Friday of Week 18 of Ordinary Time – Gospel
Commentary on Matthew 16:24-28
Jesus has already shocked his disciples by telling them in advance what is going to happen to him as Messiah. Now he goes further and tells them that they too will have to have a part in his experience.
They are to follow in his footsteps. Like him, they are to be ready to take up their cross—whatever it may be—and carry it behind him. For some, it will mean dying for Christ and the Kingdom. For others, it will mean living totally for Christ and the Kingdom. Notice, Jesus tells them to take up their own cross, not his. That cross will be different for each person; it takes the form of some difficult thing which it is clear we must accept and not run away from. It is not to be sought for—that would not be a healthy thing to do. It will come, unmarked and unchosen, but clear.
The other way, to avoid all pain and seek only what brings pleasure and enjoyment, is to go down a cul-de-sac, a blind alley that leads nowhere. That is what we mean by trying ‘to save our life’. It is a sure way to lose it.
What is the use of gaining “the whole world”, becoming a multi-billionaire and being profoundly unhappy? Living for oneself only is to end up finding one’s self dying. Letting go of one’s life to live for others, to live for truth, love and justice is to live a full life, even if shortened by physical death.
Many of the saints died long before their time, but achieved in a few years what most of us cannot do in a long life. There is a scriptural phrase applied to some of the saints who died relatively young:
Consummatus in breve, explevit tempora multa.
It means that, although their life came to an early end, they had filled it with many good things.
Read more
Saturday of Week 18 of Ordinary Time – Gospel
Commentary on Matthew 17:14-20
In today’s Gospel, we have the story of a father distraught over the erratic behaviour of his son. As usually is the case, Mark’s telling of this story is much more dramatic than Matthew’s. Nevertheless, Matthew keeps the main points.
There is the desperation of the father who feels helpless at the apparent uncontrollable behaviour of his son. The symptoms appear very similar to epilepsy, a condition which is quite well understood today and whose causes—at least in general—are known. But it must have been easy for people in those days to believe that some evil power had suddenly taken hold of an otherwise normal person to make them behave in such bizarre ways.
The man had at first approached the disciples, who were of no help. Jesus expresses dismay and disappointment at the people’s lack of faith, presumably including that of his own disciples, in his criticism:
You faithless and perverse generation, how much longer must I be with you? How much longer must I put up with you?
Jesus then drives out the demon plaguing the boy and he was made whole. The disciples, who had done their share of healing on their missionary excursions, wondered why they were not able to heal the boy. Jesus tells them:
Because of your little faith. For truly I tell you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you.
How strong is my faith and trust in God’s care of me? Jesus’ words, of course, are not a carte blanche just to ask for anything that comes into our heads. It is not an invitation to manipulate God; on the contrary, it is a call to put all our trust in God knowing that, whatever happens to us, he has our best interests at heart. Such a faith, accompanied by a deep love, is what brings happiness and peace into our lives.
Read more
Saturday of Week 18 of Ordinary Time – First Reading
Commentary on Habakkuk 1:12—2:4
Today we have one reading from the Prophet Habakkuk. The book dates from the years 605-597 BC, i.e. between the great Babylonian victory at Carchemish and Nebuchadnezzar’s invasion of the southern kingdom of Judah which resulted in the capture and destruction of Jerusalem. In addition to the threat of invasion, the city itself was a hotbed of political intrigue and widespread idolatry.
The first two chapters, from which our readings are taken, consist of a dialogue between God and the prophet, and may be the only place in the Bible where someone questions the way God manages events.
The New American Bible comments:
“The third chapter [from which we will not be reading] is a magnificent religious lyric, filled with reminiscences of Israel’s past and rich in literary borrowings from the poetry of ancient Canaan, though still expressing authentic Israelite faith. God appears in all his majestic splendour and executes vengeance on Judah’s enemies. The prophecy ends with a joyous profession of confidence in the Lord, the Saviour.”
In today’s reading, the prophet complains to God about how he can tolerate the evil of those who cause so much suffering among his chosen people. The Jerusalem Bible summarises the prophet’s feelings thus:
“If it is true that the Chaldaean triumph is ultimately due to Yahweh, this only moves the problem back to Yahweh himself who must give the answer. How is it that a just and holy God, the custodian of justice, can treat nations thus, and the chosen people in particular? Will he allow the wicked to engulf the virtuous?”
