This fall I’m teaching an online class: The Gospels, the Life of Jesus. In a recent assignment the students were to find a current events article that somehow connects to what we had been studying in the Gospel of Mark. One student found an article which reported that more than likely, even if there is a Covid vaccine in late 2020 or early 2021, we will have social distancing regulations, including wearing masks, into 2022. Why? Because it will take time to vaccinate the entire globe, and for enough people to develop herd immunity.
You know what the student said in her paper? “It makes my blood boil.”
I told her that I respected her honesty. She is sick and tired, she said, of wearing masks, of having to take online courses, of being separated from her friends, of losing her job after only three weeks, and on and on the frustrations go, all because of Covid. What she said resonates with so many of us during this banner year of 2020. It’s not just Covid, but politics, racial tension and natural disasters. Nonstop for almost the whole year. It just doesn’t seem right, she said. It seems off. It seems unfair.
Open your Bibles to Ecclesiastes 8:9, because the Teacher is saying almost the same thing. This section, chapter 8, verses 9-15, is part of a longer section, 7:15-10:20, that my Old Testament Professor at Seminary, Dr. Dorsey titles, “Advice for living wisely.” Let’s see what wisdom the Teacher (the writer of Ecclesiastes) has to day that can help us, people living in a year that seems unfair and unjust.
Dorsey translates it like this: “9 I observed all these things and thought about everything that happens in the world. Sometimes people gain power over others and bring them great harm. 10 I have seen the wicked buried and eulogized in the very city where they did their evil—but such praise has no ultimate significance. 11 People dare to do all kinds of evil because the punishment for such wrongdoing does not occur instantly.”
Have you seen in your life what the Teacher describes?
Maybe you’ve been treated poorly by a bully, and while you are suffering, the bully becomes captain of the team, dates the popular kids.
Or maybe your boss is total jerk, but people continually fall over themselves to impress the boss or do business with the boss, and the boss gets richer and richer. And the boss believes they are successful because of their meanness, which they call firmness, boldness or assertiveness.
There has been plenty of this in Christian circles. We could all probably name people, people who held important roles in our lives, or in organizations or churches who have fallen from grace because of sinful patterns in their lives that went against what they were publicly speaking about. It can be so discouraging when the people who we look up to fail us. We think, “Geesh, if they, who seem so put together, so wise, so faithful, if they can’t make it, then I am doomed.” And we can feel like life is hopeless. We can take a really negative view of things, can’t we?
Sometimes life DOES seem hopeless. How do we live wisely then? Check back to the next post as the Teacher shares his wisdom with us.
Have you heard of the Human Carpet? He gets paid to go to parties where people can walk all over him. They can jump on him. Sit on him for hours. Surf on him. One time he did this for 11 straight hours! He wraps himself in a carpet, lays down and has never been hurt in the process.
I’m not advocating that we practice this in the church, but it illustrates the heart Jesus calls us to have for one another. Consider the Apostle’s Paul’s words in Philippians 2:1-5:
“1 If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, 2 then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose. 3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. 4 Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. 5 Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus.”
What Paul describes is that Christians should have a willingness to put others’ interests before our own. Jesus isn’t calling us to self-harm. But he is calling us to servanthood and sacrifice, which does not always feel good. Jesus washed the feet of the disciples, those he’d poured his heart, time, emotion into. Servanthood and sacrifice. Deep kindness.
Barry Corey in Love Kindness provides a practical example of this when he says, “The kinder way is to be present in others’ lives with an honest spirit that isn’t waiting for the conversation to turn toward me. One of my friends said when he walks into a room, he doesn’t want to be thinking, ‘Here I am,’ he wants to be thinking ‘There you are,’ and see the other.”
Let me clarify: kindness doesn’t mean you need to best friends with everyone. Even in a smaller church when it is very possible to get to know everyone’s name, you don’t need to be best friends, or even close friends with everyone. But we should certainly be kind. And we should be receivable. The fruit of the Spirit should be evident in our lives and in our interactions with one another.
Let’s bring this back to where we started. We were talking about our interactions with people, in particular over this post-election time that is coming up. We are talking about how we interact with those whom will feel differently about the election results we will eventually learn.
