Ecclesiastes 1:1-2, “The words of the Teacher, son of David, king in Jerusalem. Meaningless! Meaningless!” says the Teacher. “Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless (i.e. futile).” One of the areas where we experience a sense of futility is with work. Young people anxiously wonder, “What will I do with my life?” Disillusioned workers everywhere ask, “Whatever am I doing?” The retired ask, “What did I do? What did I accomplish?” In Ecclesiastes 1:3 Solomon asks this sobering question: “What does a person gain for all his efforts that he labors at under the sun?”
Across the span of Ecclesiastes, in chapter after chapter, Solomon returns to this question, to let it ruminate in our minds. Of all the idols we might erect for ourselves, few are greater than work itself. For most people (perhaps for most of us), work is ultimate. Work isn't just something we do, and it’s not just about our livelihood. Work is who we are, it’s our identity, it gives us a sense of value and worth, of purpose and significance... a sense of security… a sense of accomplishment, that we mattered. You know we often blur the line between what we hope work to provide, and those things that only God can truly provide.
We hope work will give us ultimate significance. So, there we go, carrying on like those before us. Perhaps we hope our work will matter even more than previous generation’s? Perhaps we imagine we will forever change the face of the earth, or even save the world?
On YouTube there is a video of Charlton Heston, narrating the introduction of Michael Crichton's novel, State of Fear. In part it speaks of “the intoxicating vanity of man to think he can destroy the earth.” Heston narrates, “Suppose that all the nuclear weapons in the world went off at once and all the plants and all the animals died and the earth was clicking hot for a hundred thousand years life would survive, somewhere. Under the soil, frozen in artic ice, sooner or later when the planet was no longer inhospitable, life would spread again… the earth would survive our folly, only we would not. In the thinking of a human being a hundred years is a long time. A hundred years ago we didn't have cars, airplanes, computers, or vaccines… but to the earth a hundred years is nothing. A million years is nothing. The planet lives and breathes on a much vaster scale. We cannot imagine its slow and powerful rhythms and we haven't got the humility to try. We’ve been residents here for the blink of the eye. If were gone tomorrow the earth will not miss us.”
In Ecclesiastes 1:4-7 Solomon observes, “A generation goes and a generation comes, but the earth remains forever. 5 The sun rises and the sun sets; panting, it hurries back to the place where it rises. 6 Gusting to the south, turning to the north, turning, turning, goes the wind, and the wind returns in its cycles. 7 All the streams flow to the sea, yet the sea is never full; to the place where the streams flow, there they flow again.” Work ought to produce a sense of humility… not a sense of arrogance, of grandiosity, of generational superiority!
In the grand scheme of things our greatest gains are so fleeting. Not just on a human level, but also a planetary level. No matter how hard the rain, no matter how high the streams rise, the sea is never full. No matter how hard, or what direction the wind blows, everything returns to where it began. We can't so much as make the earth hiccup.
We hope work will give us ultimate satisfaction. But in Ecclesiastes 1:8, Solomon observes, “All things are wearisome, more than anyone can say. The eye is never satisfied by seeing or the ear filled with hearing.” Ecclesiastes 6:7, “All of a person’s labor is for his stomach, yet the appetite is never satisfied.” At the core of our idolatrous obsession with finding satisfaction is our fixation with anything that is new or novel. We hope that what's new and novel will deliver us from our boredom, and deliver us from the mundaneness of life and work.
Perhaps you've seen the movie Ground Hogs Day? Actor Bill Murray plays a cynical weatherman, trapped in the small town of Punxsutawney, where he keeps waking up on the same day, at the same time, to the same alarm, the same song, the same people, and same old situations. It’s hilarious to see how crazy Bill Murray's character becomes… but it’s a metaphor for how we feel in life and work. Ecclesiastes 1:9-10, “What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done; there is nothing new under the sun. Can one say about anything, “Look, this is new”? It has already existed in the ages before us.”
