Sermon Discussion Questions:
1. Read back through Eccl 4:4-16 together. What stands out you most?
2. Where do you see envy reveal itself most in your life?
3. How would you counsel a person who was obviously fueled by envy in their career pursuits?
4. Why is laziness no good answer to the temptation of overwork?
5. How do you fight against the tempation to independence?
How do you waste a life?
Here is how the Danish philosopher, Soren Kierkegaard, thinks you can:
“A man’s life is wasted who lived on, so deceived by the joys of life or by its sorrows, that he never became eternally and decisively aware…that there is a God, and that he, himself…exists before this God.” You can be deceived by life’s joys or by its sorrows. You can be riding the highs or crushed in the lows, but in both, you and I are in danger of thinking: this is all there is. It is like you and I can be stuck wearing a virtual reality headset that is so realistic, so entertaining, so terrifying, that we forget that the reality itself—God—is out there.
We must come to a point where we become “eternally and decisively aware that there is a God” and that we exist “before this God.” Our life will be a total waste if our eyes are perpetually fixed on the trinkets or disappointments in front of us and never are raised to see grandeur of the God who made us and who is summoning our attention to Him. There is more to life than our limbic system, there is more to life than highs and lows of sensate experience, and chuckles, and vacations. You were destined to commune with the transcendent God!
So, how do we break out of our infantile mind? How do we keep ourselves from being deceived by the joys and sorrows of life into thinking this life is all there is? Kierkegaard has a bizarre recommendation. The reality of God in our lives, “is never attained except through despair.” (Sickness Unto Death).
What? Despair? What does that mean? You were made for God. When you live as if He doesn’t exist or like He is a nice accessory or mental concept, then you actually don’t even know who you are. Everything is wrong, something is missing; it is like a sinkhole has opened up at the foundation of your house and it is slowly swallowing you. You hear the creaking and groaning of the walls. The sinkhole is despair and the house is your life*.* And Kierkegaard’s saying: Pay attention to that sinkhole! Ignoring it won’t make it go away!
But this whole world conspires together to trick you into thinking: there’s no sinkhole, there is nothing wrong with you, just go buy more stuff, take another trip, turn the TV up louder and you’ll feel better.
The Preacher in the book of Ecclesiastes is a man who has lived a life that few people ever have—he had more money, more intelligence, more power than all of us. And yet, he has returned from that mountaintop of human achievement to tell us: it is empty. He found that even the strongest of distractions and diversions eventually fade, and there is no replacement for a life lived before the face of God. Now, he spends the rest of the book, like an expert psychologist, reporting to us what people tend to turn to in their own pursuits, their own attempts to mask their despair, and how they will inevitably arrive at the same conclusion: vanity, and striving for wind.
4 Then I saw that all toil and all skill in work come from a man’s envy of his neighbor. This also is vanity and a striving after wind. 5 The fool folds his hands and eats his own flesh. 6 Better is a handful of quietness than two hands full of toil and a striving after wind. 7 Again, I saw vanity under the sun: 8 one person who has no other, either son or brother, yet there is no end to all his toil, and his eyes are never satisfied with riches, so that he never asks, “For whom am I toiling and depriving myself of pleasure?” This also is vanity and an unhappy business. 9 Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil. 10 For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up! 11 Again, if two lie together, they keep warm, but how can one keep warm alone? 12 And though a man might prevail against one who is alone, two will withstand him—a threefold cord is not quickly broken. 13 Better was a poor and wise youth than an old and foolish king who no longer knew how to take advice. 14 For he went from prison to the throne, though in his own kingdom he had been born poor. 15 I saw all the living who move about under the sun, along with that youth who was to stand in the king’s place. 16 There was no end of all the people, all of whom he led. Yet those who come later will not rejoice in him. Surely this also is vanity and a striving after wind. (Eccl 4:4-16)
Here we will see the Preacher identify common temptations that present themselves to us as a distraction from our deepest problems—but you’ll notice that they all revolve around the orbit of work and relationships. Why? Because that is so much of what life is: your work, your family, your friends. So let’s look at the temptation to envy, laziness, independence, and legacy, before looking at the joy of contentment.
Envy
Then I saw that all toil and all skill in work come from a man’s envy of his neighbor. This also is vanity and a striving after wind. - Eccl 4:4
Victor Hugo, the French author, wrote a poem about two sisters called Envy and Avarice (greed).
The only words that Avarice could utter, Her constant doom, in a low, frightened mutter, "There's not enough, enough, yet in my store!" While Envy, as she scanned the glittering sight, Groaned as she gnashed her yellow teeth with spite, "She's more than me, -- more, still forever more!"