I urge you to see others as image bearers of God. I urge you to make kindness the guiding mark of how you carry yourself. Some of you could be described as having a hard core, meaning you can hold firm your convictions. You can feel deeply that some issues are important and you hold them as dear to you. But even hard core opinions should be held and expressed in humility as one walking humbly with our God. Hard core opinions should be held and expressed with a soft edge, meaning you are gentle and kind in your reactions and in your engagement with others who feel differently than you. This means that you are not arrogant and mean. Arrogance and meanness are like sharp or hard edges that do not make you receivable. Those edges make it very difficult for others to meet and see Jesus in you. How we carry ourselves matters. How we interact with those who think differently than us matters.
My prayer for us as we wait for election results, and as we eventually live with the reality of those results, is that we see people as made in the image of God. That we would work to be more and more receivable to others, that we would carry ourselves in kindness.
This year we had a large vine growing in our garden. It was a vine we did not plant. I wondered if it was a weed, but it looked familiar, and it didn’t strike me as a weed. So we let it grow, and as the weeks went by we watched as this plant took over that part of the garden. Soon we knew what it was by its fruit. A pumpkin!
What happened in our garden is a helpful reminder of what I’ve been writing about in this week’s posts on how Christians can respond to the 2020 election in the USA. If this is the first post you’re reading in the series, you can start at the first post here. One of the points I made is that we Christians must live out the truth that we are temples of the Holy Spirit, and together we form the body of Christ. But if you are like me, you might wonder how you know if the Spirit is in you. Think about the pumpkin in my garden, and Jesus’ parable of the fruit tree. He said, “By their fruits, you will know them.” Just as we eventually knew that the vine in our garden was a pumpkin, we can know if the Holy Spirit is living in us if we see the fruit of the Spirit in our lives. Remember the list of the Fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5? Kindness is on that list. Kindness, then, will be flowing out of us because the Holy Spirit is at work in our lives.
In the same way, you can know if the Spirit is living with you maybe especially when you see kindness flowing out of you toward those with whom you disagree. When we consider how Christians should react to the election, it should be with kindness to all. But what is kindness?
My wife Michelle recently spoke at a youth group, discussing Micah 6:8 (that famous verse that says, “What is good and what does the Lord require of you? To act justly, love mercy and walk humbly with God.”) In light of that verse, Michelle asked the students the difference between niceness and kindness. There is a difference. They said that it is easy to be nice, whereas kindness takes work. Nice is shallow, kindness is deep. Nice is basically effortless, while kindness is sacrificial.
I’m not trying to arguing for a word choice. What the difference I’m describing is the difference between action and sentiment.
Kindness is actively engaged care, love and concern for people. Are you living out the actions of loving unity and care towards the body of Christ? Here is one way to tell: Barry Corey, in Love Kindness, says, “The objective is not to be received, but to be receivable.” In other words, are you the kind of person that people want to receive into their life?
As the years have gone by, I’ve noticed that there are some people who require deeper reserves of maturity in order to interact with them. We tend to call them “difficult.”
It might be that they are talkers, and you know that if you walk near them, your life will be on hold for the next 30 minutes as they talk and talk and talk, usually about the minutia of their lives, rarely, if ever, asking about you and how you are doing. It takes great maturity to be kind to them. To some, they might be low on the receivability quotient.
Then there are the people who are know-it-alls. They have a story for everything, an opinion about everything, and they are quick to top your story with their better story. It takes great maturity to be kind to them. Again, to some they are not very receivable.
Then there are the intimidating people. Maybe they disagree a lot, and strongly. Maybe they complain and critique a lot. They might even use manipulative means to try to get their way. This is called gaslighting. Have you heard that term? Gaslighting is defined as “to manipulate (someone), by psychological means, into questioning their own sanity.” Receivable? Not so much. People often want to be far from them.
How receivable are you? I recommend not only examining yourself, but asking others to answer that question for you. Corey suggests, “Remove the distance and obstacles that keep people from seeing Jesus in us.” Work to be receivable. You want to be a person that other people want to receive into their world. That’s how they can see Jesus. Show kindness, even to the people who see the world differently than you. That is also how you can see Jesus in them, even in the difficult people in your life. You can see that they are made in the image of God, and you can be kind to them.
Election Day 2020 has come and gone. I’m writing on November 4, the day after the election, and millions of mail-in ballots are still being counted, leaving the results of the presidential election undecided. We are in a liminal moment, waiting, feeling unsettled, or as one humorist quipped, “It’s like the entire nation is on the Maury Show waiting breathlessly to learn who the father will be.” For us Christians, thankfully, that question (“Who is my father?”) has long been answered, as I wrote about here and in the previous posts in this week’s Current Events five-part blog series on what Christians should do after we vote. As followers of Jesus, it is almost certainly more consequential how we live after we vote than who we voted for. If you haven’t read the previous posts, you can start with the first one here.