As well, the New International Bible comments:
Habakkuk cannot see the justice in Judah’s being punished by an even more wicked nation, and thinks that the Babylonians surely would not be allowed to conquer Judah completely.
The prophet acknowledges God as the Holy One who lives in eternity from ancient times, i.e. from the time of the Exodus—the basis of the prophet’s hope for the future. He says to God:
O Lord, you have marked them for judgment,
and you, O Rock, have established them for punishment.
He calls God “O Rock!”—a title recognising God’s immutable power. But it is this God who has made Babylon his agent for the judgement of the chosen people.
At the same time, the prophet sees a contradiction here. He says to God:
Your eyes are too pure to behold evil,
and you cannot look on wrongdoing;
why do you look on the treacherous
and are silent when the wicked swallow
those more righteous than they?
It is the classic question, asked again and again: Why does evil seem to flourish unchecked by a just and holy God? It is a question often asked since September 11, 2001, October 7, 2023 and after so many other murderous attacks in our time.
God, says Habakkuk, treats people:
…like the fish of the sea…
The victims of Babylonia are as helpless as fish swimming into a net. In fact, Mesopotamian reliefs show conquering rulers symbolically catching their victims in fishnets. It seems that Babylonia is allowed to do anything they like and, in the end, “rejoices and exults.”The Babylonians offer celebratory sacrifices over their ‘catch’ and burn incense to the booty which rewards them with wealth and luxury.
The prophet wants to know if there is to be no end to all of this:
Is he [Babylon] then to keep on emptying his net
and destroying nations without mercy?
So the prophet goes on a long watch on Jerusalem’s city walls to see if the Lord has any answer at all to his complaints. The prophet keeps watch like a sentry on behalf of his people. He looks out from his “watchpost” expecting a response to his challenge.
Yahweh’s response comes in the second part of today’s reading:
Then the Lord answered me and said…
The prophet is told:
Write the vision;
make it plain on tablets,
so that a runner may read it.
This is so that it can easily be carried and read out by a messenger and delivered to all those meant to receive it. The word used here refers specifically to a prophet’s vision.
The message is “for the appointed time” only, without any specification of when it will happen. It will be fulfilled at the appointed time. In fact, it will deal with the fall of Babylon in 539 BC, 66 years after Habakkuk made his prophecy:
If it seems to tarry, wait for it…
It has an energy of its own, because it is the expression of Yahweh’s word moving to inevitable fulfilment. Our Advent liturgy uses this verse to express expectation of the Messiah.
The message, then, is to be patient. It may be slow in coming, but:
…it will surely come; it will not delay.
In conclusion, a contrast is made between two kinds of people. On the one hand there are “the proud” whose “spirit is not right in them”, and on the other, there are “the righteous”, those who “live by their faithfulness”. The king of Babylonia and his followers can be numbered among the first kind, as well as those people of Judah who have lost confidence in God. Others remain utterly faithful to God no matter what happens and how long he has to wait.
‘Faithfulness’ to God, i.e. to his word and to his will, is characteristic of the “righteous”, and assures them security and life here on earth. The wicked, who do not have this ‘righteousness’ run to ruin. The righteous and the wicked in this context are respectively Judah and the Chaldaeans—the former will live and the others perish.
In light of God’s revelation about how (and when) he is working, his people are to wait patiently and live by faith, trusting in their sovereign God. The last clause of the reading is quoted frequently in the New Testament to support the teaching that people are saved by grace through faith and should live by faith (see Heb 10:38-39). It also became the rallying cry of the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century.
There is a distinction to be made between ‘faith’ and ‘faithfulness’. ‘Faith’ implies a deep and unconditional trust in God’s love and care for us, even in our sinfulness. ‘Faithfulness’ or ‘fidelity’ suggests maintaining, through thick and thin and perhaps over a long period of time, the integrity of a relationship (as in marriage). Obviously both apply in this passage.
We all need to live by faith and faithfulness. This is one of the secrets of peace and happiness in our lives.
