here today, see marriage as one of the foundations of
stability and culture and religion. To
them it is an outdated myth. Don’t
bother with marriage, or any permanent relationships; they say.
They only become burdens, and there is no point to them.
That is why so many children are born out of wedlock today.
That is why kids spike their hair and pierce their tongues and
dress in rags. They are
making a statement that they reject the culture and values of our
generations because they are meaningless, and because life is meaningless.
All is vanity. Isn’t
it amazing how relevant the Bible is?
We think we are so smart and we have invented new ideas and
questions that our ancestors couldn’t answer and never thought about,
but here is the most contemporary thought of our time, right in the Bible,
written almost 3,000 years ago. Here
is how Solomon responds to this issue.
He says, “a living dog is better than a dead lion.”
What does that have to do with anything?
It has everything to do with everything. Solomon is saying, life
matters. Life has value in
and of itself. Your life
matters, and you matter. You
are created in the image of God. You
have opportunities to do something important in life, to do something of
value, and something good. Your
station may not be high. You
may not be a king or a wealthy person, but you are alive, and while you
live you have hope. A living dog can do something.
A dead lion can’t. I
think, as I say this, of the words to a popular song which express
something of this same idea, I may pass this way but once, so if
there’s any good that I may do, Let me do I now, for I may never pass this
way again. Second,
“eat thy bread with joy” (vs. 7).
Don’t let the grave rob you of living.
Enjoy your portion of life. Rejoice
in your opportunities to enjoy God’s blessings.
Don’t live for pleasure, but do enjoy the good things God gives
to you. Third,
“live joyfully with the wife whom thou lovest,” (vs. 9).
I think Solomon is telling us to love people and to take pleasure
in loving others. Love your
spouse, love your children, love your friends, love your church, and love
your neighbors. Develop and
nourish close and lasting relationships with others.
Life without love is truly meaningless, after all, God is love. Finally,
and this is the Main Thing that gives everything else order and meaning,
fear God, (12:13). Love and
respect God, not for gain or because you expect God to bless you because
of your righteousness, but because it is right. One
of Solomon’s observations is that the righteous suffer just like the
unrighteous. People in Solomon’s time were taught that God protects and
rewards the righteous. Good
people would receive the rewards of prosperity and peace in this life.
This idea still abounds in pop theology, and is blatantly proclaimed in
many churches today. Don’t
most people believe God blesses the good and punishes the evil, and takes
the good to Heaven and the bad to hell?
Don’t most of us cringe when we knowingly do wrong, because we
expect God to punish us somehow? And
don’t we kind of expect God to reward us for the good things we do?
I think most of us harbor these thoughts.
And there is actually some truth in them.
God does punish the wicked and God does bless the righteous, but
God is not bound
to prosper you or give you special treatment because you worship Him or
appear to live a righteous life. Some
have always taught, for example, that taking the sacraments binds God.
If you are baptized and receive Holy Communion, God has to make
life easy for you and take you to Heaven when you die, a peaceful, easy
death at a ripe old age after a life of luxury, ease, and pleasure.
This makes the sacraments into magic rites that force God to do
certain things regardless of the condition of our hearts and the
sincerity, or lack of it, in our receiving the sacraments.
Our church denies this magic view of the sacraments.
We teach, and I believe this is the Biblical view, that there is no
grace given through either baptism or Holy Communion except
they be received by faith. Even
the baptism service of infants, as Griffith-Thomas wrote, “is not
complete in itself, but looks forward to the time of repentance and
faith” (Catholic Faith, p. 5). Now
this is Solomon’s point; “fear God, and keep his commandments,” not
for blessings or reward, or because life is easier or better for the
righteous. “Fear God, and
keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man.”
We serve God because it is our duty.
Whether there are rewards or not, we serve Him.
We must see this verse from Solomon’s point of view.
Remember he has just commented that there seems to be no difference
in the way life treats the righteous and the wicked.
The righteous experience no special exemption from the trials of
life, and the wicked receive no more intensity of them. Solomon didn’t know much about life after death.
God had not revealed it in Solomon’s time.
As far as he knew, people served God only because it was their
duty. There was no Heaven to
gain, that he knew about, and there was no guarantee of special privilege
or protection in this life. But
that didn’t matter. You
were to serve God anyway. And
your service to God gave order and meaning to the rest of life.
In fact, in a very important sense, all of life was seen as service
to God. We
are in a far happier situation. We
know there are rewards in following Christ.
Perhaps I should not call them rewards, for there are no rewards
for doing our duty. Duty is
expected of us. Duty is what
we owe. Duty is not rewarded,
it is demanded. I should say
there are blessings that come to those who fear God and keep His
commandments, which can only be done by a person who is “in Christ.”
But these blessings are spiritual, not worldly.
We have peace with God. We
have a home in Heaven. We
have a Mediator and an Advocate with the Father, who has taken our sins
upon Himself, and delivered us from the dominion of sin and death and
hell. Hell has no claim on
us. The grave has no victory
over us. And in this life we
have the fruit of the Spirit, the indwelling power of the Spirit, the
fellowship of the Church, the Holy Scriptures, and a thousand other
blessings to sustain us. “For
what is a man profited if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own
soul?” the Savior asks. And
well we could ask, “What does it matter if we lose the whole world, but
gain Christ? Have we not
gained all?” Truly ours are pleasures that stand the test of time and
eternity, that truly satisfy the deepest needs, and last longer than the
grave itself. Therefore, Let us hear the conclusion of the whole
matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of
man. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, Amen.
The Anglican Orthodox Church P.O. Box 128 Statesville, NC 28687 The Most Rev. Jerry Ogles, Bishop Metropolitan The Rev. Dr. R. Dennis Campbell, Vicar, Holy Trinity Anglican Church,
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