The Futility of Life under the Sun

Introduction

As a boy who grew up on the northern outskirts of Dundee, I always used to look forward to the summer holidays when we would often be able to go to Broughty Ferry beach for the day. The sun would be burning in the sky, as we started out to travel the seven or so miles to Broughty Ferry. But sadly, every silver lining seems to have its cloud! Often, when we arrived at the beach, we would find that the brilliant sunshine had vanished. The sun was obliterated by the haar - that cold, clinging mist that keeps jerseys on in the middle of July! Imagine the disappointment to a young child.

But as we get older, we realise that the best of things can so easily be blighted by an unexpected turn of events. Disappointment can come like that summer mist and suck meaning out of the best things in life, and leave a hollow feeling that can crush a person’s spirit and bring him to despair.

Our passage this evening looks at the practical problem of what we today might call “the rat race.” Every generation tends to think of its particular situation as unique. And, of course, it is true that each generation has its own character with new problems calling for fresh answers. We do not readily think of Israelite society 2500 years ago as fitting the image conjured up by the term “rat race.” But, there were indeed similar pressures on people of those distant centuries. If we examine the core of their problems, we find that they match our own lives in a very closely.

Oppression

Well, is life a jungle where only the strong survive? Is it reality like the song Cilla Black sang:

What’s it all about, Alfie?

Is it just for the moment we live?

What’s it all about when you sort it out, Alfie?

Are we meant to take more than we give,

Or are we meant to be kind?

And if only fools are kind, Alfie,

Then I guess it is wise to be cruel.

And if life belongs only to the strong, Alfie …

Then what? Does life belong only to the strong? Looking at life under the sun, it would certainly appear to.

Ours is a selfish world, full of oppressive governments, exploitative businesses and people who simply take advantage of others. That is why our law courts are full of lawsuits and criminal prosecutions; our prisons are overcrowded. And all the time the abused children, the rape victims, those who have been defrauded, the maimed, and the murdered all cry to heaven for justice on behalf of the oppressed.

God condemns oppression in His Word in the strongest and most comprehensive terms. The Bible roundly condemns all exploitation, whether by the state, the wealthy, the law, the Church, employers, property agents, bankers, or businessmen. Yet no one seems to care. It appears to be the law of the jungle, where only the strong survive, and the weak are forgotten or ignored. As Qoheleth observes, I saw the tears of the oppressed - and they have no comforter; power was on the side of their oppressors - and they have no comforter. And no one seems to care.

A world full of oppression, assessed in purely worldly terms, offers little or no hope of addressing any of the imbalances of injustice and lack of compassion. It presents a depressing picture of unrelieved, and largely ignored, injustice and misery. And this may be said even in our society, with its welfare state.

It is small wonder in the face of such depressing realities that thoughts of death as the great escape begin to arise in the minds of an increasing number of people. Qoheleth anticipates this - and even goes beyond it - in what has to be one of the most brutally frank exposures of the naked emptiness of the godless humanist. The dead are happier than the living, he says, but the unborn are better off than both, for they have not seen the evil which is done under the sun. That is as much hope and as much meaning as an under-the-sun life can provide. Surely, the tears of the oppressed cry out for something better!

Is Work a Solution?

But what is the alternative? Is there an answer, under the sun, to the callous and brutal oppression of our society? Is hard work the answer? In his sample of attitudes to work Qoheleth remind us of two strange, but familiar, extremes. First, the competitive urge. We may quibble at Qoheleth’s sweeping statement, but the fact remains that all too much of our hard work is mixed with a striving to outshine or at least not to be outshone. Envy is the engine which drives much of what the world regards as success. The common factor is a total preoccupation with personal advancement. What we want, we call our needs; and so, our personal desires, become our drivers in life. Ambition becomes necessity; necessity - driven by envy - becomes a god.

But worse than envy is habit, when habit has turned into obsession. In verses 7 and 8 Qoheleth pictures the compulsive money-maker, as someone virtually dehumanised, for he has surrendered to a craving and the endless process of trying to feed it. He is like the billionaire John D Rockefeller, who when asked how much money a man needed to be content answered, “Just one more dollar than he has.”

Such a person is inevitably lonely. Even with a wife and children, such a man will have little time for them; he is convinced that he is toiling for their benefit. But really his heart is elsewhere; he is actually devoted and wedded to his work. Isolation is often what accompanies worldly success. Billionaire Howard Hughes ended his days a chronic recluse, haunted by his fears of disease. The noisy, sociable chatter at the cocktail parties of the rich only masks aching oceans of loneliness.