Greed always says: Not enough. Envy says: They have more than me! Envy, greed, appear to us as desires for a particular thing. We are envious of someone else’s home, family, body, intelligence, etc. And we are under the impression that once we get those things, our craving will cease…but it won’t. Greed and envy are not about attaining goals, they are a permanent direction of the heart, black holes that will swallow infinity and still say: More. Envy is inherently comparative. The point isn’t merely that your friend has a waistline or career that you do not—those are incidental—the point is that they have anything that you do not. Once you, if possible, attain the waistline or find a similarly impressive career, you will quickly find something else in someone else that piques your envy. Envy, in other words, isn’t a material or circumstantial problem—it is a moral and spiritual one.
And the Preacher here sees how this affects our work. He claims that all “toil and all skill in work” only come from the envy one has of their neighbor. We know that the Preacher isn’t making a hard, universal statement about all toil without exception being inherently fueled by sin because elsewhere in the book he explains that man should “take pleasure in all his toil—this is God’s gift to man,” (Ecc 3:13; cf. 2:24, 5:19)—an odd statement if toil is inherently sinful.
What is he saying? The Preacher is making a general, exaggerative statement about how common envy is in our work. The engine that many people use in working harder is: someone else has more than me. You could be envious of someone else’s lifestyle that their income grants them—they take vacations and own cars you never could. You could be envious of someone else’s freedom—their job is less demanding, more flexible, seems more care-free. Or you could be envious of someone else’s sense of purpose and significance their career gives them—their job matters, their job makes a difference in the world. Envy is the vice of a thousand faces. The stay-at-home mom may be envious of the break from childcare that working-mom’s have, while the working-mom longs for the unhurried time the stay-at-home mom has with her kids. The owner of the company and the employee underneath him can both pine for each other’s position. And the Preacher’s point here is that when you let envy run you, motivate you, your life will suddenly become as frustrating and impossible as trying to hold wind in your hand. There will always be someone else who has something else that you don’t.
If you let envy fuel your career ambitions, on the one hand, you will never know when to stop—you could always climb the ladder higher, make more money, get more accomplished, look more impressive or you’ll constantly be changing jobs, moving cities, trying to find the perfect job—and all the while you won’t be able to actually rest or enjoy any of the fruits of your labor, because you’ll constantly have your eye on the other people you are comparing yourself too.
And, on the other hand, envy in time curdles to resentment, and eventually to hatred. You can see this is in little ways when your friend shares some great news, and instead of being able to rejoice with them, you suddenly are thinking: Why do I never have great things happen to me? Or you’ll see someone else doing something you know you could never do, and you’ll think Look at this idiot. You’ll despise other people in their success. Envy may compel you to work harder and do more, but when the dice just so happen to fall in other people’s favor, not your own, you’ll be angry and sad and put out in ways that won’t even make sense to you. You’ll tell yourself: I don’t know why this bothers me so much.
Victor Hugo ends his poem with Greed and Envy being given the chance to have anything that they desire, but the other must then receive double. The two are paralyzed at the thought of having to see the other receive twice as much as themselves, until Envy finally requests to be blind in one eye. She would rather be blind in one eye and her sister fully blind than see her receive twice the money, the status, the beauty. And that’s where envy wants to take you: relishing in other people’s pain just so you know that other people aren’t getting more than you.
Laziness
The fool folds his hands and eats his own flesh. - Eccl 4:5
What are we to make of this strange passage? The Preacher is using imagery from the wisdom literature to illustrate a life devoted to laziness. Hear Solomon instruct us from the book of Proverbs:
How long will you lie there, O sluggard? When will you arise from your sleep? 10 A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest, 11 and poverty will come upon you like a robber, and want like an armed man.
- Prov 6:9-11 (cf. 24:33-34)
The “folding of the hands” is just euphemism for laziness. Your hands are meant to work! The lazy person, likened to a slug, does not want put his hand to the plow, he folds them together and refuses to get out of bed. It is like he overheard the last comment about the person toiling away through envy and told himself: Well, I certainly don’t want to fall into that vice. I’ll just stay home from work today. The sluggard is a frequent character in the book of Proverbs, so let me try to sketch him out a little for you:
- The sluggard is the quintessential lazy man who constantly oversleeps, whose primary physical activity is turning over in bed (Prov 26:14).
- When asked to do something by others, he is as irritating as vinegar being splashed in your mouth or smoke being blown in your eyes (Prov 10:26)
- His home and fields are constantly in disrepair because he doesn’t take care of them (Prov 24:30-34)
- He relies on outlandish and irrational fears to justify his laziness—there is a lion in the streets! I can’t go out work! (Prov 22:13), yet somehow also thinks very highly of himself and refuses to listen to others (Prov 26:16).