My wife, Michelle, has been reading the book, Love Kindness by Barry Corey, and I want to share a few statements he makes that are very helpful as we think about how to be the body of Christ once the election is over.
Corey writes, “Kindness has become far too often a forgotten virtue. Christians often bypass kindness to begin a shouting match, or we just talk among ourselves about how awful the other side is. We rant before we relate.”
Pope Francis, in The Joy of the Gospel, talks about this too, reminding us of Jesus’ words in John 13:34-35, “By this all men will know that you are my disciples, that you love one another.” Then he goes on to say that we, church, are people on a boat heading in the same direction. That image got me thinking that too often we are like people on a boat headed in the same direction, but we have erected a wall down the middle of the boat so that the right side and left are divided. All they can do is yell at each other over the wall. We rant before we relate.
Imagine if your church sanctuary had a wall right down the middle. The right-leaning people sat on the right, and the left-leaning people sat on the left. Divided. Rarely interacting, except maybe on social media, where the tone is critical and attacking, furthering the divide, fortifying the wall. (That said, I need to mention a bit of an aside for those of you who are part of the family of Faith Church reading this: I have been so impressed with the way that you, though you have differing opinions on politics and many other matters, interact with one another keeping the most important thing the most important thing: our love of Jesus and our heart to follow him.)
Of course Faith Church doesn’t have a wall down the middle aisle of our sanctuary, and I’m guessing your church doesn’t either…and yet do we? Have you allowed a wall to be built in your heart and mind, blocking you from some in the body of Christ? Have you allowed bitterness and unkindness to grow inside you, directed toward those who think differently from you? We Christians must guard against allowing that kind of wall to be built. I suspect the origins of the wall are rooted in care. You care about the people in your church, and you want what you believe is in their best interest. But remember Pope Francis’ words. Do you rant before you relate? No one is going to convince another to think of something in a new way when their interactions with them are marked by arrogance and unkindness.
Corey goes on to suggest that “To be Christian, kindness must shape us and define us because we are seeing the other as someone made in the image of God.” In other words, we need to go back to the beginning, to the first chapter of the Bible where in Genesis 1:26-27, we read:
“26 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” 27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; he male and female he created them.”
Every single one of us. Image-bearers. People from the other political party? Image-bearers whom God created and loves. People from other religions that are not from the USA? Image-bearers whom God created and loves. People who practice habits you don’t approve of? Image-bearers whom God created and loves. Is that in the forefront of our mind when we are thinking of others?
Corey notes that, “In today’s polarized culture, we are often pulled toward one extreme or the other.” Corey calls these extremes, the soft center on one side and the hard edges on the other side. What does he mean by that? A soft center kind of person is wishy-washy, changing their beliefs, or uncertain about their beliefs. A hard edges person is harsh, attacking, judgemental. Christians should be neither.
So Corey proposes a third option. “Rather than the harshness of firm center and hard edges, or the weakness of a spongy center and soft edges, start with kindness. Kindness is the way to have a firm center, but soft edges.” To have that balanced third option, we can and should view people with kindness because they are made in the Image of God, loved deeply by God.
But what is kindness? Check back tomorrow, as I’ll try to describe this essential quality.
An acquaintance of Michelle and mine recently had a terrible accident at his work. He is a contractor and was operating a cement mixer, got his hands caught in there, and the machine did serious damage to both hands. One hand was far worse than the other, and for that hand surgeons are attempting a unique treatment. They will make an incision in his abdomen, place his damaged hand inside the opening, and then sew it shut. His wounded hand will remain inside his abdomen for three weeks, because they have found that the healing power of the body is far more effective when the wounded part is surrounded by and nourished by the life-giving flesh inside his body. That is not only fascinating medically, but is a powerful symbolic image for how you and I can act once this election is over.
In the previous post, I mentioned that no matter who wins the presidential election, let us remember that Jesus Christ is our King. And, we are a part of the Body of Christ.
What does that mean, “The body of Christ?” That is a very Christian-ese phrase. “Church, we are the body of Christ.” Christians often refer to church as “The Body.” But what does it mean? Turn to 1 Corinthians 12:12. This is the primary passage that explains why we Christians are called the body of Christ.
