What’s making me
angrier and angrier about Ecclesiastes is that Solomon brought
all his grief upon himself. He gives his heart to every
conceivable lust, and then when he gets old and is about to kick
off, he gripes about all the evil and oppression under the sun.
All that evil and oppression in your empire? That was your
doing, buddy!
At the end of
his life, he’s about to lose everything he has built—because
he’s about to die. He’s wallowing in self-pity, because his
kingdom is going to be carved up by a foolish son. But it’s a
tad hard to blame Rehoboam, Pops, cuz you’ve been a deadbeat
dad. Your son had what, a thousand step-mothers? Solomon is
p.o.ed about all the vanity under the sun, but his great sin has
blinded him so much that he can’t see the vanity in--the
emptiness of--his own heart.
5:16—There is
a grievous evil which I have seen under the sun: riches being
hoarded by their owner to his hurt….Dude, that’s you! That
grievous evil is not somewhere out there under the sun, it’s
under your own hat!
I haven’t
reached my point yet, though. I don’t actually care that
Solomon can’t see that he himself is the all-time biggest fool.
What makes me mad is all that great wisdom that is ostensibly
being put towards answering one of humanity’s deepest questions,
“Why is there evil and oppression and injustice in the world?”
gets wasted on a rant about work.
Solomon never
did a lick of work in his life. Did he dig ditches or lay
bricks? I think not. How did Solomon toil?
So, instead of
sharing a truly worthy insight, we learn that you can’t take it
with you--so eat, drink, and be merry now. Yeah, thanks. Nice
advice. Can I give you my opinion, Einstein? A slave riding on
a prince’s horse is not a grievous evil. Let me tell you what a
grievous evil is.
A grievous
evil is a mother driving her children into the river in New
York...or in South Carolina. A grievous evil is a father
drowning his kids in a Baltimore hotel room, holding one’s head
down until he stops struggling, then going and getting the next
child and doing the same. A grievous evil is a mother throwing
her young children off the pier into the chilly waters of San
Francisco Bay. A grievous evil is Kermit Gosnell aborting a
baby before she’s born, or waiting until after he’s born and
then severing his spinal cord.
There’s
greater evil out there under the sun, Solomon, than somebody
else getting to play with your toys when you die an old, bloated
lush. The horror, the fear, the pain that these children
experienced. The terror. Children kidnapped, tortured,
starving to death. House fires. Round the clock, it’s always
happening somewhere. For years I have begged God to tell me
when something like that is about to happen, so I can pray it
stop before it happens. I wake up almost every night once or
twice, and I pray for these children, because I know that a
little one somewhere out there is crying out for his daddy but
nobody hears his voice.
June 9, 2011