Read more
Monday of Week 21 of Ordinary Time – First Reading
Commentary on 2 Thessalonians 1:1-5,11-12
After eight weeks reading from the Old Testament prophets, today we return to the New Testament. For the next three days we will be reading from the Second Letter of Paul to the Christians at Thessalonica (now Thessaloniki), a city in Macedonia, north of Greece. Today we begin the first of three readings from the Second Letter to the Thessalonians.
Although this letter is usually ascribed to Paul, there are serious doubts about his being its real author, or that it was actually directed to the Christians of Thessalonica. Nevertheless, it has always been a part of the recognised canon, and we can read it with confidence as speaking God’s word to us.
The letter opens traditionally with the names of its claimed authors: Paul, with two of his helpers, Silvanus and Timothy, and its addressee, the “church of the Thessalonians” (i.e. the Christian community). There follows a Christian prayer of grace, peace and thanksgiving to God the Father and the Lord Jesus. The writers are full of gratitude to God because of the marvellous growth of faith and mutual love among the Thessalonian Christians, even though they are aware of some shortcomings also.
The Thessalonians are congratulated for standing out among the churches for their perseverance in spite of the persecutions and troubles they have had to face. This was a source of special pride for Paul and the other founders of this church, and they were not ashamed to boast of it. Paul seems to imply that it was somewhat unusual for the founders of a church to boast about this, though others might do so. However, the Thessalonians were so outstanding in this regard that Paul departed from his normal practice.
It shows that God, in allowing them to go through these trials, was right. He gave them the resources they needed and they rose to the occasion and proved themselves “worthy of the kingdom of God”. He provided strength to endure, and this in turn produced spiritual and moral character. Their sufferings are precisely for the promotion of the Kingdom as they give faithful witness to Jesus and the Gospel.
The passage ends with a lovely prayer that God will “fulfill by his power every good resolve and work of faith” and bring to completion all that the Thessalonians have been doing through faith in Christ. God initiates every good purpose and every act prompted by faith; Paul prays accordingly that he will bring these to fulfilment, saying:
…we always pray for you… so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you…
In ancient times one’s name was often more than a personal label; it summed up what a person was. Paul is praying that the name, that is, the person of the Lord Jesus, will be given glory in them, and they in him through the love of God and the Lord Jesus poured into their hearts.
As we read this passage we may reflect on a number of questions:
- Can it be said that our faith and mutual love, individually and collectively, are constantly growing?
- How do we behave and respond when our Christian faith is challenged, attacked or rubbished? Do we stand up or do we go into hiding? Do we hit back or pray for those who attack us?
- Can we see that the trials and setbacks of life are ways by which God is challenging the depth of our faith and calling for a deeper response of love and service?
Saturday of Week 25 of Ordinary Time – Gospel
Commentary on Luke 9:43-45
After yesterday’s reading where the disciples recognised their Master as the Messiah and are told about the death and resurrection of Jesus, there follows the scene with the three chosen Apostles on the mountain, where they get a glimpse of Jesus in glory (the transfiguration). This is followed by the healing of the epileptic boy.
The reaction of the crowds to this cure was that:
…all were astounded at the greatness of God.
The were not astounded, we might note, by the mighty power of Jesus. Even the crowds could recognise the real source of what Jesus was able to do.
It is at this high point of Jesus’ popularity that he says just to his disciples:
Let these words sink into your ears: The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into human hands.
What Jesus seems to be saying is that they are to realise there is no contradiction whatsoever between Jesus revealing in himself the unlimited power of God and his being handed over, powerless, to the power of his enemies. Only when they can see and understand the meaning of a suffering Messiah will they fully know the Way of Jesus.
But Luke tells us, they were not ready yet for this:
…they understood nothing about all these things; in fact, what he said was hidden from them, and they did not grasp what was said. (Luke 18:34)
And Luke tells us today:
…they were afraid to ask him about this saying.
To what extent can we say that we understand and accept the idea of a suffering Messiah? We are used to looking at the cross of Jesus, but to what degree do we see the place of suffering in our own lives? Can we see that, without pain and suffering in our own lives and in those of others, our lives would be in many ways impoverished? Strange as it may seem, it is pain and suffering that can bring out what is most deeply human in all of us.