The guy who wrote this was one of the first Christian leaders, a guy named Paul. He was writing in the early years when the church was only 20-30 years, and still very much figuring out how to be the church. Paul writes, “12 The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ. 13 For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. 14 Now the body is not made up of one part but of many.”
Do you see the incredible importance of this? We, Christians, you and I, my church family and your church family, along with all other Christians in the world, are the physical manifestation of Jesus in the world. His Spirit resides in us, which you can read about a few chapters earlier in 1 Corinthians 6:19-20, where Paul writes that we are the temple of the Holy Spirit, and the Spirit lives in us. So, you and I, and all Christians everywhere, are living breathing temples of the Spirit, that together form the body of Christ in the world. Each and every one of us, therefore, is vastly important.
Whether you vote red or blue or third party is far less consequential than the fact that you are a part of the body of the Christ. We Christians, together, are an “us”, we are a unit, the body of Christ. So how should we treat one another? From conversations I’ve had with my own church family, from what I have seen online, it is clear that there are a variety of deeply-held feelings among Christians about the election. In one body of Christ we have differing opinions about this major American event, so how do we treat one another when we have so many differences?
Jump ahead to 1 Corinthians 12:21-26.
“21 The eye cannot say to the hand, “I don’t need you!” And the head cannot say to the feet, “I don’t need you!” 22 On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, 23 and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, 24 while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has combined the members of the body and has given greater honor to the parts that lacked it, 25 so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. 26 If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.”
You may find it unfathomable how people in your church family can vote for the other party. You may think they are deceived; that they are dead wrong. You may feel bothered by what they post on social media. You may feel like you would rather avoid them. But if one part suffers, every part suffers. Once that election result is finalized, there will be wounded people in your church body!
Will you allow yourself to be cut open so the wounded part of the body can heal? How do we do that? We unclench our fists. We open wide our arms. And we embrace the wounded. If one of us is suffering because the result of the election disappoints us, we all suffer with that person.
But what if you are the wounded one? What if it is your side that lost? That will be very hard to take. Work hard to practice what the other body-life principle: “if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.” That doesn’t mean you all of a sudden have to agree with the ideas of the other party. But it does mean that in the church family you learn to “Rejoice with those who rejoice.” Even if you think, as the losing side most likely will, that the next four years are going to be horrible, what will it look like for you to be the body of Christ and not let your loss cause you to become bitter? In his wonderful book, The Joy of the Gospel, Pope Francis writes, “One of the more serious temptations which stifles boldness and zeal is a defeatism which turns us into…disillusioned pessimists, ‘sourpusses’.”[1] It is so easy to be a sore-loser. Pope Francis is right to warn us about this, because we Christians, while we can have a proper disappointment if the presidential candidate we voted for lost, we should NOT be stuck because of that. We carry with us the victory of Jesus, the one true king, and we rejoice in him. Our hope is not in any presidential candidate.
Our country is divided. It is not just division about who we are going to vote for. Our division goes far deeper than that. We are deeply divided about what we think is best for the country. Interestingly, what I have noticed is that both of the major political parties believe they are promoting what is best. Both would say that they have the right ideas. And yet, what each party thinks is best is often opposite from the other.
Our community is divided. If you drive around the community, you see the difference in the election signs people have in the yards. I think it is funny when neighbors have dueling election signs. We were recently driving in a neighboring school district, and you could see it very clearly. One yard had a bunch of signs for one party, and the next yard had a bunch for the other party. They were big signs too!
The division we feel is not just in our community or our neighbors. The division can even hit close to home. This week I saw one property that had dueling signs right next to each other in the same yard. I thought, “I wonder what is going on in that household?” And then it hit me…that’s probably the case in many households, and certainly in extended families! How many of you have family members that think differently from you? How many of you have family members that will vote differently than you? It’s true in my family too.
But the division doesn’t stop there. Some of us have a difference of opinion with ourselves! When it comes to voting, that is defined as being “undecided.” Maybe that describes you. Maybe you have an affinity with some aspects of one political party, while at the same time, you also have affinity with some aspects of the other party. Or you might be one of the people who feels inwardly torn because you can’t stand the fact that you are being told by some to vote for the lesser of two evils. What I’m describing is that you feel you are not of one mind within yourself. And I don’t say that in a negative way. You’re are wrestling with your own dueling thoughts, unsure of how to think about this.