Such a person, with both hands into possessions, is totally committed to the world’s standards of success, and he is driven by envy of his neighbour. That is what keeping up with the Jones’s is all about. Such people will be buried in their work on the day when Christ returns to judge the living and the dead.

The second little portrait shows the opposite extreme: the dropout. He despises the frantic rivalries of the rat race. He has opted out - escaped. Escapism may feel good at the time, but it is no solution. The escapist has, in fact, jumped from the frying pan into the fire. And Qoheleth gives him his real name - the fool; for his opting-out is an equal and opposite error to those caught in the rat race. He is the picture of complacency and unwitting self-destruction, for his idleness eats away not only what he has, but what he is: it erodes his self-control, his grasp of reality, his capacity to care and, in the end, his self-respect.

Our modern term, the rat-race, aptly sums up the message of these verses: a frantic rivalry at one extreme, a disastrous opting-out at the other; and for the successful few - a life devoted to acquiring prize after pointless prize.

But, even under the sun there is a better way; and better is the key word here - not best. Qoheleth’s thoughts are simple and direct - teamwork. They depict the advantage, the resilience, the comfort and strength which result from co-operation. Teamwork is a blessing under the sun.

The close intertwining of the three cords also suggests that it is not numbers as such, but the quality of the binding ties of fellowship that are of critical significance. Quality, as opposed to quantity, and personal commitment rather than strength in numbers, are what make this teamwork a real blessing for those who have it.

Christians are meant to be together; the Church is the Body of Christ. It is in Christ that we together shall be more than conquerors. The sharing of our lives with one another flows from the one salvation in Christ our Saviour. There is no place for the religious loner, who belongs to no church, because no Church is perfect enough for him, we are called to a practical membership one with another. As with all Qoheleth’s solutions to human problems, the answer leads ultimately to a life of faith in the Lord. Without that, life is truly an empty existence.

The Futility of Fame

But, asks Qoheleth, have the possibilities of the under-the-sun life been exhausted? If wealth cannot protect us against loneliness, how about power and position? But even as we ask the question, the answer is so obvious that it would seem more intelligent to ask why anybody would want to be a king or a president. People soon find that the higher up a mountain you climb, the colder it gets. Despite the hit song’s claim to the contrary, fame doesn’t last forever. Fame is extremely short-lived. The corridors of power and the halls of fame are lonely places. Today’s hero is tomorrow’s yesterday’s man. The comforts of a good showing in the opinion polls are fleeting at best.

Even in the relative civilisation of Western democracies, where elections rather than military coups change governments, political survival is at the mercy of an electorate with an attention span of a few years at most. And landslide election victories are aptly named - real landslides are caused by shifting, unstable earth! This all points to the futility of thinking that political power or public acclaim will in itself somehow raise us above the meaninglessness of life lived under the sun.

Conclusion

So, what is Qoheleth’s saying? That meaninglessness is inevitable in a life lived in terms of under-the-sun materialism. Oppression continues year after year, even human achievement is largely fuelled by envy, and, in any case, wealth and power of themselves, rather than filling the emptiness that so many people feel, only seem to make matters worse.

The answer is to be found only in the living Lord. This is the best, indeed the only, way between two-fisted grasping and hand-folding laziness. But it is far more than a balance between two extremes - it is a radical alternative.

It is possible to have genuine peace and the prosperity with which God wants to reward our labours. The ideal is a modest and contented life, in which one hand is used effectively and successfully, but gathers tranquillity in the process. But what is the other hand doing? The Bible says that the Lord’s disciples are always with their Lord, who holds them by their right hand. The condition of a happy balance in life is that the right hand - signifying our primary motive - should be in the hands of our Heavenly Father, while the left hand is used in fruitful and satisfying labour in commitment to the revealed purposes of God. Every other approach is chasing after the wind!

We are driven back to the conclusion of chapter 3 - that every person may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all his work - this is the gift of God. But to receive the gift, we must receive the Giver. And that’s the big problem for materialistic, under-the-sun men and women!

They are like the monkeys which are caught by the pygmies for food. The hunters get a large jar with a neck just wide enough to put a large mango into. They then leave it on the ground in the forest. When a monkey comes along, he reaches into the jar and takes hold of the mango. But, when he comes to draw out his hand, he won’t let go of the mango! So he is easily caught by the pygmy trappers. He prefers the handful of food now to freedom.

Are we like that? I hope not. We need to let go of the things which are trapping us in a life under the sun, and receive the freedom which God wants to give us.