Read more
Saturday of Week 25 of Ordinary Time – First Reading
Commentary on Ecclesiastes 11:9—12:8
Today we come to the end of our selections from this book. Even in translation, one can see the poetry of the passage. Again, it can be read in a very pessimistic way, or with a sense of realism. The reading deals with the inevitability of old age and what it brings.
In Jewish tradition, going back to the book of Deuteronomy, long life was seen as a reward promised by God, and the greatest blessing given to those who had led good lives. However, for Qoheleth, old age is not happiness, but the fear of death, regrets for one’s younger days, the slowing-down of life, and a painful slowing down before:
…the dust returns to the earth as it was…
So he begins by urging the young to enjoy their lives while they still have the energy and vigour to do so. As the poet Robert Herrick says, “Gather ye rosebuds while ye may!”
The young are told to:
Follow the inclination of your heart and the desire of your eyes…
Even so, there’s a the caveat that some day:
…for all these things God will bring you into judgment.
But there seems to be a mixed signal when he tells them to:
Banish anxiety from your mind, and put away pain from your body, for youth and the dawn of life are vanity.
For such a carefree and hedonistic life is in fact highly deceptive. They are told:
Remember your creator in the days of your youth, before the days of trouble come and the years draw near when you will say, “I have no pleasure in them”…
The wise young person will be mindful of the Creator while there is still time. For the days are coming when:
…the sun and the light and the moon and the stars are darkened and the clouds return with the rain…
This is perhaps describing the weakening sight and cataracts that come with aging.
There follows then a sad but moving description of old age when:
…strong men are bent, and the women who grind cease working…
…and the sound of the grinding is low [hearing difficulties arise]…
…when one is afraid of heights, and terrors are in the road [difficulty walking]…
Yet, while all that is happening, life continues with never-ending normality:
…the almond tree blossoms, the grasshopper drags itself along, and the caper bud falls…
But inexorably we move towards our “eternal home” in the bosom of the earth.
Already the mourners are getting ready to see us off, awaiting the moment:
…before the silver cord is snapped, and the golden bowl is broken, and the pitcher is broken at the fountain, and the wheel broken at the cistern, and the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the breath returns to God who gave it.
These are all poetic ways of describing the ultimate return to the earth of the dust from which we came.
Finally, the Teacher closes his message using the same words with which he opened his book:
Vanity of vanities…all is vanity.
Yet, as the Jerusalem Bible comments:
“…while the book ends with the same words with which it began, in between it has covered much ground. It reminds us of our wretchedness and powerlessness, but also of our greatness, by showing us that there is something greater beyond the world in which we live. It points us in the direction of the God who is above and beyond all that we can experience. It incites the reader to disinterested religion and to that kind of prayer in which a creature, aware of its nothingness, adores the mystery of God.”
Vanity, i.e. meaninglessness, is not the last word.
It is possible to feel depressed on reading this book, but that is not its ultimate purpose and certainly not the intention of those who chose these readings for the liturgy.
Underneath the apparent negativity and cynicism is the deep truth of the transitoriness and fragility of all existence, and the importance of our using well the time—long or short—that has been given to us and, through the joys and pains that make up every life, finding God’s love and compassion there. Life is to be enjoyed, but with the realisation that, on this earth, it has a very definite end for each individual.
Underneath it all, one is reminded of the great Contemplation to Attain the Love of God which concludes the Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius Loyola. In four steps, the one doing the Exercises is urged to be aware of:
- the blessings of creation and redemption with which one is surrounded;
- how God is present in every level of creation, bringing it to its destined fulfilment;
- how God works for me through every created thing, including his Son Jesus Christ; and finally,
- how reflection and contemplation on all of this brings me to the very Source of everything:
For ‘In him we live and move and have our being’; as even some of your own poets have said,
‘For we, too, are his offspring.’(Acts 17:28)
To be united with that Source is my final Destiny and I can say with Paul:
For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Rom 8:38-39)
Read more
Friday of Week 25 of Ordinary Time – Gospel
Commentary on Luke 9:18-22
After the incident concerning Herod, which as we saw is a pointer to things yet to happen, the disciples return from their mission. What follows is omitted from our readings. In fact, Jesus took them to a quiet place where they could rest and reflect on what they had been doing. However, they were pursued by the ever-hungry crowds and Jesus fed them with the Word of God, with his healing and finally, through his disciples (“You give them something to eat”) with bread and fish. The story is another step in the Twelve’s involvement in the mission of Jesus, and it leads into today’s reading.
