This morning we are introduced to a very unique book of the
Bible—Ecclesiastes. The writer is
self-titled Qoheleth—the teacher—and tradition says this is a writing of
Solomon or someone writing in Solomon’s name.
Talk
about a Debbie-downer introduction.
“Vanity of vanities, says Qoheleth, vanity of vanities! All things are vanity!” I think we should make a push to have
this read at Mass every Monday morning.
Qoheleth
is basically saying, “What’s the point?”
The author claims to have grown in wisdom, wealth and worldly
knowledge. At the same time, he
wonders what the point is to any of this because, whether rich or poor, full or
hungry, wise or foolish, the same end comes to all—death. Is there any profit to anything except
to eat, drink and be merry in the few years we have on earth?
Peter
Kreeft has said that this book asks the question that the rest of the Bible
answers—what’s the purpose of life?
I
have adapted an activity from my Mom that I frequently use with kids to
illustrate this point. Imagine
some of the blessings in your life—your family, hobbies and passions. Now picture me writing a zero on a
chalkboard (we really need a chalk board up here!) for everyone’s
blessings. Imagine the string of
70 or so zeroes on this board. I
then ask the kids (because this is math related, and math is the best!) how
much is 70 (or any number of) zeroes?
Zero. Yet what happens if I
place the number one before all these zeroes? What was once nothing is now a huge number.
We
have a blessed vantage point because we live after Jesus Christ’s
incarnation. We can see that, if
Christ is not the center of our lives and our greatest priority, all we do is
truly “vanity of vanities”. Yet
when God is put first, all of these “vain” activities become infinitely
valuable. Unlike Qoheleth instead
of saying “vanity of vanities” we can say with St. Paul, “Rejoice in the Lord
always, again I say rejoice!”
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