You might disagree. You might say, “yeah but Solomon never could have imagined the advent of the printing press, books, libraries, electricity, trains, cars, jets, space travel, computers, internet, ipads, smart phones, artificial Intelligence.” He didn't have to. Even with all this great technology, we’re as bored, and life feels as mundane as ever. The novelty of even the greatest technology begins to wear off the moment we take it out of the box and turn it on. We have closets, even junkyards full of obsolete technology. Oh boy, another windows update. Yeah!
We hope that work will give us ultimate remembrance, acclaim, glory. Ecclesiastes 1:11, “There is no remembrance of those who came before; and of those who will come after there will also be no remembrance by those who follow them.” My dad worked most his life on Hobby Avenue, in Kankakee IL, in a dog-food factory. Dad had a lot of dreams, but he put them on hold, to provide for our family. He worked every overtime shift that became available. He literally spent his health, maintaining that factory's machines. When dad finally retired, his body was so worn down, he retired to his chair (and Facebook). Several times a year, I drive by his old factory. Sadness sweeps over me. It’s a desolate graveyard, a shell of its former glory. All those men and women, their work, their names, their tireless sacrifices, forgotten.
We hope that work will give us an ultimate, lasting legacy. Maybe you don't care whether people remember your name… but you do hope the things you’ve built, the things you've spent your life working on, will continue! Oh Solomon, now what? Ecclesiastes 2:17-23 he says, “So I hated life, because the work that is done under the sun was grievous to me. All of it is meaningless, a chasing after the wind. 18 I hated all my work that I labored at under the sun because I must leave it to the one who comes after me. 19 And who knows whether he will be wise or a fool? Yet he will take over all my work that I labored at skillfully under the sun. This too is futile. 20 So I began to give myself over to despair concerning all my work that I had labored at under the sun. 21 When there is a person whose work was done with wisdom, knowledge, and skill, and he must give his portion to a person who has not worked for it, this too is futile and a great wrong. 22 For what does a person get with all his work and all his efforts that he labors at under the sun? 23 For all his days are filled with grief, and his occupation is sorrowful; even at night, his mind does not rest. This too is futile.”
Solomon makes so many keen observations. In Ecclesiastes 4:4 he observes how so much work is motivated by jealousy—we want to outdo a rival, topple some record, make some list, achieve a greater level of notoriety. “I saw that all labor and all skillful work is due to one person’s jealousy of another. This too is futile and a pursuit of the wind.”
He observes how some work their knuckles to the bone, hoping goodness and love will follow… but in reality, people work their whole life to later find themselves isolated and alone. It’s Harry Chapin's song, Cats in the Cradle. Ecclesiastes 4:7-8, “Again, I saw futility under the sun: 8 There is a person without a companion, without even a son or brother, and though there is no end to all his struggles, his eyes are still not content with riches. “Who am I struggling for,” he asks, “and depriving myself of good things?” This too is futile and a miserable task.
By now you may have started to conclude that Solomon is anti-work. That is not true at all. In Ecclesiastes 4:5 he says, “The fool folds his arms and consumes his own flesh.” The day you stop working is often the day you start dying. A body at rest doesn't just stay at rest, it begins to decline, consume itself. Ecclesiastes 10:18a, “Because of laziness the roof caves in, and because of negligent hands the house leaks...” Ecclesiastes 9:10 he says, “Whatever your hands find to do, do with all your strength, because there is no work, planning, knowledge, or wisdom in Sheol where you are going.” >> Boy, if there is one piece of advice I'd give young and old people alike. It would be, “Don't squander the amazing wondrous opportunity and gift that is your life! Unlock the gifts, abilities, treasures, beauty within! Get off couch!”
