...You Probably Think This Sermon’s About You

Ecclesiastes 1:2, 12-14; 2:18-23

I couldn’t resist the opportunity to be clever with my sermon title, but in all honesty the self-conceited vanity about which Carly Simon sang is not quite what the author of Ecclesiastes is referring to when he uses the word “vanity.” The Hebrew word which the NRSV translates as “vanity” is hebel, which has numerous suggestions for how it should be translated: vanity, pointlessness, futility, ephemerality, emptiness, meaninglessness, absurdity. My Hebrew professor translated hebel as “vapor,” that which appears to have substance until you push against it. You might be most familiar with this Hebrew word as it is translated in Genesis 4 as the name of Cain’s brother, Abel, who offers a sacrifice to gain God’s favor in one verse, then loses his life at his brother’s hand in the next. Abel’s futile life and existence serve as a translation of his name, hebel.

“All is hebel,” says Qoheleth. Qoheleth is a name which means teacher, and is the self-designated title of the author of Ecclesiastes. “I am the teacher, and I have applied my mind to seek out by wisdom all that is done under heaven.” And his conclusion? “All is hebel.” In other words, “What’s the point of it all?” What a dark and dismal thing to say. What good does it do for us to learn from the lamentations of a teacher who has determined that everything is pointless?

I suppose I ought to confess that his words strike me as familiar. I too, in seasons of depression, have struggled deeply with writing sermons. There have been times when making sense of the world in light of the gospel has felt like “unhappy business,” as Qoheleth put it. My depression tends to be affected by the seasons. When the days get darker, so does my mood. This tends to be right around the beginning of the Advent season, when the gospel insists I stand behind the pulpit each Sunday and preach about the coming of light and hope and peace and joy. And in my heart...I just feel...hebel.

My view of Advent has been from the perspective of the people who walk in great darkness; the shepherds, alone in the fields at night; the wandering pregnant mother who is in labor pains, without a room to give birth to her child. It is there, in the dark, when all seems hebel that God injects light, life, and purpose. But then this child grows up and becomes a teacher. He captures the world’s attention, ruffles a few too many feathers, and like Abel he offers a sacrifice through which gains God’s favor and loses his life, ending up in the dark and dismal grave. It’s all hebel.

Or so it seems.

Let’s return to the dark and dismal words of Qoheleth, “All is vanity.” This is how he begins the book. And yet he continues to write, to share what he’s learned, to teach. The story of God’s salvation begins in darkness. Creation begins in darkness and falls back into darkness through sin. The Exodus from Egypt begins in the shadow of death. The resurrection follows a pattern of darkness and light that has always been a part of God’s engagement with creation. God continues to work when all seems dark. When Qoheleth begins by saying that “all is vanity,” he reveals an understanding of the great paradox of God’s relationship with us. Listen to how William Brown describes that paradox: “There remains something redemptive that makes life still worth living despite the vanity of toil, but it can be realized--or more accurately received--only when all hope for self-achievement and glory is surrendered. Such is the lesson of death.”

Jesus also teaches about the importance of learning to let go. “Whoever tries to save their life will lose it,” he says, “but whoever loses their life will save it.”

I had a conversation recently with a man who has taken up T’ai Chi. He describes it as a practice of body awareness. He has been going up to D.C. on the weekends to ride the metro trains and to experience his body through the stops and starts without trying to hold on for balance. We have a tendency towards holding tension--to get rigid when we fear falling. What he has discovered, however, is that this rigidity is exactly what prevents our body from being able to move fluidly enough to prevent us from falling in the first place. In his practice, this friend is paying attention to where he is holding tension...and learning to let go.

When the teacher states that “all is hebel,” he is making a specific observation about work and wealth and the human pursuit of storing up fortunes that they will lose when they die. He’s not saying that life is pointless, he’s just noting how the rigid way most people live sets them up to toil in vain. If they could just learn to let go of these rigid and imprisoning pursuits of knowledge and wealth and power and prestige, they could find so much more peace and rest and happiness.

Depression, guilt, and shame imprison us in the past, trying up our mind to things that have already happened. Fear, anxiety, and worry imprison us in the future, trying up our mind to things that may never happen. Peace, love, and joy our gifts of the present when we learn to let go, when we come to realize, as Qoheleth did, that most of what we hold on to is hebel, vapor, breath. Guilt and fear create tension in us that makes them feel substantial, but we can, through body awareness, faith awareness, mind awareness, learn to let go.

Faith is letting go and letting God. Faith is breathing out without worrying about the next breath in. Our mind and body develop habits to rigidly resist letting go and we cause ourselves a lot of emotional and physical pain on account of this. It takes practice to be at peace. It takes intentionality to train one’s mind and body to let go. Forgiveness is God’s invitation to us to let go. Easier said than done. Jesus is God’s gift to us to teach us, guide us, and show us the way to let go. In John’s Gospel, the resurrected Christ appears to the disciples and says to them, “Peace be with you.” Then he breathed upon them. When we let go, when we exhale, the peace of Christ is there to be breathed in. All is hebel, all is vapor, all is breath. “Peace be with you.”