In this reading, we find Jesus praying alone. As we have already seen, it is something that Luke mentions a number of times about Jesus, especially before significant events in his public life. Some people might wonder what Jesus would have to pray about. Such a question may reveal a rather limited idea of prayer, e.g. as something you do when you want to get something from God or when you are depressed or in trouble of some kind.
But prayer is ultimately getting in touch with God and that is something that Jesus would surely want to do quite a lot. Prayer is also a way of discovering just where God’s will enters one’s life, and that is something that was always of supreme importance to Jesus because:
The Father and I are one. (John 10:30)
Jesus, we are told, was not altogether alone. His disciples were with him. Were they praying too? Later, they will ask Jesus to teach them how to pray.
All of this is Luke’s introduction to a high point in all the Synoptics: the revelation of Jesus’ true identity. From the other Synoptics we know that it took place at Caesarea Philippi, a mixed Jewish-Gentile region outside Herod’s territory.
Jesus asks them:
Who do the crowds say that I am?
They give various answers: John the Baptist (resurrected) or Elijah, expected to return to announce the imminent coming of the Messiah, or some other of the earlier great prophets.
But then he asks:
But who do you say that I am?
Peter, answering for all of them, replies simply:
The Messiah of God.
Some translations of the Bible use the Greek word Christos, Christ. ‘Christ’ is not a name, but a title meaning ‘annointed one’. It is the equivalent of the Hebrew word Messiah. The anointing refers to someone who is king and, in this case, the One who is anointed the Saviour King of Israel.
In short, Peter is saying that the man standing before him is the long-awaited Saviour of the Jewish people. It is a dramatic development in Jesus’ relationship with his disciples.
Jesus’ next words at first sight seem unexpected and contradictory. He strictly orders his disciples not to say anything of this to anyone. Surely they should be doing the exact opposite? But the people are not yet ready for this revelation. They have a very limited and preconceived idea of what the coming of the Messiah will mean. They see him in very political terms as a kind of national liberator who will drive out and destroy the Romans and all enemies of the Jewish people, and restore the past glories of Israel.
Even after the Resurrection, Luke has Jesus’ own disciples asking him:
Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel? (Acts 1:6)
Their ideas, even at this late date, are no different from the ordinary people’s. At this point in the Gospel, they must be secretly proud that they, of all people, are the first to be privileged with this information.
If that was the case, they were very quickly to be disillusioned. Almost immediately Jesus goes on to say that:
The Son of Man must undergo great suffering and be rejected by the elders, chief priests, and scribes and be killed and on the third day be raised.
This is the first time in Luke that Jesus refers to himself as “the Son of Man”. It occurs eighty-one times in the four Gospels and is only used by Jesus of himself. In the book of Daniel (7:13-14) we see the ‘Son of Man’ pictured as a heavenly figure who is entrusted by God with authority, glory and sovereign power. Jesus’ use of the title in a Messianic sense is made clear by its close proximity to Peter’s declaration of Jesus as the Christ or Messiah.
We know from Matthew and Mark that the disciples—in particular Peter—were dumbfounded when they heard Jesus’ words and wanted to reject them entirely. It was totally against all their expectations of the Messiah, apart from the fact that they could not bear to have those things happen to their Master.
To them, it simply did not make any sense. First, Jesus as Messiah was going to be rejected and handed over by the leaders of their own people. Second, he was going to go through a terrible and humiliating death. His being “raised” on the third day—whatever that meant—did little to alleviate their confusion.
But as Mark indicates, this was a further step in their relationship with Jesus. They now recognised him as the Messiah, but next they had to learn just what kind of Messiah he was going to be, and how he was going to liberate not only his own people, but people all over the world.
We, too, of course, have to keep going through the same process. We, too, have to deepen our understanding of the true identity of Jesus. We have to be able to understand how the suffering and dying Messiah is not only the way he needed to go to reconcile us with God, but that we too have to be ready to go the same way. We have to learn to see the redemptive and healing power in the pains, sufferings, disappointments and failures of our lives.
