Tears and Toil Under the Sun

Ecclesiastes 4:1–6 ESV

Again I saw all the oppressions that are done under the sun. And behold, the tears of the oppressed, and they had no one to comfort them! On the side of their oppressors there was power, and there was no one to comfort them. And I thought the dead who are already dead more fortunate than the living who are still alive. But better than both is he who has not yet been and has not seen the evil deeds that are done under the sun. Then I saw that all toil and all skill in work come from a man’s envy of his neighbor. This also is vanity and a striving after wind. The fool folds his hands and eats his own flesh. Better is a handful of quietness than two hands full of toil and a striving after wind.

Introduction

The year 1844 was a pivotal year for both the philosophical world and the economic one, though only one man knew. That one man changed both with a singular concept—the concept of alienation. Karl Marx, the father of Socialism and Communism, had developed this philosophy of alienation by presenting the idea that man is alienated from four different areas in life:

Man is alienated from the fruit of his labor. Let’s say a person works in a bakery making cupcakes all day long. Those cupcakes do not belong to the one who bakes them. They belong to the owner of the bakery. She has no control over what the owner does with the cupcake. It could be sold, thrown away, smashed over someone’s head, left out to harden, or any number of possibilities, and yet the cupcake only exists because the baker made it.

Man is alienated from the process of labor. That baker doesn’t get to make what she wants. She bakes what she’s told to bake. She doesn’t get to decide how many chocolate cupcakes and vanilla cupcakes. She has to make them as told. She then must decorate those cupcakes as instructed. She doesn’t control the process, the owner does. While she loves to bake, everything at this point is for a paycheck. She does what she’s told in order to make ends meet.

Man is alienated from his own nature, what Marx called “species-being.” Because she is not allowed to produce what she could produce by her own creativity and skill, she is not truly able to shape the world through her skills. She is only able to produce that which she is told.

Man is alienated from humanity. She ultimately become a commodity—a money-maker, but also someone replaceable. If she gave her two-weeks notice, the owner would sigh because she now has to find another baker. However, the cupcake baker would soon be replaced. The human interaction has become more transactional than relational.

This is what capitalism does, in Marx’s opinion—it alienates. Now, he didn’t actually publish this theory in 1844. He merely wrote them down. “The Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844” wouldn’t be published until 1932 by Soviet scholars, but his idea laid the foundation for what Marx, and his co-author Friedrich Engels, published four years later—the pamphlet, The Communist Manifesto. In this work, the idea of capitalism leading to alienation brings Marx to much more radical and revolutionary ideas.

If alienation happens, exploitation happens. They are two sides of the same coin. If the baker is simply a commodity—a replaceable money-maker—then she may get paid less than the value she brings to the company, or she may work longer hours than she was promised, or perhaps never gets the promotion that is dangled over her head. In Marx’s ideology, the only way out of such a situation is political action. Religion was part of the problem to Marx. It is the opium of the masses. It gives false hopes, elevates the powerful (the oppressor), and it dulls the revolutionary spark allowing suffering to continue. Political action is the only reasonable alternative. Since economics shapes all of life then all of life must also be political and even revolutionary.

If Karl Marx is beginning to make sense, let me remind you about the need to build a defence against the seduction of eloquence. You see, Solomon sees much of the same surface-level problems that Marx observed—especially oppression—but the reason behind it is completely different. In essence, Marx has observed the symptoms, but misdiagnosed the disease. Solomon gets both right. That’s what I want us to see this morning as we open up Ecclesiastes 4.

As we study this passage, I see that there are four verdicts that we as Christians must consider carefully because if we don’t, we will fall for those seductions. We’ll only deal with two of them this morning, and the next two we will deal with next week. And all of these verdicts are preceded with the indictment of what happens when living under the sun—living as if God is forgotten and not living with eternity in mind. The first verdict is that “when we live under the sun, oppression becomes inevitable.” The second verdict that Solomon makes is that “when we live under the sun, work becomes inordinate.”

Oppression Becomes Inevitable

Work Becomes Inordinate

Oppression Becomes Inevitable

The first verdict that Solomon renders is that when we live “under the sun,” oppression becomes inevitable.

Ecclesiastes 4:1–3 ESV

Again I saw all the oppressions that are done under the sun. And behold, the tears of the oppressed, and they had no one to comfort them! On the side of their oppressors there was power, and there was no one to comfort them. And I thought the dead who are already dead more fortunate than the living who are still alive. But better than both is he who has not yet been and has not seen the evil deeds that are done under the sun.

