under the sun

Saint Athanasius Church

Contra Mundum Swagger

Video Version 

Life is like smoke. It looks real and solid but when you try to grasp it, it slips through your fingers. And this observation leads Qohelet to the brink of despair at times, because there seems to be nothing that can be counted on in this life “under the sun.” Rather than try to grasp the smoke, the hevel, and watch it slip through your fingers, live life with an open hand. The simple pleasures of life - those are a gift from God. Enjoy them. The relationships you have are a gift from God. These are ways that God is providing for us - enjoy them while you have them. So for Qohelet, the whole duty of man is to enjoy your life such as it is, and to die. But actually there’s something more. The whole duty of man is not just to enjoy life and die. The whole duty of man is to fear God and keep his commandments.

Sermon Notes: https://www.bible.com/events/48899828

22.06.05

Pleasure also has no answer to pain. This is perhaps pleasure’s greatest weakness as a purpose to life. Qoheleth will point this out later, but life is so hard, even under the best of circumstances, and you can’t simply distract your way through that. No matter how much pleasure you can have, all it takes is one devastating diagnosis, or loss, or divorce, or death, to completely undo you. And you can’t throw pleasure at that pain, can you? It doesn’t work. The spell that pleasure casts is easily and immediately broken by pain. The human capacity for pleasure pales in comparison to God’s capacity for it. There is beauty, and delight, and music, and light, and colors, we can’t even experience. They only exist for God’s delight. Qoheleth’s lesson is not that he wanted too much, and it let him down. It’s that he wanted too little, when Eden was there all along. And God intends to make everything into Eden one day, and invite you in, if you are willing to follow him there. 

Sermon Notes: https://www.bible.com/events/48882536

22.05.01

We only have so many days here on this earth, under the sun, so how do we make that time count? What does it look like to build a Legacy for the generations that come after us?