There is one more way we see division. And this one can be really tough to deal with. We see division right here in our church family. In our church family we have people who think differently from one another. We have differences of opinion about what is best for our country. And we express those differences of opinion on election ballots.
Maybe some of you have already voted! In two days some of you will vote. My encouragement is that all of us who are eligible to vote, vote! I am not going tell you how to vote. If you want to talk about issues that you are wrestling with in this voting season, please comment below, and I would be glad to chat.
But if I am not telling how to vote, what is this Current Events sermon about?
What I want to try to answer is the question: What do we do AFTER we vote? How should those of us who claim to love Jesus, those of us who desire to follow his way with our thinking, our hearts and our actions, behave after the election?
Normally at some point on election night we know the results of the election. Probably not this year! In 2000 we also had to wait a long time to learn the results. Remember that one? A month-long series of legal battles led to the highly controversial 5–4 Supreme Court decision, Bush v. Gore, which ended the recount on December 10, 2000. The recount having been ended, Bush won Florida by 537 votes, a margin of 0.009%. Florida’s electoral votes pushed him over the top, into the presidency. Michelle and I were living in Kingston, Jamaica, during that time, and it sure was a strange thing to watch what was happening in our “passport country” while we lived in another country. The US election was big news there, too, and Jamaicans would tell us how amazed they were that violence had not broken out in our country as we waited for the results.
How long will we have to wait this year, especially since Covid has skyrocketed the amount of mail-in voting? Maybe it will be a few days or weeks, but will we have an election result.
You know what that means? There will be a winner and a loser. Because we have differences of opinion about the candidates, the election result means that some of you will be happy and some will be sad.
Think about that. In most church families, the result of the election will be very emotional for us. This will be my fourth presidential election as pastor of Faith Church; fifth, if I include my years as youth pastor. Each election I have heard very strong emotional sentiments within our church family. It doesn’t matter which year or which candidate; I’ve heard this about all of the candidates every election year: “If so and so is elected, it means the end of America.” Well, 18 years later, America is still here. And while America is divided, Christians, let us not be divided because, first and foremost, we are citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven. Our citizenship in heaven matters infinitely more than citizenship in any earthly nation, all of which are temporary. No matter who wins the presidential election, let us remember that Jesus Christ is our King, and we are part of the Body of Christ.
What does that mean, “The body of Christ?” Check back tomorrow, and the concept of the body of Christ is crucial to helping us learn how to handle ourselves after we vote.
What is the right way to live? It’s a big question with many possible answers. We have arrived at the final proverb in Ecclesiastes 7:15-8:8, proverbs in which the Teacher has been helping us make sense of our perplexing world.
I said in the previous post that the Teacher would answer the question, “If we don’t have to be perfect, then what should we do?” Now he is answering that question with his final proverb. The proverb here is that we should find the appropriate time and way to do things.
Here’s how Dorsey translates Ecclesiastes 8:5b-8: “The wise person knows the proper time and way to do things. 6 There is a proper time and way to do everything, despite the fact that life is difficult and uncertain. 7 A wise person cannot know what will happen to him, or when it will happen. 8 He has no authority over his own life-breath or when he will die. He cannot escape life’s battles; even wealth cannot protect him from them.”
But for those of us that struggle with perfectionism, what should we do? The Teacher would say, “Find balance. There is an appropriate way and time.”
As my wife has often said to me about my seminary papers: “Just turn it in as is. You don’t have to get an A.” Whew, that is hard for me to hear. It grates against me. But she’s right. No one is going to care if I got As on seminary papers. While it is not wrong to strive for excellence, we need to let perfectionism go. Sometimes we just have to turn in the paper as is. Steve Jobs famously said, “Real artists ship.” What he meant was that many people have lofty goals, but it is much better to be people who deliver.
I’ve been on church committees in which we can analyze and analyze and analyze an issue to death, trying hard to understand it perfectly, hoping to come up with the perfect solution. Inevitably, the discussion stalls, and we get frustrated, and an idea can get tabled for more discussion. Months go by, and we’re no further along.
This is evidence that we are succumbing to perfectionism.
There is certainly wisdom to patiently examining an issue, to giving time for prayer. We want to avoid the extremes of hastiness and perfectionism. That means seeking a balance, and then it means we need to deliver. We need to act. This is why I prefer the language of experimentation when our various committees and ministries in our church family make decisions or have new ideas. We need to be free to try things out, even to fail at them, because that is one helpful way we can learn.
