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S. Pentecost 8.25 Eccl. 1:2, 12–14, 2:18-26, Luke 12:13-21

‘So I gave my heart to despair… there is nothing better for man than to 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 or who can have enjoyment?’

I don’t think many readers understand Ecclesiastes; no, I don’t think that, I know it! Because no one even gets the name of the Book/writer right—Qohelet in Hebrew, Ecclesiastes in Greek—translated quite wrongly as “the Preacher” by the ESV, even though in the footnotes they admit that’s a bad translation!

First, there’s no definite article in the Hebrew or Greek. Second, and more importantly: the Hebrew is not in the hiph’il conjugation, an active causative sense which would give you literally “Assembler” but it is in the qal conjugation, a passive sense—not “Assembler” but “assembled” one who receives rather than causes an action!

Robert Alter just writes the Hebrew ‘Qohelet’. I’d just write ‘Ecclesiastes’ preferring Greek to Hebrew, myself…

I think I’ve said before that God is in the grammar and becoming a good reader of any text, especially of holy scriptures, means having an ear for the original grammar and its connotations.

It is not difficult to parse and translate ‘Qohelet’ and ‘Ecclesiastes’ correctly. But it’s not usually done properly because it doesn’t make sense to the modern translator that these are the words of one who is being assembled, literally, by the words themselves which come from without, from Another…

Norman Nagel first pointed out to me what Luther pointed out to him, what is actually the MAIN PROBLEM with modern Christendom: we think we need to be running the main verbs in the Story, doing the saving, the gathering, the assembling of ourselves and others, whereas the scriptures show God alone runs the verbs and we are mere passive recipients of his gifts and doing.

Luther says it stronger in Bondage of the Will, quoting Ps. 73 “I am like a beast before you…” caught between two riders—God and the devil—while they fight to see who will have and ride us!

It’s taken me decades and excellent teachers like Holmer, Frei, Luther and Lewis who taught me how to read and so to see where I (with most of Christendom) usually go wrong in thinking Christianity is an ideology and the church just imparts information we have to get into our heads and then act out by running all the verbs of our lives, ourselves… 🙁

We all have “MAIN CHARACTER Syndrome” a concept one of the youths recently introduced me to—and for which I’m extremely grateful. It means thinking I’m the center of The Story, the Main Actor, when, in fact, we are but bit players who are simply acted upon by GOD who’s the only Main Character in the story the scriptures tell… (we’re also acted on powerfully by the devil, the villain, the ‘worst supporting actor’ in the story 😉

So; when you can’t hear the first sentence as: “The words of assembled, son of David, king in Jerusalem,” it’s no wonder you don’t understand much of the rest of the book! The first sentence is designed to arrest your normal thinking. How can the son of David, a King in Jerusalem (!) call himself “assembled”?! Surely he means he is The Assembler, The Master of Assemblies, right? But, NO!, he doesn’t…

He is (small “s”!) son of David and it is David’s (capital “S”) Son, JESUS who is the King of Jerusalem, the Author of this book whose words assembled Ecclesiastes around the King’s Table as son and heir. As we’ve said: God’s βασιλεαν is not rightly translated as “Kingdom” but as “Kinging”. And when Jesus does his “Kinging”, we are assembled by him, sharing his dying and rising, by his grace through faith being reborn in his image. Even the “Kings of Jerusalem” like David and Ecclesiastes Jesus allows to sit in his seat so his “Kinging” rubs off on them and is reflected by them.

To know that he’s one assembled, not The Assembler is Ecclesiastes’ wisdom which makes him truly David’s royal son. He is unhappy with the standard way of living life—gathering and assembling, toiling away. He says the whole thing is an unhappy business God has given the children of man to be busy with!

He’s tried it all, Ecclesiastes has: wisdom and madness, good behavior, bad behavior. Built lots of stuff and won lots of wars which left him… empty and unhappy! Tried heavy drinking, philosophy, concubines—lots of concubines! (just to be sure! 😉 music and dancing, but that made things even… worser!

That’s what they cut out of our reading today in chapter 2 before we pick up with “I hated all my toil which I toiled under the sun..” Hate’s perhaps a strong word for all his experiments (the concubines?), but then again, in chpt 9:9, he says true joy comes from your ONE, beloved wife!

Ecclesiastes’ conclusion? “There is nothing better for man than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil”. Such joy comes paradoxically by despair—despair of oneself, ‘letting go and letting God’ run all the verbs always—and Ecclesiastes goes on: “this also, I saw is from the hand of God, for apart from him, who can eat or have enjoyment?”

Many Hebrew manuscripts change “him” to “me” because they have Main Character Syndrome and can’t get that unless GOD runs the verbs, does all the doing, there is no joy!

Ecclesiastes, remember!, means “assembled”. His joy comes from simply being assembled around Jesus’ “Kinging” sharing his dying and rising. It’s the opposite of the fool’s happiness that comes from the ample goods he assembles himself to relax, eat, drink, and be merry…!

The fool’s got Main Character Syndrome—a real bad case! He’s Leading Man, Runner of the Verbs. THIS is his folly!—that he is The Assembler, not one assembled…

By contrast, Ecclesiastes’ joy’s being a bit player in God’s Company; assembled as Christ’s Church.

This happens only by faith—which is pure passiva, nothing, the non-rejection of Christ—happily absorbed as bit players in the old, old Story of Jesus and his love (which will be our theme in glory 😉

The Church’s Mission is simply to be (as Luther says) beggars after all—assembled ecclesiastically around God’s gifts of his body and blood, forgiveness, life, salvation—as we are here, now, in His Majesty’s Divine Service, partaking gratis of the Peace that surpasses understanding and guards our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.