A New Year’s Day
BFC 2016
Ecclesiastes
3:1-12
January 1, 2017
In reflecting about the results of the
recent national presidential election, the Rev. Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdad,
President of Phillips Theological Seminary in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Tracy’s alma mater, shared a conversation he had
with his doctoral adviser some 25 years ago.
In speaking of Peluso-Verdad’s own denomination, the United Methodist
Church, his adviser said to him, “Here is my take on the Methodists. You used to run the show. You don’t anymore. No one told you.” As Peluso-Verdad wrote, there is both an
“ouch” and clarity in that statement.
In the first half of the 20th
Century, Methodists, the United Church of Christ and several other Protestant
denominations occupied the cultural space of what it meant to be mainline. Presently, the United Methodist Church is
2.2% of the United States population. In
2014, the United Church of Christ was .4% of the United States population. Whatever that is, even though I may continue
to reference us as a mainline Protestant denomination, that percentage of the
population is not “mainline.” As
Peluso-Verdad observes, we need to reframe and in reinterpret our reality. “[We] participate in a minority expression
of Christianity. The majority of persons in this country (and in the world,
really) who call themselves Christian believe and practice differently from me
and my minority group.”[1] So we must come to grips with, Peluso-Verdand
believes, that our country will never return to a time when progressive
Christianity rules the hearts and laws of the land.
“For
everything there is a season,” Qoheleth, the one said to be the author of Ecclesiastes,
writes. Throughout the book of
Ecclesiastes, Qoheleth repeats a proverb that has generally been translated as,
“All is vanity and a chasing after the wind.”
Catholic scholar, Father Thomas Bolin, noticed, however, that the Hebrew
word used for this passage ruach, translated
as “wind” can also can mean “breath” or “Spirit”, all of these translations a reference
to God’s presence and activity.[2] Bolin argues that the repeated phrase, better
translated is, “All is human, transitory, fleeting, but strives for permanence
or Divinity.” In that pursuit to capture
permanence or Divinity, Bolin believes the author of Ecclesiastes is saying,
life can be meaningless. Better to
recognize our mortality, our humanity, our impermanence.
Wisdom
Literature scholar Timothy Sandoval believes that Qoheleth wrote this text to
indict an economic system that had people toiling for greater and greater
wealth believing that they could capture God in a bottle. Inordinate chasing after gain, excessive work
to obtain more, all of this leads to a futile and deterministic life. Professor Sandoval said this is a direct
criticism of the Hellenistic Empire and the meaningless lives and values they
dictated to the Jewish people. The
Jewish people were the minority. At no
time would their spiritual and religious values carry the day. Their faith would never rule the hearts and laws
of the land. Under Hellenistic rule, for
Jewish people, there is no freedom and meaning in such lives, such values, such
pursuits, Qoheleth, the author of Ecclesiastes says.[3]
So
where can wisdom be found?—the central question of the book of Ecclesiastes. If God is not to be captured in a bottle and
that is meaningless, what does give life meaning? We get a clue what Ecclesiastes is all about
when we translate the author’s name.
Qoheleth means “the gatherer” or “the assembler”, the “one who brings
together community.” If Qoheleth were
translated into Greek, it would be the word from the New Testament we commonly
translate as “church.”[4]
If
we read into Chapter 4 of Ecclesiastes today, Qoheleth, the gatherer, suggests
that God’s gift to us is to eat, drink, and find pleasure in our work or to see
good in our work. For ancient peoples,
eating and drinking were common social or communal activities. God’s gift, then, is the thoroughly human
activity of social and community life and seeing good in our life’s work. We learn that what is of real value is human
partnership, community, and solidarity.
Chasing after Divinity through power and wealth is worthless.
While those in charge and dictating
faith and culture to others may be concerned with morality plays, purity codes,
and right answers, people of progressive faith across many traditions are more
concerned with asking the important and essential questions that countenance
the real diversity found in community.
Because we are not concerned with remaining “pure”, those questions can
be found wherever we believe struggle, hard work, and faithfulness in seeking
wisdom are to be found.
As we prepare for the New Year, I
would like to put before you questions proposed by the Dean of Harvard’s
Graduate School of Education, James Ryan, offered at their 2016 commencement
ceremonies. He offers five questions and
then a bonus question at the end. Ryan
begins by saying,
[D]isparities
and injustices based on income, wealth and race continue to weaken the fabric
of our world, our nation and of our communities. Intolerance and
authoritarianism appear, by some measures, on the rise both at home and abroad.
Our world seems to be getting hotter and less hospitable, both politically and
environmentally, though it was truly heartening to learn that, as of this year,
the lovable manatee is no longer an endangered species. Redemption, it seems,
is still possible. By coming to the
Harvard Graduate School of Education, you have signaled that your response to
societal inequities and injustices is through education. I’m surely biased, but
I applaud your choice, as I am convinced that education is the only long-term
solution to these long-term problems. I
have seen your passion, your commitment to social justice, and your enormous
talents on display all year, and while I am sad to bid you farewell, I take
solace in knowing that you are leaving here to make the world a better place.[5]
I share
that as a way of saying that maybe Ryan shares some of the values we do as he
speaks from a secular pulpit for the commencement of Harvard’s Graduate School
of Education.