So how about you? We heard a variety of proverbs in Ecclesiastes 7:15-8:8. Do you need to let go of perfectionism? Do you need to deal with sexual temptation? Pursue the wisdom that is found in living God’s way.
Do you feel you need to be perfect? Do you look around your life, find it is less than perfect and feel like a failure? You’re not alone. For many of us, life feels like this, even if a little bit. And I’m right there with you. I see various ways my house or property isn’t perfect. I see how my vehicles aren’t perfect. I see how my financial situation isn’t perfect. I could go on and on, whether it is about body image, work on my dissertation, the church, parenting, etc. The result is that it is easy to feel failure creeping in all over. Know what I mean? If so there is hope.
As the Teacher continues teaching proverbs about how to navigate our complex world, he has help for those of us who feel like failures. Look at Ecclesiastes 7:27-8:1.
Here is Dorsey’s Translation: “27 But regarding perfection, this is what I have found, says the Teacher. After considering one thing after another, 28 I realized I could not find what I was seeking. I have not[1] found one perfectly righteous man among a thousand, nor have I found a perfectly righteous woman among them. 29 What I found instead is this: God created mankind perfectly righteous and upright, but human beings have developed a multitude of ways to pervert God’s good design. 8:1 Who is the wise person who understands such things? Such understanding will brighten his face with joy.”
The Teacher is back with another ironic proverb about perfection. Perfectionism is impossible for us to attain, and yet at the same time, we are actually pretty good at being unrighteous. Do you see the irony there? The way of life that is arguably the best way, namely the pursuit of perfection, is impossible for us, but the way of life that is definitely the wrong way, namely the pursuit of evil, well, we’re really good at it. So what do we do with this ironic reality about humanity?
It is wise, and will be bring us joy, if we can admit this. Is the Teacher saying it is okay that we are unrighteous and imperfect? Is he saying that we should just pursue sin and wickedness? Of course not. He already said we should pursue wisdom and obey God. What he is saying is that there is a great freedom in not having to be perfect. You and I don’t have to be perfect. If we don’t have to be perfect, then what should we do? The Teacher will try to answer that question in the next post.
In addition to avoiding perfectionism, the Teacher has an important clarification that some of you might have already had cross your minds. And that is this thought: If we don’t have to be perfect, then we can make our own rules. We could think, “I no longer have to worry about traffic laws, and tax laws, and Covid restrictions, because, hey, the Bible says I don’t have to be perfect.” If we thought that, we would be wrong.
Well, let’s read 8:2-5a. Dorsey’s Translation: “2 Obey the king, as you have sworn by oath to do. 3 Do not be quick to walk out of his presence, and do not join in a bad cause, for he can do whatever he pleases. 4 The king’s word is authoritative. Who can say to him, “What are you doing?” 5 Whoever obeys his command will come to no harm.”
See the Proverb here: obey the king. We don’t have a king like Israel did when this was likely written, but the principle is easily transferable. Obey the governing authorities.
If your local township imposes a storm water fee, you pay it. If you don’t like it, there is an appeals process, and you follow it.
If your teacher says, no texting in class, you keep your phone away in class.
If your boss says, you have to wear a tie, wear a tie.
Obey the authorities. Notice how the Teacher expands on the proverb. What he is saying is this: if you obey the governing authorities, life will almost always go better for you. If you don’t obey, the authorities will crack down on you, and it will be painful.
But what if the authorities are corrupt or asking you to do something wrong? This is where proverbs show their limitations. Proverbs are not true in every single situation. If an authority is being corrupt, or unjust, or asking you to participate in something that goes against the will of God, then the proverb no longer applies, because there is a higher standard that overrules the proverb, and that God’s standard. In those situations, then, we follow God’s way, and we practice civil disobedience, even if means we will pay unjust consequences up to and including the loss of our lives.
This has been illustrated for us so often this year. Many people in our culture have experienced the injustice of the governing authorities, as they have been treated unfairly. This is at the heart of the movement for racial justice that we see in our land. I know it is messy. Too often one injustice leads to a response of another injustice. The shooting of an unarmed innocent man leads to setting buildings on fire, destroying cars, and stealing items. Therefore the civil disobedience we advocate is non-violent resistance.
