Pleasure is Meaningless - Ecclesiastes 2:1-11

              

The Teacher began his reflection on meaning in life by focusing on how so much in life is hevel, vapour or smoke, it’s fleeting and hard to hold onto. Now the Teacher starts digging deeper into his search for meaning, for a sense of weight and meaning in life. The Teacher now moves into offering a philosophy on life, developing principles to guide us to growing our knowledge and ethics to shape how we should journey through life so that it’s more than simply hevel that slips through our hands. The Teacher’s desire is that we can look back over life, recognise in the present, and look to the future with the ability to recognize and determine what is hevel and what carries weight and meaning. Just a side note, when we talk about God’s glory, the word glory carries the sense of weight and majesty.

I love to laugh, as many of you have learned, but the Teacher begins by saying that “Laughter is madness.” The word for laughter in Hebrew is “simhah” and can also be translated as “mockery or derision.” In our culture today, it’s often easier to laugh at others in mockery, rather than to laugh with someone in pleasure. We see this in the word he uses for madness, “tollel” which can be translated “to be infatuated; to make look foolish; to make a mockery of; act like a madman.” This is not laughing in pleasure, but with cruelty, a type of laughter that’s much too common today. Our culture’s becoming crueler as we turn more and more to media for our information and entertainment.

Like so many people today, the Teacher turns to pleasure to find meaning in life, yet right from the start, he sounds doubtful, “What does pleasure accomplish,” and still goes ahead with trying to see if pleasure brings meaning to his life anyway. The word for pleasure is “siklut” and can be translated as “joy, gladness, or delight.” He doesn’t condemn pleasure; joy, gladness, and delight are good things, something we all desire to experience. Jesus enjoyed weddings, dinners with friends, and even created wine for the wedding. The word siklut in the Old Testament is often used as a response to worshipping God and something we can experience even in times of trouble; Psalm 51:10–12, “Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.” We hear the call to find our joy in the strength of the Lord in Nehemiah 8:10.

The Teacher discovers that pleasure doesn’t truly satisfy in the long term. Indulging in pleasure doesn’t bring you lasting hope or meaning, it often merely hides the emptiness of your life. Much of the pleasure the Teacher seeks out is found in activities that emphasizes “sensory input to the body which gives entertainment to the senses,” the second definition of siklut. Proverbs 21:17 offers us this warning, “Whoever loves pleasure will become poor; whoever loves wine and olive oil will never be rich.”

The Teacher’s reason for exploring wine and embracing folly is to see what’s “good for people to do under the heavens during the few days of their lives.” He claims that he doesn’t let go of wisdom, recognizing that wisdom is better than foolishness, that having some limits in place is a good idea. At its heart, this is worldly wisdom, not Godly or biblical wisdom. In how he writes this, laughter, madness, wine and folly are all closely intertwined. It’s no secret how quickly wine or alcohol can grab a hold of us, creating a dependency that can lead to addiction. Peter gives us insight into what the Teacher learns in 2 Peter 2:18-19, “For they mouth empty, boastful words and, by appealing to the lustful desires of the flesh, they entice people who are just escaping from those who live in error. They promise them freedom, while they themselves are slaves of depravity—for “people are slaves to whatever has mastered them.” The chase after pleasure is one of the big idols today. Think of how much is spent on entertainment today in the search of pleasure; where our dollars go shows where our heart is drawn.

Aldous Huxley wrote Brave New World, writing about people who love technology which leads them to a place where they’re no longer able to think for themselves, reduced to passivity and self-centredness, and truth is drowned in an ocean of meaningless noise. People in Brave New World are controlled through pleasure, drugs, and beautiful women freely available in a consequence free world. Neil Postman uses Brave New World as an example of where we’re heading in his book Amusing Ourselves to Death, warning that in our media-infused age, everything, politics, education, journalism, and even religion has become entertainment, and for many, meaningless. Something to think about as we flip through our apps and channels as we doom scroll on the couch.

Wine and laughter don’t bring meaning to life, so the Teacher tries a different approach, “I undertook great projects.” He does some pretty impressive things: he builds houses, plants vineyards, and gardens. He creates parks; the word for park in Hebrew is where our word for paradise comes from; he builds little paradises and fills them with fruit trees, an image of the garden of Eden. When you have parks and fruit trees, you need water so he builds reservoirs to water the trees. These are great and good projects!

The Teacher doesn’t stop with building projects; he accumulates all kinds of wealth and people. He buys slaves, and many slaves are born into slavery in his household, a foreign concept today to many of us, but not uncommon then. He develops herds and flocks, more than anyone before him, suggesting that the Teacher might be Solomon. He gathers silver and gold and treasure. He acquires singers and a harem, what he calls “the delights of a man’s heart.” In verse 10, the Teacher takes delight in what he’s accomplished and attained, and that delight is his reward, but ultimately, it’s not enough.

The experiences of pleasure all slip away through his fingers. Today that’s seems enough for many people, life’s all about the here and now, there’s no vision or thinking about the future. His heart takes delight in all he accomplishes, in all that he built and created and gathered for himself, even the immoral experiences like concubines. Solomon had over 1,000 wives and concubines, and built temples to his wives’ gods, and yet his heart and soul is empty. His many accomplishments don’t bring the meaning and weight that he’s searching for because he’s searching “under the sun” instead of seeking the Creator of everything under the sun. 

Bobby Jamieson wrote a book on Ecclesiastes called Everything is Never Enough, a reminder that one way to be unhappy is to get everything you want, only to find that everything’s still not enough. You get used to the feelings that come from doing something that brings you pleasure, but if you keep on seeking the same pleasure, you will need more in order to experience the same level of pleasure. The drive for pleasure leads to discontentment, frustration, and a continual searching for more. Thanksgiving and gratitude become difficult.

Too often we seek pleasure “under the sun” apart from God. Pleasure’s not bad, in verse 26 the Teacher even calls it a gift from God. Yet what do we gain from the constant search after pleasure? The answer is nothing permanent, it’s “chasing after the wind.” Materialism and consumerism fail to bring meaning into our lives. However, the word for pleasure can also be translated as “joy.” Joy is more a state of being than an emotion; it’s a result of choice. Joy is part of the fruit of the Spirit; part of the experience of being a Christian and choosing to follow the way of Jesus. In John 15:11, Jesus says, “These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.” Joy comes in living for Jesus and following his teachings.

Many people today, Christians included, believe that the purpose of life is to be happy, and suffering has never felt happy. Randy Newman writes, “With a high premium placed on “joy,” or “fellowship,” and a distorted view of “the abundant life,” some people steer clear of any uncomfortable burdens connected with seeing a world in need. Sadness and burden, by definition, are excluded from a life that is supposed to be happy and full.” The chase after pleasure “under the sun” is “me” focused while Jesus comes to guide us into a “thee” focused living faith that embraces God’s call at Sinai to care for each other. We do this out of gratitude for Jesus’ sacrifice for our sin, loving God and neighbour, entering into each other’s struggles and help them see God’s presence, building our lives together on the foundation of Jesus.

Knowing Jesus is returning to overturn the results of sin: abuse, cruelty, injustice, violence, racism, poverty, and all forms of brokenness is where you’ll discover joy that has weight and meaning. Because of Jesus’ resurrection, ascension to heaven, and promise to return, we’re reminded that this world “under the sun” isn’t everything. Jesus is returning to bring renewal, to wipe away tears and fears, to bring eternal joy and hope. Joy is found in salvation, in reconciliation with God. Jesus talks about the joy in heaven when a sinner repents. Look for your joy in Jesus, in the community of believers, and in loving God and neighbour.