Since we’ve been in South Africa, we’ve had a couple of Friday evenings where we met up with some friends to enjoy South African wine and aged cheese. They have been evenings where our mouths have not only celebrated the beautiful complexity of flavors that burst forth as the cheese and wine intertwine, but they’ve also been evenings where we’ve enjoyed both conversations and laughter with others. And yet, as delightful as these things are, at least for me, they aren’t the pinnacle of the evening. Why? Let’s start with a few moments reflecting in the book of Ecclesiastes.

Now, the book of Ecclesiastes is one that puzzles most people who read it because the author is continually declaring that everything is meaningless under the sun. In words that could just as easily have been penned by Frederick Nietzsche, the narrator of the book who describes himself as the Preacher, argues the pointlessness of wisdom, self-indulgence, toil, wealth, and honor. While he deems some paths of life to be of greater value than others, in the end he declares we all die, so really, there’s no difference between the wise and the foolish, the rich and the poor. Rather, he urges all to make the most of what they’ve got while they have it. You could say that, through most of the book, the Preacher’s only valuable suggestion is for people to live in the now.

However, scattered among the dominate argument, the Preacher drops in hints that there is something more. One place we see a hint is at the end of Ecclesiastes 2:24-26:

There is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil. This also, I saw, is from the hand of God, for apart from him who can eat and who can have enjoyment? For to the one who pleases him God has given wisdom and knowledge and joy, but to the sinner he has given the business of gathering and collecting, only to give to one who pleases God. This is also vanity and a striving after wind.

So, as these verses open, we have a bit that says, “Live in the now.” This is followed by a question on the source of all things and then the division of humanity into two groups, those who please God and sinners. For the sinners, life is spent gathering and collecting, but in the end, all that is earned will ultimately be passed onto someone who pleases God, and therefore that work and toil, even if it was enjoyed while it lasted, is rendered meaningless. However, to those who please God, there is not only the spoils of the sinners work, but “wisdom and knowledge and joy.” But what exactly does all this mean?

First, we need to distinguish the difference between one who pleases God and sinners. Now, typically, people tend to try and create the division between those who do good things and those who do bad things, however, there’s no reference to behavior here in Ecclesiastes, rather, as I pointed out earlier, the Preacher tends to see little difference between those who live a noble life and those who live a scandalous one because; in the end, the lives of both the honorable and the dishonorable end in death. This means that the Preacher must know of another means to divide the two groups, a knowledge that is made known in his question, “This also, I saw, is from the hand of God, for apart from him who can eat and who can have enjoyment?” a question that sent my mind to the words of Martin Luther as he explained the first article of the Apostles’ Creed (this link goes to Luther’s Small Catechism, once there, click on the link to the Creed for Luther’s full explanation):

I believe in God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth.

What does this mean? I believe that God has made me and all creatures … He also gives me … all I have … For all this it is my duty to thank and praise, serve and obey Him. This is most certainly true.

So, what’s the litmus test to divide between those the Preacher categorizes and sinners versus those who please God? It’s not an issue of behavior, rather, it’s an issue of having faith, a faith that begins with the recognition that God in fact is the source of all that you have. But there’s something more, something that comes through more profoundly (although, given our penchant for viewing the Hebrew Bible as a book of laws, not more clearly) as the Preacher closes out his discourse in Ecclesiastes 12 and, as if speaking to his child, bestows fatherly wisdom with two key admonitions. First, the Preacher advises his readers to remember their Creator in the days of their youth, and second, to remember to fear God and keep his commandments. Another way of phrasing the Preacher’s advice would be to remember everything that God has done, which goes far beyond providing daily bread, and to respond by living in a way that both remembers and honors God’s grace.

This is where we need to return to the Creed, because when Ecclesiastes was written, the full scope of God’s gracious action had yet to be revealed. Certainly, for an Israelite reading Ecclesiastes, talk about what God had done and commanded was intimately tied to his gracious action as described in Exodus 20:2, “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.” but today, God’s gone even further by sending his Son into the world to not only die upon the cross, but rise as a prelude to our own resurrection, a resurrection that Isaiah 25:6 describes this way:

On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine, of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well refined.

Oddly enough, this brings me back to my opening statement about our wine and cheese get togethers. If I took the route that Ecclesiastes describes as meaningless and vanity, then the highlight of our evenings together would be the friendship, the laughter, the flavors, and maybe even the gladdening of the heart that comes from splitting a bottle of wine with someone. However, because I have faith in all that God has done, because I know that all good things come from him and that, through his Son I’ve been invited to a resurrection life, then, on those evenings and throughout all of my life, I’m not living in the now, but living in the then. For me, the pinnacle of those evenings is that with every bite, every sip, every laugh, and every moment, I am, in a small way, experiencing the resurrection life that God has made available to me through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Okay, so I realize there’s a lot there, and most likely, quite a few questions that flow from assumptions I’ve made about how we read and understand Scripture. But the point of all this is to launch a dialogue, so let’s talk a bit.

• What questions do you have about my understanding of grace in the Hebrew Bible?
• Do you see any disconnects in my logic?
• How have you typically viewed social gatherings? Have I reshaped your thinking at all?
• Where else in your life can you see yourself living in the then?