[1] Dorsey points out that the Hebrew omits “not.”
It’s probably very familiar: you overhear a co-worker in the break room talking about you, or you peek over a family member’s shoulder and read their text messages, or the church grapevine gets back to you. Through one of these, you learn something negative someone said about us. You are embarrassed, hurt, and angry. The raw materials for destruction to relationships.
The Teacher continues giving us proverbs that can help us make sense of our complex world, and in the next section he begins by talking about how to handle hurtful gossip. Look at Ecclesiastes 7, verses 20-22.
Dorsey’s Translation: “20 Remember, there is no one on earth who is perfectly righteous, who only does what is right, and never sins. 21 So do not take to heart every word that people say; do not listen too carefully when you overhear your servant saying something bad about you. 22 For you know in your heart that you yourself have spoken ill of others many times.”
Verse 20 reminds us of the truth that all humans sin. That is not meant to be discouraging or depressing, but instead a true depiction of reality. Therefore, the reality of our own sinfulness should cause us to view ourselves properly, to have a humble estimation of ourselves. That kind of teachable viewpoint of oneself is exactly what the Teacher is getting at in verses 21-22. He creates a real-life scenario that is so common. In his day, it was a master of a house that overhears his servant saying something negative about himself.
Yet the Teacher’s advice is surprising! Basically he says, “Don’t let it get you upset.” Why? Because you’ve done the same thing to others. There is none righteous, no not one. So don’t get offended at someone talking behind your back, when you know you do it too.
There’s a much better way to handle things. The Teacher doesn’t mention this, but I think it is in line with the heart of his teaching. The better way is Love. When someone gossips about you, and you find out about it. Instead of thinking about how much you can’t stand that person, ask yourself, “What would love do?” Love wouldn’t, by the way, just ignore the gossip. Yes, “love covers over a multitude of sins,” which means that we allow love to guide us, but there is a way to “speak the truth in love.” Too often, though, gossip begets gossip. When we hear that someone has been gossiping about us, we can be so quick, and feel justified, to gossip about that person. Instead we should ask, “Even though they have hurt me, how can I love them?”
And so the Teacher concludes in verses 23-24 that perfectionism is impossible and thus we should abandon our pursuit of it. Dorsey’s Translation: “23 I evaluated all this with wisdom. I realized that even though I wanted to be perfectly wise, it was beyond me; 24 it was beyond my reach and too deep for me to fathom.”
So while the Teacher has spent a lot of space teaching the proverb: avoid perfectionism, he is not done sharing proverbs. Let’s read verses 25-26 to see if we can find more.
Dorsey’s Translation: “25 I had investigated and explored the nature of wisdom and logic to discover why wickedness is foolish, and why folly is irrational. 26 I realized that this woman Folly is more bitter than death. She is a snare, her heart is a trap, and her hands are fetters. The man who pleases God will escape her, but the sinner will be ensnared by her.”
The proverb here? Avoid folly, please God. Dorsey suggests that “this verse might be speaking of the woman who is a seductress.”[1] See that in verse 26. The Teacher might be speaking symbolically about folly, saying that folly is like a seductress, and the wise thing to do, by far, is to steer clear of any folly. It could just as well be a man who is attempting to seduce a woman. The principle is “stay away from that which tempts you to wickedness.” Yes, sexual temptation is mainly in view here. In our culture we know what that looks like in its many forms online or in person. We pursue wisdom when we work hard to flee temptation.
The teacher uses the image of a trap, and he says there are two ways people respond to the trap of folly. The sinner allows themselves to be ensnared, and the man who pleases God escapes. Don’t focus on the labels, “Sinner” vs. “God-pleaser.” Instead, focus on the action. Which is your life more like? Are you allowing yourself to be trapped? Or are you escaping? What I mean by that is, do you indulge in sexual temptation, or are you turning away from it?
Clearly, wisdom is a life that turns from temptation. I’m not saying that it is easy. We live in a sexualized society, and we can be bombarded with sexual images, to the point where they can start to seem normal. Let’s remember that the Teacher is right calling them folly. The sexual ethic of God is very different from the sexual ethic of the world. I will admit that it is very hard to know where to draw the line. What kinds of media can allow into my mind? Into my house? What kind of clothing should I wear?