Read more
Friday of Week 25 of Ordinary Time – First Reading
Commentary on Ecclesiastes 3:1-11
Today we have a well-known passage which has even become the lyrics of a popular song sung by numerous recording artists since the early 1960s. It is part of a longer passage whose overall theme is death—the inevitable end of every life. Life here is presented as equally divided between things which bring pleasure and sadness, comfort and pain. Each has its own ‘time’ slot, so to speak, and we have little control over one or the other.
Our occupations—some bringing joy, others pain—are overshadowed by the inevitable end in death. Death casts its shadow on life, which is a series of contradictory acts, some of them listed here, but all end in the meaninglessness of death. We are subject to times and changes over which we have little or no control. Only one thing remains supreme —the all-knowing and all-loving God. We are totally in his hands, and the sooner we realise that, the happier we will be.
At the end of the passage from Ecclesiastes, the Teacher says that, although we can try to see meaning in individual events as they unfold, we can be mistaken and the overall direction of the world is totally beyond us. God’s plan is simply too big for us to grasp:
He has made everything suitable for its time; moreover, he has put a sense of past and future into their minds, yet they cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.
God’s beautiful, but tantalising world is too big for us, yet its satisfactions are too small. Since we were made for eternity, the things bounded by time cannot fully and permanently satisfy.
The New Testament keeps reminding us that:
…we have no lasting city, but we are looking for the city that is to come. (Heb 13:14)
We are but pilgrims passing through; we have no permanence in this world. The important goal is not to be reached here, because it does not and cannot exist. The ultimate goal is beyond this life.
Read more
Thursday of Week 25 of Ordinary Time – Gospel
Commentary on Luke 9:7-9
Today we have a short interlude which is leading to some very special revelations. Herod the Tetrarch is hearing stories about what Jesus is doing. ‘Tetrarch’ means the ruler of one-fourth part of a kingdom. This one, Herod Antipas, was one of several sons of Herod the Great, whose kingdom was divided among four of them. Herod Antipas ruled over Galilee and Perea from 4 BC to 39 AD. Although not strictly speaking a ‘king’, he is called that in Matthew and Mark following popular usage.
Herod is puzzled because he is being told that Jesus is John the Baptist risen from the dead. At the same time others are saying that Elijah (whose expected return would signal the arrival of the Messiah), or one of the ancient prophets has reappeared. Herod has recently beheaded John the Baptist, and the superstitious king is filled with a mixture of fear and curiosity. He kept trying to ‘see’ Jesus.
Luke does not actually record the death of John and, in this short passage, he prepares the reader for the later meeting of Herod with Jesus (Luke 23:8-12). So Herod’s wish will be partially fulfilled at a later date, though under very unexpected circumstances, and in a way that Herod will find very unsatisfactory. He is hoping that Jesus, like some circus dog, will do some ‘tricks’ or ‘miracles’ for him.
Herod’s desire was almost entirely one of curiosity, it was the desire of the hedonist and the seeker of novelty. To ‘see’ Jesus in the full gospel sense is something totally different. It can only happen to those who have the eyes of faith, and who can see in the person of Jesus the presence and power of God. We may recall the request of some ‘Greeks’ who told Philip they wanted to see Jesus, and the reply that Jesus gave about the grain of wheat falling into the ground and dying (John 12:20-26). We have not seen Jesus if we do not know him in his suffering and dying as his way to new life.
Let us ask to see Jesus today, a seeing that leads to a total acceptance of his way of life and following him all the way, through the cross and beyond to a life that never ends.
Read more
Thursday of Week 25 of Ordinary Time – First Reading
Commentary on Ecclesiastes 1:2-11
Today we begin reading from the Book of Ecclesiastes, another Wisdom book which follows immediately in our Bible after Proverbs. The word “Ecclesiastes” is a Greek translation of the original Hebrew title of the book, Qoheleth—a word which means ‘Teacher’, one who conducts an assembly or a school. As the Greek word for ‘assembly’ is ekklesia, that explaining the title we use.
