View from Mount Holyoke, Northampton, Massachusetts, after a Thunderstorm—The Oxbow,
Thomas Cole, 1836, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City (Wikipedia).

Ecclesiastes 1:2; 2:21-23
August 4, 2019

We read today from the Book of Ecclesiastes. It is also called the book of Qoheleth after its author. Interestingly, they can both be translated as Assembly or Church. It is somewhat hard to date, but the best estimate would be about 400 BC in Persian-controlled Jerusalem. It is a time of peace and prosperity and allows Qoheleth time to think and reflect; one might expect a sense of satisfaction, yet the first words of his book are “Vanity of Vanity.”

Qoheleth is a public intellectual. He had students and seems to have edited his thoughts at the end of his life, so that they could be published. He wished to influence the wider society and his message was certainly distinctive, but on first reading somewhat shocking and disappointing.

The Bible we use at Mass translates the Hebrew word hebel as vanity. This emphasizes the pride that we often take in our own successes which are ephemeral and fleeting. Another translation would be futile, and I think we need to keep both in mind as we read today’s text: what we do is futile, and we are vain to think otherwise.

Immediately after the opening verse:

Vanity of vanities, says Qoheleth,
vanity of vanities! All things are vanity.

He continues in verses we do not read at Mass:

What profit has man from all the labor
which he toils at under the sun?
One generation passes and another comes,
but the world forever stays.
The sun rises and the sun goes down;
then it presses on to the place where it rises.
Blowing now toward the south, then toward the north,
the wind turns again and again, resuming its rounds.
All rivers go to the sea,
yet never does the sea become full.
To the place where they go,
the rivers keep on going.
All speech is labored;
there is nothing man can say.
The eye is not satisfied with seeing
nor is the ear filled with hearing.
(Ecc. 1:3–8)

He is very concerned with time. Both time as a cycle, days and seasons and the operations of nature, but also the time we place in our own efforts at both work, “profit from labor,” and thought, “labored speech,” and even the most intent observation. Time crushes accomplishments.

Our passage then provides a most specific instance: why be prosperous and/or wise?

And I saw that wisdom has the advantage over folly
as much as light has the advantage over darkness.
The wise man has eyes in his head, but the fool walks in darkness.
Yet I knew that one lot befalls both of them.
(Ecc. 2:13–14)

Qoheleth does not believe in an afterlife. He sees death as the end of everything:

So I said to myself, if the fool’s lot is to befall me also,
why then should I be wise? Where is the profit for me?
And I concluded in my heart that this too is vanity.
Neither of the wise man nor of the fool will there be an abiding remembrance,
for in days to come both will have been forgotten.
How is it that the wise man dies as well as the fool!
(Ecc. 2:15–16)

In the passage that we read today he draws the obvious conclusion:

For here is a man who has labored with wisdom and knowledge and skill,
and to another, who has not labored over it, he must leave his property.
This also is vanity and a great misfortune.
(Ecc. 2:21)

He observes as well that often the most responsible people have the most futile lives:

For what profit comes to a man from all the toil and anxiety of heart
with which he has labored under the sun?
All his days sorrow and grief are his occupation;
even at night his mind is not at rest. This also is vanity.
(Ecc. 2:22–23)

Qoheleth may be a skeptic but he is not an atheist. He is as much a beneficiary of the Lord’s power and mercy in returning the Jewish people to Jerusalem after the exile as Isaiah, but he is asking a radical question: “What does this mean for me as an individual? Yes, the Jewish people will live forever but what does this mean for me, here and now?”

His answer comes in the next verses:

There is nothing better for man than to eat and drink
and provide himself with good things by his labors.
Even this, I realized, is from the hand of God.
For who can eat or drink apart from him?
For to whatever man he sees fit he gives wisdom and knowledge and joy;
but to the sinner he gives the task of gathering possessions
to be given to whatever man God sees fit.
This also is vanity and a chase after wind.
(Ecc. 2: 24–26)

This is a very profound statement and we need to pause over it. He knows God is powerful and just and sees that he is present in the now. He is not counseling laziness or hedonism by teaching that we need to look for God and the good things he brings in the present moment. He is an acute observer of people and sees how our attempts to outsmart time are pure futility and vanity. The only God we will know we will find in the here and now.