Over the years I have had people from our church family suggest to me that I should respond to particular clothing styles people are wearing to worship services. My response has been the same, “Do you want the church to have a clothing checker team in the lobby, and if people come to worship service breaking our clothing rules, we will hand them a set of acceptable clothing and tell to go change or leave?” No! We don’t want that.
We entrust that people will make their clothing choices before the Lord and thus their selections will be appropriate, considering their relationships in the church family. That means there will be differences of opinion about what is appropriate for gathered worship. This is one passage of Scripture among many that can help guide us. A principle based on the Teacher’s proverb could be: When you make clothing selections for worship attire, avoid what would be considered seductive. Also consider how this could apply to the people who think the other person is wearing clothing that is potentially inappropriate. Here is a principle for those people: When you are interacting with those who are in attendance in worship, avoid what would be considered inappropriate language about people’s appearance, as well as avoiding looking at them suggestively. Of course, we Christians can abide by this wisdom everywhere we go. Not just in a worship service.
[1] Dorsey, David. Translation of Ecclesiastes. Unpublished.
In our church sanctuary, we display a large open Bible on the communion table located on the back wall of the stage. Can anyone read it from where they’re sitting? Nope. Neither can I, and I stand way closer to the Bible than the rest of the congregation. The print in the Bible is large, but even at my closer distance, and even though I wear contact lenses that give me perfect vision, there’s no way I’m reading it. Maybe if I used binoculars. That might be interesting to try! But we don’t display the open Bible because we want people to read it. Why do we have that open Bible displayed on our stage for all to see? Keep reading, and I’ll tell you. I’ll also admit to you how that open Bible engages my struggle with perfectionism.
We’re studying Ecclesiastes 7:15-8:8, which is filled with proverbs to help us make sense of and live faithfully in our perplexing world. In the previous post, we saw in verse 15 the Teacher give us an ironic proverb. Let’s keep reading, because the Teacher has a flow of thought he’s working on:
Dorsey’s Translation: “16 Do not demand of yourself perfect righteousness or perfect wisdom, because such perfectionism can destroy a person. 17 On the other hand, do not abandon yourself to evil or folly; why should you die before your time? 18 So shun both perfectionism and wickedness. The man who respects and obeys God will find the pathway between these two evils. 19 Such wisdom will give the wise person better protection than a walled city commanded by ten rulers.”
The proverb that summarizes this section? Avoid destructive perfectionism. Wisdom is found in respecting and obeying God.
His flow of thought from verse 15 to 16 is this: because the righteous die in their righteousness, don’t demand perfection of yourself, because that can kill you too! That verse is where this teaching really started resonating with me. How many of you have ever struggled with perfectionism? It can get weird sometimes, can’t it?
Remember the open Bible in our sanctuary? In reality, no one ever reads that Bible. We don’t have the Bible up there in case someone has forgotten their Bible, and they need to borrow it. We display the Bible as a symbol. It is a visible reminder that we are a people who hold high the Word of God. Here’s where my perfectionism comes out. Even though I cannot read a single word on that Bible, I can tell you exactly what it says on the page it is open to. Do you know how? Not because I have memorized it, but because every week I go up there, and I flip the page on the Bible to the exact spot we’ll be talking about in the sermon. When I preached the sermon this blog post is about, the Bible was open to Ecclesiastes 7. Does that matter? Not even a little bit. Except to those of us who are perfectionists, who might be thinking, “Oh that’s a nice touch. I get that.” But those who are not perfectionists could think, “What a waste of time.”
What does perfectionism look like for you? Could be a perfectly manicured lawn, clean car, straight picture frames, English grammar, recycling, driving the speed limit, or all of the above!
The reality is that perfectionism can get out of control. It can consume us. Including the pursuit of perfect righteousness and perfect wisdom. In other words, even the pursuit of very good things can become neurotic. We can be emotionally and physically enslaved by our perfectionism.
But there’s also the other end of the spectrum. Wickedness. Evil. Folly. The Teacher says in verse 17 that we should avoid that too, noting that it can lead to us dying before our time. That’s another proverb: When you live a foolish, wicked live, you die sooner.
So if wisdom says, “Don’t pursue perfection, and don’t pursue wickedness,” what should we do about these extremes? We should shun them! Sorry perfectionists. There is another, wiser, way. Look at verse 18.
Pursue what? Respecting and obeying God. In verse 19, the Teacher says that respecting and obeying God will lead us to the most powerful wisdom, that is like a fortress protecting us.
Engaging Scripture 