The book is presented as being written by Solomon, a king famous for his wisdom, and this gave it weight as a ‘wisdom’ book. However, scholars are agreed that the book was not written by Solomon, but comes from a much later period when the Jews, back from exile and in Jerusalem, were under the empire of the Persians.
The book teaches wisdom by highlighting the emptiness of most human pursuits: “All is vanity.” The language often sounds negative and cynical. Even so, according to the Harper Collins Bible: “in the face of death and ‘vanity’, Qoheleth repeatedly urges humans to embrace life and its goods—food, drink, love, work, and play—as gifts from God.”
In the face of the emptiness and vanity of life, the Teacher makes two positive points:
- Near the very end of the Book, he tells his reader to:
Fear God, and keep his commandments, for that is the whole duty of everyone. (Eccle 12:13)
- As humans have no really effective control over their environment and spend much of their time chasing the illusory, the real good is to enjoy life as a gift of God, and it is in the area in which they find themselves that they are to find him.
The theme of the whole book is expressed in the opening words of today’s reading: “All is vanity.” The original meaning of the Hebrew word translated ‘vanity’ was ‘mist’ or ‘breath’. It is one of a group of traditional images (e.g. water, shadow, smoke) used in Hebrew poetry to describe the transitory nature of human life. It is used thirty-five times altogether in this book, but in Qoheleth the word has lost its usual meaning. For him, ‘vanity’ signifies the illusory nature of things, and hence the delusions to which the human family is subjected. The basic thrust of Ecclesiastes is that all of life is meaningless, useless, hollow, futile and vain, if it is not rightly related to God. Only when based on God and his word is life worthwhile.
The reading says:
What do people gain from all the toil
at which they toil under the sun?
It reminds one of the words of Jesus to his disciples:
For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? (Mark 8:36)
A life without God and the values we identify with God, however much energy is put into it, is meaningless.
The second part of the reading is full of a kind of weariness and pessimism about the experience of life that many, if not most people have experienced at some time. The world by itself seems to have no inner meaning. It goes on and on repeating the same cycles again and again. There is a terrible determinism and inevitability about everything. Yet, Job, who had his fair share of troubles, looking at the same world is filled with wonder and adoration. To quote a well-used verse:
“Two men looked out through prison bars, one saw mud and one saw stars.”
Of course, the author of Ecclesiastes was writing in a world which had far less control over its environment than we have, but even in our day there are still situations where we are basically helpless. Freak weather conditions, droughts and floods, earthquakes and volcanoes, deadly viruses, the breakdown of our bodies (often the result of our own indulgences and excesses in work and play), our recklessness with mind-altering substances (nicotine, alcohol, and other drugs), and the unforeseeable breakdown and/or mishandling of our technologies (e.g. car and plane crashes)—all of these can bring the most dazzling of human achievements to nothing, sometimes in a split second.
Meanwhile, as the Teacher says, “the earth remains forever”, meaning the world goes on just as before without us. Generations come and generations go; the sun rises and sets; the wind blows from the north today and from the south tomorrow and back again; and rivers keep flowing into the sea, but the sea is not full. The world seemingly goes on indefinitely, but human life can disappear very quickly.
The cycles of life are repeated again and again:
…there is nothing new under the sun.
This is a phrase the Teacher will use twenty-nine times in his book. It could be heard as very cynical, but it also has a genuinely positive meaning.
We may feel that in our exciting technological world, new things are constantly appearing. ‘New’ is a word constantly shouted at us by products in our commercials and media. Yet, the deeper experiences of life repeat themselves again and again. Maybe we understand them a bit better, but the experiences themselves and the fragility of life have not changed since the Teacher’s days.
Jesus put this in another way when he reminded us that we did not know the day nor the hour when our life would come to an end. There is not a single person, however rich or however powerful, who knows when that hour will take place. The purpose of such a reflection, then, is not to fill people with fear and discouragement, but with a realistic awareness of the ultimate purpose of living.
What is the quality and purpose of my life at this time? Is my day spent in seeking and finding God or am I in search of something else which I have no guarantee of either finding or keeping? Or, on the other hand, am I so in touch with my Lord that, no matter when it happens, I will be ready to answer his call and run to him full of desire for perfect unity with him?
Read more