You may have seen the classic film It's a Wonderful Life, in that the character George Bailey struggles to believe that his hometown of Bedford Falls can give him the wonder that he desires in life.
He's a Wonderful Life, in that the character George Bailey causes George Bailey to fidget with the mundane. He is restless to leave it all behind him. And he feels that he must travel to some other patch of this world, somewhere else, to do something worthwhile.
He's ruled by those two words, if only. He says in the film, he says, I couldn't face being cooped up for the rest of my life in this shabby office. I wanted to do something big, something important.
Satisfaction is never quite now, is it? It's never quite here, in this moment. We are a society obsessed with the new. We are a people obsessed with change, with invention, with the novel.
As someone once said, somewhere else, doing something else, is the model of our advancement. If only I could get there, somewhere over the rainbow, my life will be alright.
If only these things could change. If only these things could change, I would finally be happy. Somewhere else, doing something else, being someone else.
As we open up the book of Ecclesiastes, we are going to go through it over the next few Tuesdays. We will probably take a break, and then maybe come back to it next year.
But what we find in this book is a teaching of a wise, godly man, who is about to burst our bubble.
He's about to take us on a grand tour of the world, to make us face things that perhaps we don't want to about the world.
That there is no yellow brick road, that there is no end of the rainbow somewhere else.
There is no shortcut to a wonderful life in this world.
But he also holds the keys for showing us the enjoyment and satisfaction in this world as a gift from God.
For where you are, whenever you are, and whoever you are, right now.
It's a grand world tour of realism, but also of rejoicing in this life.
So firstly, listen to the words of this tour guide.
The words of the tour guide.
Now the name Ecclesiastes, it's not a word we use often, is it?
It's a word that is from a Greek word, that is used to translate a Hebrew word.
Meaning a collector, or a compiler, or a preacher, or a teacher.
It's named after the preacher who is featured in the book.
And we're introduced to him in verse 1, aren't we?
The words of the preacher.
The son of David, king in Jerusalem.
Now we're going to learn more about this preacher as time goes by.
But right from the beginning we are given his sermon text.
The words of this preacher's sermon.
And it's probably one of the shortest sermons that I've ever seen.
It's just three words long.
In verse 2.
Vanity of vanities, says the preacher.
That's his text.
A very, very short lunchtime talk.
He is going to unpack those three words over the whole book.
But that's his sermon.
Vanity of vanities.
Now again, vanity is not a word we use often, is it?
Some English translations of the original word there use the word meaningless.
You might find that in your Bible at home.
Others use the word breath.
Breath of breaths.
That is helpful.
Anyway, vanity stands for something that is vaporous.
Like a breath.
Something that is futile.
Gone at their one minute, gone the next.
Something that is ephemeral and vacuous.
Something that is pointless and meaningless.
This preacher's text sounds odd, doesn't it?
All is vanity, he says.
As we begin on this tour, with this tour guide, we might think somehow we have bumped into a madman
who is shouting out crazy things on the streets.
He is shouting out nonsense here, isn't he?
All is vanity.
Really?
Marriage is meaningless.
Friendship is pointless and vacuous.
Really, creature?
It's all vanity, come on.
He takes us on this tour though.
And we realise as he does that, he is not the madman.
But he is the wise man.
And he is going to show us a world that we know, deep down at heart, is a complex place to live in.
It is a world full of loose ends.
Where there are rules, but there are exceptions to the rule.
Where things that should not happen, happen.
A maddening world.
A frustrating world.
Where all at one level is vanity.
And he is going to peel back the curtains, as it were, to help us to see what is going on backstage in the world.
To see the true reality.
It's like our tour guide, the preacher.
He is like one of those magicians who gets kicked out of the magic circle for revealing all of the secrets.
You know, you hear those stories, don't you?
A magician who has learnt all of the arts and the tricks.
He's learnt the sleight of hand and the distraction.
He is in the know about how all of the tricks work.
But he breaks away from the system and he reveals all.
He tells the audience the secrets of all the tricks.
Where does the hat actually come from when it comes out of the hat, the rabbit?
How do they saw the person in two?
He gives us a revelation of the world.
Behind all of the smoke and all of the mirrors.
Behind the party line of materialism and consumerism and atheism.
And he gives it us straight, undiluted, honestly.
And we will see that he is a brilliant, brilliant preacher as he does this.