But neither does Solomon see being a workaholic as some kind of advantage. The workaholic is the one for whom work is an idolatrous obsession! The fool grinds and grinds as if his own work were a kind of salvation. A wise person understands both the necessity but also limits work. Work is a means not an end. Ecclesiastes 4:6, “Better one handful with rest than two handfuls with effort and a pursuit of the wind.” Ecclesiastes 5:12, “The sleep of the worker is sweet, whether he eats little or much, but the abundance of the rich permits him no sleep.”
Boy, there are so many echoes of Solomon in the New Testament. How would some of these verses bring greater sense of balance to our lives? 1 Timothy 6:6-10, “But godliness with contentment is great gain. 7 For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. 8 But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that. 9 Those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. 10 For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.”
1 Timothy 6:17-19, “Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. 18 Command them to do good, to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous and willing to share. 19 In this way they will lay up treasure for themselves as a firm foundation for the coming age, so that they may take hold of the life that is truly life.”
This is Solomon's whole case. You may think that work in itself, is the key to taking hold of the life that is truly life. You may think it’s more money, more accumulation, more appreciation, more significance. . . but the real key to life is taking hold of God himself, and trusting him with your most ultimate needs. Ecclesiastes 2:24-26, “There is nothing better for a person than to eat, drink, and enjoy his work. I have seen that even this is from God’s hand, 25 because who can eat and who can enjoy life apart from him? 26 For to the person who is pleasing in his sight, he gives wisdom, knowledge, and joy;” Do you hear that? God is the source of all wisdom, knowledge, and joy! We cannot allow work to become a substitute for worship. Wisdom, knowledge and joy are gifts from God's hands, not ours.
Now by far, the most significant verses on work are found in Ecclesiastes 3:9-14. Once more, Solomon asks, “What does the worker gain from his struggles? 10 I have seen the task that God has given the children of Adam to keep them occupied. 11 He has made everything appropriate in its time. He has also put eternity in their hearts, but no one can discover the work God has done from beginning to end. 12 I know that there is nothing better for them than to rejoice and enjoy the good life. 13 It is also the gift of God whenever anyone eats, drinks, and enjoys all his efforts. 14 I know that everything God does will last forever; there is no adding to it or taking from it. God works so that people will be in awe of him.”
Hear me out for a minute. We're almost done. In Ecclesiastes 1:15 Solomon says, “15 What is crooked cannot be straightened; what is lacking cannot be counted.” The beautiful truth about “work" is that in the beginning, God placed us in a garden, and created us to work. Work is God's design. To work, is to be human.
But when man sinned, the nature of work itself changed. Genesis 3:17-19, “Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life 18 It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. 19 By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.”
The ugly truth is that because of our sin, the ground itself is cursed. This means that what we really experience in life, is creation itself (reality itself) working against us. We’re trying to straighten something God has ordained for a time, to remain crooked. We're trying to fill up something God has ordained for a time, to remain lacking… We’re trying to change something with sheer effort, or with technological innovation, or through human novelty… that God has ordained to humble us, and expose our true dependence upon him.
In Genesis 3, the curse is put into effect on our work, to shatter the myth of human independence and supremacism. The curse is put into effect to cause us to understand the place of God, to understand our most ultimate need is for him. The curse is put into effect… not that we'd try to find some way to make a name for ourselves, but that we'd remember our God. The curse on the ground, which by extension is on our work, is like a cattle prod reminding us that neither can we establish life, peace, joy, security, health, well-being, remembrance, significance, nor longevity apart from God! Apart from God, it’s from dust we come, to dust we return. Apart from God, all things even work truly are wearisome.
Look again. Ecclesiastes 3:11, God has set eternity in our hearts. It's not a longing that’s going away anytime soon. It's a longing divinely ordained that you never rest in life until you first learn to live and rest in God. Ecclesiastes 3:13, “It is also the gift of God whenever anyone eats, drinks, and enjoys all his efforts.” Ecclesiastes 3:14, “I know that everything God does will last forever; there is no adding to it or taking from it. God works so that people will be in awe of him.” It’s not a better job, per se, that will make life more meaningful but better worship!