Now, let me begin by explaining why I say that this comes about by those living “under the sun”—those living as if God is forgotten. It simply because we know what life is meant to be lived like above the sun. God has given us two great commandments—Love God with all your heart, soul, and might; and love your neighbor as yourself. Since we would never want to experience oppression ourselves, we would never seek to oppress others either. Living in light of eternity and in light that there is a God, we cannot justify oppression without denying the God we claim to love. The moment that we oppress, or approve oppression, is the moment that we are displaying a life lived under the sun.

Solomon sees this truth. He observed these oppressions that can only happen under the sun. And he describes it for all its horrors. It’s the same observation that Karl Marx made. There is real oppression. Both would say that it is coming from the powerful; we could say the rich and powerful because when there are riches, power tends to follow.

Marx mainly focused on the economic oppression—a clashing of the classes and materialism—that had developed because of the industrial revolution. Again, people were just cogs in the wheel. They were expendable. Thus, a business owner could and would push them until they broke, and once they broke, they’d simply replace them. They lost their humanity. That’s a real problem! What infuriated Marx ought to infuriate us. What Solomon lamented, we too ought to lament! But that doesn’t mean we become Marxists.

God has called on his people to procure justice when there is no justice. He has called on us to alleviate oppression wherever we see it. But he does not call on us to do it Marx’s way. Marx called for revolution—class warfare; God calls for reformation. Marx said there is no God, stop pretending that he exists, and fight for what if rightfully yours. Solomon would say that’s the problem—we are living “under the sun,” pretending that God does not exist. Instead, as Micah wrote, we must do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God.

Look how Solomon described his observations in verses 2 and 3. The dead are better off than the living and those who have been born are better off than any of them because they haven’t had to witness all the evil deeds that oppression brings. He is pointing out what few of us want to see. He describes what many of us want to ignore. Like a journalist that shows us a video of something we wish we could unsee, so Solomon holds up the uncomfortable truth for all to see. He shows us the what oppression feels like. It is better to be dead—even better never to be born—than to live under oppression. The tears, the lack of comfort, the way the powerful get away with their actions needs to be noticed.

We see it under despot rule like that in North Korea. We see it under corrupt governments like those in many South American countries. We see it even in our own jobs at times, when employers underpay and/or overwork their employees. But it can come in more subtle forms, when husbands and wives leverage power over their spouses or when one friend dominates the others so he gets his way. Oppression becomes inevitable when people live under the sun.

It’s inevitable because when God is removed, there is a God-sized hole left behind that demands to be filled. And often times power rushes in to take his place. And a power apart from God cannot see a person made in the image of God. It can only see usefulness, a producer, a money-maker, a replaceable object. It will always dehumanize in some way, and so there are tears—comfortless tears—as the powerful oppress the weak.

Work Becomes Inordinate

But it is not just simply that oppression is inevitable; there’s a second verdict that is rendered: When life is lived under the sun, work becomes inordinate. Let’s take a look at what Solomon wrote one more time.

Ecclesiastes 4:4–6 ESV

Then I saw that all toil and all skill in work come from a man’s envy of his neighbor. This also is vanity and a striving after wind. The fool folds his hands and eats his own flesh. Better is a handful of quietness than two hands full of toil and a striving after wind.

Marx believed that oppression comes along with alienation as a result of capitalism. He blamed the system and encourages the masses to revolt against it. But according to verse 4, where might we see that oppression comes from? It’s not from the man’s economic system—though it can exacerbate it, but from the man’s sinful heart. Envy, jealousy, zeal for what our neighbors have drive us to work more and more. We are trying to keep up with the Joneses, but the reality is that in today’s world, we don’t even know who the Joneses are anymore. The Joneses become fictitious characters on a show, an influencer on TikTok, or a billboard that says we deserve some product that we didn’t even know existed five minutes ago.

Marx would say that our economic system alienates us from all that we are. Solomon says it’s not our jobs; it’s our desires. We see all these material possessions under the sun, and we crave them. We envy those who have them. This sounds so Marxist at first glance. He believed that it was economic materialism that shapes a person’s identity and worldview more than anything else. There are the have and the have nots, the rich and poor. However, Marx doesn’t say envy is the problem here; it’s capitalism. The inequality that comes from this economic system generates rivalry, envy, and alienation. Solomon says, it’s not the economic system; it’s the innate envy of our hearts that creates rivalry. The injustices of the economic systems are the outflow of a sinful heart. Remember what Jesus said:

Mark 7:20–23 ESV

And he said, “What comes out of a person is what defiles him. For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.”