Because he is like a magician who gets off the stage and sits with the audience.
He is a preacher who gets down and sits with the congregation.
And asks the questions about the world that they are asking.
He will avoid the trite and sentimental standard preacher's answers.
And the dishonest answers.
To bring us a healthy dose of realism.
So he says, on my tour of the world I am going to give you two things.
The first thing I am going to give you is the genuine story.
I am going to give you the genuine story.
Now in our little section on our sheets this afternoon.
Verse 3 to 11.
We see that the story begins.
Showing a world of inscrutable repetition.
A world that goes round and around and around.
As if it is stuck on repeat.
Now throughout the book of Ecclesiastes there are two refrains that the preacher uses.
For his two main messages.
And the first refrain we see in the title for his genuine story of the world in verse 3.
What does man gain by all the toil at which he toils?
Under the sun.
That's shorthand for life in this world as it really is.
Everything that is from a human perspective.
And life under the sun he says is fundamentally repetitive.
It is ultimately fading and futile.
Look at verse 9 there.
What has been is what will be.
And what has been done is what will be done.
And there is nothing new under the sun.
It is a world where people and their achievements are endlessly being rehashed.
And re-photocopied.
Over and over again.
In the film Edge of Tomorrow.
Tom Cruise plays the character of an army officer.
Who is captured by a strange alien power.
I don't know if you like sci-fi.
But it forces him to relive the same day over and over again.
And it's the day when humans plunge themselves into a war with another race.
Now at first Cruise tries to fight.
He uses this day to try and learn and train.
He uses this one day to advance his combat skills.
One day to defeat his enemy.
To develop.
Only to wake up and have to do it all over again the next morning.
The catchphrase, the catchline of the film is live, die, repeat.
He is living and dying and repeating.
And in the film it's a harrowing and weary experience.
That he has to find a way to escape.
Now spoiler alert, he does find a way.
So it's a good ending.
But the preacher shows us here that there is only escape from the living, the dying and the repeating.
In a Hollywood film.
Because that is exactly how this world is under the sun.
Listen to him in verse 4.
Think about that.
The vast majority of people who have ever lived in this world.
We have never known one single one of them.
How many of us know our grandparents by name?
Or our grandparents?
And the few people that we have known are soon forgotten.
In a clever use of language the preacher shows our transience in comparison with the earth that we live on.
Doesn't he?
The constancy of the earth shows our repetitive life.
The same earth.
The same earth lived on by generation after generation.
Sweat away by the tides of time.
The same earth that Socrates walked on.
Constantine has been here.
Shakespeare and Leonardo da Vinci.
Michael Jackson.
The earth has seen them all come and go.
They've all walked on the same earth.
And they've all seen the same sun that we see.
That rises and goes down and hastens to the place where it rises in verse 5.
We see that sun every day, don't we?
But the sun won't necessarily see us every day.
We will die.
And the whole thing will start all over again.
Moses writes in the Psalms,
We bring our years to an end like a sigh.
The years of our life are 70.
Or even by reason of strength 80.
Yet their span is but toil and trouble.
They are soon gone and we fly away.
The preacher tells us that even inanimate nature itself feels the futility of this repetition.
In verse 7.
All streams run to the sea but the sea is not full.
To the place where the streams flow, there they flow again.
Even the sea is constantly being filled.
But it's never full.
It's never satisfied.
Round and round and round.
Emptying and filling.
And we know this is real, don't we?
We feel this inscrutable repetition in all that we do.
Just think of the events that have shaped our lives.
The events that we remember.
Events that children now can only learn about in a textbook.
The flight of the Concord.
The handing over of Hong Kong back to China.
September the 11th.
And those children will have the same conversations.
And the same elections.
And the same constant debating.
And the same problems to solve.
Over and over.
The constant search for the new.
Is itself an ancient and much repeated search.
Verse 10.
Is there a thing of which it is said.
See this is new.
It has been already in the ages before us.
Now don't get the preacher wrong here.
He is not wearing Nike trainers is he?
And he has not written this on an iPad.
He is not saying that there will never be any inventions.
Or technological advances.
But he is highlighting the absence of any real gain.
That these inventions provide us.
We often hear those words quoted in verse 10.
Don't we?
See this is new.
We hear those words all the time.
Every day.
A new car.
A new phone.
A new way of travel.
But the very repetition of that statement.
Every day.
Proves that even new things are not really new.