However necessary this lesson, Qoheleth is still the prophet and poet of frustration. But it is a healthy frustration and if we share it, we can see the great insight of the resurrection of the dead. This is great achievement of the Jews immediately before Jesus. They experienced a powerful God of miracles, they had been, as a people, dead and now they had risen. Yet what of God’s justice?

We will read Psalm 90 at Mass this Sunday. Speaking of evildoers, the Psalmist writes:

You make an end of them in their sleep;
the next morning they are like the changing grass,
Which at dawn springs up anew,
but by evening wilts and fades.

And of those who obey God:

Fill us at daybreak with your kindness,
that we may shout for joy and gladness all our days.
And may the gracious care of the LORD our God be ours;
prosper the work of our hands for us!
Prosper the work of our hands!

Is that your experience? Do you see the work of those who are most devout and loving prosper and those who act unjustly wilt and fade? Or do we see at best a mixed bag?

A powerful spiritual exercise is to stand with Qoheleth and the Psalmist and ask, does this reveal the fullness of the God who has shown himself in their Jewish history, who lead them out of slavery in Egypt, and then again rescued them from Babylon? As important, does this reveal the God who sent them the prophets who exhorted them to act justly as a religious act?

We have inherited the belief in an afterlife and, without understanding how it emerged in Jewish history, it may seem like a quid-pro-quo: we avoid mortal sin and God will give us eternal life. By looking at the world with Qoheleth and the Psalmist, we can literally feel the conflict and then understand the gift of knowing the justice of God demands that we live beyond this life. As is always the case, putting God first, clears our minds, opens our hearts, and gives us joy.

The Destruction of Sodom And Gomorrah,
John Martin, 1852, Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle upon Tyne (Wikipedia).

Genesis 18:20–32
July 28, 2019

Each week we analyze the first reading from the Mass. During most of the year, these are from the First (Old) Testament and are chosen to reflect some aspect of the Gospel (3^rd reading) from the Mass. This does not often allow for reading any part of it sequentially. Today is something of an exception. Last week we reviewed Gen 18:1-10A. Today we read Gen 18:20-32. There is a gap of a few verses, so let us begin there.

Last week, we saw Abraham entertain three visitors, including the Lord himself. He has been assured again that, despite her age, his wife Sarah will bear a son. In a somewhat comic scene, Sarah finds this ludicrous and laughs. (Gen. 18: 11-16, a fuller interpretation may be found in the summary of last week’s first reading)

Then rather abruptly, things get very serious. The Lord has heard reports about the great wickedness of the people of Sodom and Gomorrah and is on his way to personally investigate. He tells Abraham who is immediately concerned for their fate. There are two reasons with two different trajectories in the story and indicate two different motivations of the writers.

We saw the first last week. Abraham’s kinsman Lot and his family are residents of Sodom and he fears for them. The authors of Genesis love parallels, and Abraham is contrasted to Lot throughout the story. Lot represents what most of us would consider good fortune and common sense. A man who trusted in his intelligence and talents. He ends his life in a cave as the father, through incest, of hereditary competitors if not enemies of Israel. Abraham represents trust in God and, although elderly, ends his life as the father of nations.

Today we see another level of interpretation.

Most of the Bible reveals a long history of editing, which was finally completed after the return of the people from captivity in Babylon around 510 BC. The Captivity was a traumatic event. Their kings were murdered; their city and temple destroyed; and their leadership, if not killed, brought into the Babylonian civil service. By every rational understanding, they were as dead as Ezekiel’s dry bones. Yet they were resurrected. Cyrus, king of the Assyrians, after conquering Babylon invited the Jews to return to Jerusalem as his subjects to rebuild the city and its temple. Enough did to give the city a new life. This was the great miracle and one which asked the question, “Why did the Lord save them?” Today’s reading is written in response to this question.