The first question is one Ryan learned
well from his own children when they were being asked to do a chore around the
house. They hear from him something
like, “Blah, blah, blah, blah, and I’d like you to clean the house?” They then say, “Wait what? Clean what?”
Wait what? is actually a great question asking for clarification. There will be a number of things asking for our
personal advocacy and our investment as a church community. Before we give our support and advocacy,
there are many times when we will need to ask for clarification first. Wait what?
The second question is, “I wonder . .
.?” followed by the words “why” or “if.”
This is a way of remaining curious about the world moving toward
action. We might ask, “I wonder why we
see so many Native American people who are part of the chronic inebriate
community. And I wonder if there is
something we could do about that?” I
wonder . . . ?
The third question is, “Couldn’t we at
least . . .?” Couldn’t we at least? is a
way of getting unstuck and moving us forward toward consensus. We are not sure where we will finish, or how
to strategize going forward, but couldn’t we at least do this to get started? Couldn’t we at least . . ,?”
The fourth question is, “How can I
help?” If community life is really where
we find meaning, we won’t always be the ones who lead or set direction. By asking “how” we can help, we admit that we
might need direction ourselves. We learn
from others, and we fulfill a very human impulse to lend a hand. How can I help?
The fifth question is, “What truly
matters?” On this first day of the new
year, we might ask this question as a way of holding ourselves accountable by
adding two words, “What truly matters . . . to me?” This question helps us to get to the heart of
the matter, to cut through the chaff, to ask what is at the core of our beliefs
and convictions. What truly matters?
“’Wait, what’ is at the root of all
understanding. ‘I wonder’ is at the heart of all curiosity. ‘Couldn’t we at
least’ is the beginning of all progress. ‘How can I help’ is at the base of all
good relationships. And ‘what really matters’ gets [us] to the heart of life.[6]
If you regularly answer these questions,
Ryan believes, you will be in great position to answer his bonus question, a
question from a poem he found on the back of a bulletin at a funeral service
for one of his dearest and closest friends.
Raymond Carver wrote a poem called, “Late Fragment” and it begins with,
“And did you get what you wanted out of life, even so?”
“The ‘even so’ part of this, to [Dean
Ryan], captures perfectly the recognition of the pain and disappointment that
inevitably make up a full life, but also the hope that life, even so, offers
the possibility of joy and contentment.”[7]
And did you get what you wanted out of
life, even so? Carver’s short poem ends:
“’I did./And what did you want?/To call myself beloved. To feel beloved on the
earth.’” Carver here not only means
dearly loved but cherished and respected.[8]
Wait, what? I wonder . . .? Couldn’t we at least? How can I help? What truly matters? And did you get what you want out of life,
even so? For this new year, I think that
is a good start for a progressive, thinking, compassionate faith community that
is no longer what we might call mainline.
What other questions help us to be faithful? What other questions might you include as a
church that seeks to make meaning as the minority expression of
Christianity? One of them might be to
ask, “How do we create a community ecosystem that helps both newcomers and
long-time members to know themselves as beloved?” For our oldest wisdom from a book like
Ecclesiastes teaches us that meaning is found in life, not just a puff of
breath, when we create solidarity, partnership, and community.
For the most part, our Jewish ancestors lived and made meaning at a time
when their faith was a minority expression.
As a Jew, himself, Christ had to find a way and a path as a minority
expression in ancient Rome. May we be
faithful as he was so that we all might know ourselves to be beloved on this
earth. Amen.
[1] Dr. Gary Peluso-Verdad,
“From Mainline to Minority,” Phillips
Seminary, December 16, 2016. http://ptstulsa.edu/MainlinetoMinority.
[2] Thomas Bolin, “Rival and
Resignation: Girard and Qoheleth on the
Divine-Human Relationship.” Biblica, Vol. 85, p. 245. Academia.edu.http://www.academia.edu/235449/Rivalry_and_Resignation_Girard_and_Qoheleth_on_the_Divine-Human_Relationship
[3] Dr. Timothy J. Sandoval,
“Where Can Wisdom Be Found,” Ecclesiastes Lecture, Byron, IL, September 1,
2012. Tim was formerly on faculty at
Chicago Theological Seminary and now teaches at Brite Divinity School in Texas
[4] Dr. Timothy J. Sandoval,
“Wisdom’s Worth,” Ecclesiastes Lecture, Champaign, IL, October 15, 2005.
[5]James Ryan, “Good
Questions,” Harvard Graduate School of
Education, May 26, 2016. http://www.gse.harvard.edu/news/16/05/good-questions.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Ibid.
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