But not everyone is a workaholic like verse 4 describes. Some swing the pendulum the other way, foolishly becoming lazy sluggards. That’s the person Solomon describes in verse 5. They fold their hands and eat their flesh. This could be describing a person who has the opportunity to work, but instead clasps his fingers together does as little as he can. He refuses to unclasp the fingers to get any real work done. It could also describe the person who folds his hands in sleep. He is too lazy to even get out of bed.

Solomon would describe this person in colorful ways in Proverbs. A sluggard puts his hand to the dish, but he’s too lazy to lift it up to his mouth. He doesn’t do the work, but he looks for the payout. He makes every excuse in the book to avoid work, even saying there’s a lion in the street. And he thinks he’s wiser than everyone put together.

Whatever kind of sluggard one becomes and whatever the words that they may use to excuse their behavior, the result is the same. The person eats his own flesh; in other words, He self-destructs; because he won’t work, he loses everything in life. He may blame society, his family, or the economic system, but Solomon places the blame squarely on the lazy man’s shoulders for his refusal to work. Whereas Solomon observes this, the Apostle Paul says that it is the way it should be. If a person will not work (one who is capable but refuses) then he shall not eat. In essence, we don’t reward sloth and idleness.

What we have in these verses are two extremes. Work has become inordinate; it’s out of order. Some, out of envy—desires to have more—will become workaholics. Work becomes the god they serve because they have material possessions they want to own. Others, out of sloth, will become rest-aholics. Their lives are consumed by doing as little as possible. Rest is their god. Work is still out of order. It’s not too high on the hierarchy of loves. It’s way too low.

Solomon’s verdict in the end is to be in the middle. Don’t swing your pendulum of work too far to either side. Keep work in its proper place.

Ecclesiastes 4:6 ESV

Better is a handful of quietness than two hands full of toil and a striving after wind.

This is life lived Coram Deo—“before the face of God.” When we live above the sun, with God and eternity in mind, we find work to be a gift, but so is rest. We don’t make either of them gods; but we don’t make them devils either. We work to get our handful—the food, clothing, and shelter in life. We get our necessities first and if God has blessed us with extra, we can get extra, but we have a handful of quietness—contentment, you might say.

Don’t fold your hands and get nothing. Don’t stretch out both hands and always strive to have more—that’s striving after wind. Lay hold of Christ, the Solid Rock, and stop trying to lay hold of the wind that so easily escapes our grasp. When Christ becomes enough, we find everything else we have to be enough.

1 Timothy 6:6–8 ESV

But godliness with contentment is great gain, for we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world. But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content.

Conclusion

Beloved, do we see what happens in our work when we live life under the sun? Solomon looked upon all the evidence he had gathered, all the observations he had made, and he rendered for us his four verdicts, two of which we saw today:

Oppression Becomes Inevitable

Work Becomes Inordinate

Next week, we’ll take a look at Ayn Rand and receive Solomon’s other two verdicts.

Marx, as a socialist, would advise us to revolt against our economic system because he doesn’t see our sinful hearts as the culprit of an oppressive society. Marx sees, but he sees through a mirror dimly, seeing only parts of our problem. He reasons like the atheistic, modern philosopher he is. Brothers and sisters, it is time to put atheistic, modern philosophy behind because it’s striving after wind, founded in human ideas and not according to Christ.

Our freedom from alienation and oppression is not in revolting against the human institutions like Marx and his followers would have us do. Our freedom can only be found in reconciling our world to Christ.

John 8:32–36 ESV

and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” They answered him, “We are offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say, ‘You will become free’?” Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.

If you feel the weight of oppression and envy of the age, hear the Spirit inviting you to leave this kingdom of darkness and join in the kingdom of God’s beloved Son. He has made a way for you to enter and offers freedom, joy, and peace in the midst of a broken world.

You see, Solomon’s conclusion is that life ultimately is not simply a matter or tears and toil—wailing and working. It’s about his relationship to God.

Ecclesiastes 12:13–14 ESV

The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil.

The end of the matter is that we stand in awe before God and love him with all that we are. For only when we are amazed by him and love him can we obey him. And that can only be had through Christ who unites us forever to himself. It is only when we put our faith in Christ’s work in life, death, resurrection, and ascension can that faith lead us to obedience, for it is Jesus who reveals the truth of his Father and renders power to live by faith.

If you’ve already received Christ, that means you are in him—united with him. The two of you are inseparable. Leave the philosophies of this world, and cling to the power of Christ to see you through.