Meaningless, Meaningless! Everything is meaningless!....
As I read those words a few months ago, I felt such indignation rise up in me. How could Solomon write those words? How could anyone who had encountered God and lived the incredible life that Solomon lived say that everything is meaningless? And then I started thinking of young people I have met whose attitudes are not dissimilar to Solomon’s and began wondering whether Solomon could help me hear, understand and love those young people in their despair, and possibly even encourage them to press on in their pursuit of a meaningful life.
So after ranting to a few people about this, I thought maybe there is more going on here in Ecclesiastes and with Solomon than initially meets the eye. Maybe it is worth doing some actual research before condemning Solomon and his writings to the ‘bits of the Bible that show the fallenness of humanity’ category in my brain.
As you probably know, Solomon was the son of David and Bathsheba and was the one chosen to build the temple, for Israel to come and worship God. That fact alone is awesome enough, but there are so many more ways that Solomon’s life highlights the never-ending grace of God to us all. It’s such a relief to see that Solomon is so brilliant and so rubbish at the same time – he married politically - a disobedient move which caused his downfall in the long run, yet he was so humble he asked for a discerning heart to lead God’s people which pleased God so much he gave him significant material blessings. The wisdom God gave him enabled Solomon to write Song of Songs, Proverbs and a couple of Psalms. But it’s Ecclesiastes and this incredible verse that drew me to this powerful character:
‘Meaningless! Meaningless!” says the Teacher. “Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless.’ (Ecclesiastes 1:2 NIV)
Ecclesiastes is full of brutal realism – life chasing after riches or success or significance leads to a shallow existence
A theology student once wrote: ‘Ambiguity and unanswerable questions, innocent suffering, joys and tragedies, glimpses of God and brass like heavens, hope and despair, optimism and pessimism, wrestling and searching… Such is the stuff of life and such is the stuff of Job and Ecclesiastes - what a relief!’
In his excellent Grove booklet on Ecclesiastes, Doug Ingram writes that the book resonates with the post-modern reader who has rejected the big stories from modern culture and is disillusioned with that certainty that characterised the more scientific modern post-war age. The post-modernist loves to question, idolises the individual’s opinion and feels they are more of a realist than their ‘duped’ modernist parents. They welcome a plethora of voices and are enjoying the journey, rather than relentlessly pursuing a goal such as the modernist’s ‘ultimate truth’. Ingram argues that Ecclesiastes is ambiguous by design and that its author wrote the book with the intention of forcing the reader to ask questions and to not sit on the proverbial fence. Ingram’s tenet is that the text is deliberately written as a mirror that reflects the soul of the reader (wow). If that is the case, then that’s pretty clever stuff.
I have lived in three very different places across the UK and in every place I have met young people who have been disillusioned with life. They have each had different reasons. For some, wealth had left them lacking quality time with their parents and they felt bereft and dismayed that something idolised by their family and society could cost them so much. For others the pursuit of intellectual excellence seemed ever elusive, leaving them feeling worthless as the carrot was constantly moved further out of their reach. And for a few, life seemed absurd as they stole to feed their families and were then prosecuted for that desperate act. It all just seemed so meaningless.
As we work in our communities as youth workers, church based youth pastors, community workers and schools workers, we are ministering to a broken world full of broken hearted people
Christianity is full of paradoxes: Jesus’ blood makes you clean; to fully live we follow Christ in surrendering our lives for the sake of others; whoever humbles himself will be exalted.
And while life is a wonderful gift from God, there is something right about these young people’s disillusionment. As we work in our communities as youth workers, church based youth pastors, community workers and schools workers, we are ministering to a broken world full of broken hearted people who cry out to us in different ways: ‘Meaningless, Meaningless! Everything is meaningless!’ We need the gift of discernment as we listen to young people in schools, churches and on street corners who are grieving. They need to know that their hearts cry is heard by us and by God. As we live amongst them as people who believe in a God of hope (Romans 15:13), we must be prepared to answer, with gentleness and respect, the next question that rises up from the desperation in their souls – ‘How is it that you have hope?’ (1 Peter 3:15).
Firstly, they are right. Life can be meaningless. Ecclesiastes is full of brutal realism – life chasing after riches or success or significance leads to a shallow existence. We human beings have limits. Yet even the fact that we grapple with disillusionment points to the reality that we were made for more than this temporary life. Famously, Solomon writes: ‘He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.’ (Ecclesiastes 3:11)
Solomon was a man who knew how to worship. Just take a quick look at 1 Kings 8. Read his incredible words of prayer. Imagine a king humbling himself like that, leading a nation in passionate worship. The altar was too small to hold the offerings that were brought that day. These young people who long for more from life can be inspired by witnessing this kind of faith.
There a number of ways we can do this. We can acknowledge our weakness, recognise our brokenness and honour the God who meets us by becoming weak himself. We can share the incredible invitation open to us all to live the most meaningful life ever, contributing to God’s work transforming people’s lives and his world.
As we give ourselves to them, we highlight God’s gift of himself to us all in the person of Jesus Christ, and his gift to us every single day as he gives us opportunities to make an impact for eternity.
And as we share our story and the stories of others who felt their lives were meaningless, absurd and worthless, but who found hope and life and meaning in relationship with God, we will reflect his glory (2 Corinthians 3:18) and we will all be set free from the limits of this life as the Spirit works within us – Christian and non-Christian alike.