The prophets who emerged during the exile were inspired to realize that the Jews were the chosen people but chosen for a task. They were to be in Isaiah’s words “A light to the nations.” The full quote is particularly instructive:

It is too little, he says, for you to be my servant,
to raise up the tribes of Jacob,
and restore the survivors of Israel;
I will make you a light to the nations,
that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth
(Isaiah 49:6)

Even more beautiful is found in the regrettably little-read book of the prophet Zechariah:

Thus says the LORD of hosts:
In those days ten men of every nationality,
speaking different tongues,
shall take hold, yes,
take hold of every Jew by the edge of his garment and say,
“Let us go with you, for we have heard that God is with you.”
(Zechariah 8:23)

These were the ideas “in the air” when Genesis was being completed and the editors would have sought to find examples of this concern for the nations from the earliest days–genesis–of the Jewish people.

Therefore, as the Lord is on his way to judge Sodom and Gomorrah, he contemplates if he should share his mind with Abraham “now that he is to become a great and populous nation, and all the nations of the earth are to find blessing in him.” (Gen. 18:18)

He decides that he should because Abraham and his successors will need to instruct future generations:

Indeed, I have singled him out that he may direct his sons and his posterity to keep the way of the LORD by doing what is right and just, so that the LORD may carry into effect for Abraham the promises he made about him.
(Gen. 18:19)

Other historical books of the Bible that were edited at this time also demonstrated this international dimension. We have seen that at the Lord’s command Elijah not only anointed the king of Israel but also Hazael as king over Aram. (1 Kings)

It is here that we begin this week’s passage. The Lord tells Abraham that he is seeking to confirm the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah. Abraham is quite aware of their iniquity but assumes the role of intercessor. He will take the position that the good should not suffer with the guilty and appeals to the Lord’s very nature as revealed throughout the Bible:

Far be it from you to do such a thing,
to make the innocent die with the guilty
so that the innocent and the guilty would be treated alike!
Should not the judge of all the world act with justice
(Gen. 18:25)

The form in which he does this is haggling as over the price of goods. This is very Middle Eastern, but the instinct behind it is universal for all religions which believe in an all-powerful but all loving God: the vindication of divine goodness and providence in view of the existence of evil. Usually called theodicy, it demands that we question God.

The author/editors of Genesis affirm the goodness of the all-powerful Lord not by theological statements but by and in story. When the time of judgment comes there are only six just people and, to highlight God’s predicament, some of them refuse to leave. And one who does is turned into a pillar of salt because she refuses to emotionally separate herself from her old way of life. (Gen 19)

More important however than this is the situation of the immediate audience, the Jews of the post-Captivity era. Most of what they had was destroyed as totally as Sodom, yet they have been given another chance. There was just enough that the Lord could begin again. This is a popular theme in the literature of this time. One example:

A remnant will return, the remnant of Jacob,
to the mighty God.
For though your people, O Israel,
were like the sand of the sea,
Only a remnant of them will return;
their destruction is decreed
as overwhelming justice demands.
(Isaiah 10:21–23)

Here once more we are asked to, as we were told in high school, compare and contrast. Both the people of Sodom and Gomorrah and the Jews were disobedient to the Lord. Yet the former was eradicated from the face of the earth but the Jews, although in reduced circumstances, are now able to rebuild their temple and city. They recognize that the very fact that they are back in their ancient city shows that they are the remnant that was not present in the previous instance. But they have also learned that these events were meant to form them into a people, which not only continues the name of Abraham, but also accepts his mission to the nations.

This speaks to us as well. Although not as cataclysmic, we have seen our churches reduced and some abandoned at least in the Global North. The forces which have done much to cause this also reveal the darkness in the world that we, like those who first read Genesis and Isaiah, have been created to overcome. Pope Benedict 16^th has many times said that Christians of the Global North, most particularly Europe and North America, must be a creative minority, a glowing and faithful remnant. That is perhaps truer in Brooklyn Heights and the wider Brownstone Brooklyn than most places. Are we prepared, in Christian terms have we been formed, to take up this task?