They are just updated versions of things that we already have.
Looking for the genuinely new.
Under the sun.
Is an old mistake.
The man who thinks he has found something new.
Is actually being something very old.
Making the same old mistake of using the new.
To validate our repetitive existence.
People do that don't they?
I do that.
I love the pleasure of opening a new box.
Of something that I've just bought.
Even if it's just a table.
A table from Ikea.
Last Friday.
And I love that feeling of opening the new.
Smelling that fresh pine smell.
People record videos on YouTube.
Of unboxing stuff.
Don't they?
Have you seen that?
The thrill of the new.
Because somehow the new.
Validates my existence.
It helps me feel like I'm breaking the repetition.
A new table.
But the preacher says.
Chris give me a break.
Are you serious?
Ideas.
Technology.
Fashions.
Ways of ways of.
Thinking.
The bad.
And the good.
Will eventually disappear.
And reappear.
And disappear.
And reappear.
And the new things of today.
Will be the forgotten things of tomorrow.
And they will be the hand-me-downs.
Of another generation.
He says in verse 11.
There is no remembrance of former things.
Nor will there be any remembrance of later things yet to be.
Among those who come after.
Amazingly the Bible tells us that even the works of God in this world can be forgotten by the next generation.
Even the miracles of the plagues.
The plagues.
You know that famous story.
And the rescue of the Israelites.
Those things were forgotten just a few generations later.
By a new pharaoh.
And a new generation of Egyptians.
Because this world under the sun is simply an endless cycle of same old, same old.
And so the preacher asks.
Therefore what is the point?
What is the point really?
In verse 3.
What's the point of toiling and achieving and developing.
In a repeated world.
With a fading people.
Full of repeated things.
Now do you see what the preacher is doing here?
As he shows us the reality of the world.
He is beginning to convince us that our love for change.
And the novel and the new.
Is not the answer to our satisfaction problem.
We need to understand that there is no yellow brick road.
There is no end of the rainbow.
There is no somewhere else.
Doing something else.
Being something else.
There is no something truly new.
That is going to make you or me happy under the sun.
This is the genuine story of the world he says.
So stop believing and trusting in that old saying.
The old, old thing.
See something new.
Don't believe that.
Don't trust in that.
To make you happy.
Now.
We could be left thinking that our tour guide is just a depressive.
We've gone on around the world tour with Leonard Cohen.
but in his realism
the preacher actually is the ultimate optimist
about life
because secondly and more briefly
the second thing he says is
listen to the joyful story
there's a genuine story about the world
but there is also joy in the world
and this part of his message
comes in another refrain
that comes through Ecclesiastes
from time to time
there is this life under the sun idea
but there is also enjoyment under the sun
which is a gift from God
later in chapter 3 verse 13
he says everyone should eat
and drink and take pleasure in all his toil
this is God's gift
to man
seems contradictory doesn't it
he's just said there is nothing to be gained
from all of our toil
under the sun
and now he's saying
actually the wise person
can live under the sun
and enjoy themselves
this is a gift
from God
and the truth is
that if we are constantly looking for change
if we think that we can break from this repetition
in the world
and in our lives
if we think that we can gain something
by our changes
whatever it is that we think we've gained
will soon disappear
and we will disappear along with it as well
but the preacher wants us to see
that part of real living in the world
is seeing that
and understanding the true limitations of this life
seeing that one day
we will be forgotten
might actually put a wry smile on our face
if the genuine truth is
that we live in a repetitive world
therein lies the key to enjoying that world
he tells you that
you will never find true gain under the sun
so that you won't have to
to enjoy this life
because he wants us to desire something bigger
and truer
and deeper
those enslaved to finding gain under the sun
will never find it
but enjoyment comes under the sun
when we know we don't have to
find it
and be enslaved to it
when we know that we can't do that
on our own
the preacher gives us reality
so we can really rejoice
and this we will see
as we go through Ecclesiastes
is a gift from God
not something that we can strive to get
the preacher gives us reality
so that in the end
we can really rejoice
this is a gift from God
at times it's going to be a painful journey
maybe it's felt like that
this afternoon
it's going to be hard work
this tour of the world is not going to be easy
and it may take a while
for us to understand
and take the fruit
from it
but he is going to jar us
into seeing reality
so that we might receive the gift of God
not somewhere else
doing something else
but here
today
right here
in this world
right here
under the sun
let's pray
together