But maybe the most evocative image in the Proverbs of the sluggard is the most illustrative of who he is: “The sluggard buries his hand in the dish and will not even bring it back to his mouth,” (Prov 19:24). The picture is that of a man who is a strange combination of ravenous desire, and utter impotence. He so loads his fork with food that he lacks the physical strength to even bring it back to his mouth. That’s the sluggard: insatiable desire, totally impotent.
The desire of the sluggard kills him, for his hands refuse to labor. 26 All day long he craves and craves, but the righteous gives and does not hold back.
- Prov 21:25-26
The soul of the sluggard craves and gets nothing, while the soul of the diligent is richly supplied.
- Prov 13:4
If you think that a life of unfettered leisure is the answer to a life of overwork, to the trap of being fueled by envy and comparison…you will be disappointed. The soul of the sluggard is consumed with craving. But he has nothing to show for all of his desire. He has great intentions, big dreams, but…there is a lion in the streets, so he can’t do that now. The Preacher gives us an alarming image of the end result of the path of laziness: because the sluggard refuses to work, he quickly runs out of food for himself, so he is left to devour himself. It is a provocative way of saying: laziness will destroy your life. It promises ease and relaxation, but you will end in poverty and craving for what you will never be able to attain.
Independence
Again, I saw vanity under the sun: 8 one person who has no other, either son or brother, yet there is no end to all his toil, and his eyes are never satisfied with riches, so that he never asks, “For whom am I toiling and depriving myself of pleasure?” This also is vanity and an unhappy business. - Eccl 4:7-8
The over-working man here in Ecclesiastes could be another example of an individual motivated by envy, but the emphasis is placed on his isolation. He has “no other” no son, no brother, no one to share the fruits of his toil with. He is unencumbered by relationships, so he can throw all of himself into his toil—and he is very successful. He becomes rich. Yet, it is taken for granted by the Preacher that he is incapable of being satisfied by riches—a point the Preacher will return to in a couple of chapters. But the main focus of the passage is on his frantic pace of work that keeps him so occupied, so busy, that he does not even have the time or mental space to slow down and ask himself: What’s the point? I am amassing all of this money, but who is it going to? Soon, I will die—I have no son to leave an inheritance to…why am I doing all of this?
We may read that and think: What a tragedy, a man who has sacrificed everything and cannot enjoy his riches. But, most of Solomon’s readers would have read that and thought: What a tragedy, a man who has no one.
It is increasingly more common today for people to push off marriage and children in order to pursue their careers. Strangely, in America, we seem to identify “success” primarily with money, not with relationships.
One recent poll found that only 32 percent of young adults ages eighteen through forty think that marriage is essential to living a fulfilling life, compared to 64 percent who think education and 75 percent who think making a good living is crucial to fulfillment. Just last month, the Pew Research discovered that 57% of all people under the age of 50 who do not have children do not intend on ever having children—not because of issues with infertility or lack of a supportive spouse, but just because “they didn’t want to” and a childless life freed them to afford things they want, have time for hobbies, focus on their careers, and to save for the future.
But notice what the Preacher says about the career man: (1) he isn’t satisfied with his riches and (2) the question he fails to ask himself is: why am I depriving myself of pleasure? What pleasure is this man depriving himself of? Other people. In other words, a fulfilling, satisfied life cannot happen by yourself. Christopher McCandless, whose story was turned into a book and movie, Into the Wild, thinks that what is wrong with the world is society—he agreed with Sartre, hell is other people—so he flees into the wild to live in isolation. But, you know what he finds…hell is there with him too. And people, family, friends, are what make life worth living. And just before he dies, he writes: “Happiness is only real when shared.”
The Preacher agrees:
9 Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil. 10 For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up! 11 Again, if two lie together, they keep warm, but how can one keep warm alone? 12 And though a man might prevail against one who is alone, two will withstand him—a threefold cord is not quickly broken. - Eccl 4:9-12
If you live a life of independence, a life of unencumbered freedom, then you won’t have to compromise, won’t have to share decision making with others, won’t have to stop yourself from what you want. You can pursue your career, your travel goals, your hobbies much more easily than if you get married and have children, or if you become a good friend to others, or honor your father and mother, or serve faithfully as a committed member of a church. But, your happiness won’t be real. And, the difficulty of life will soon stop you in your tracks. These famous words reveal to us not only the blessing of friendship and family, but also the hardship of life. There are times when you fall, there are cold nights, and there are unexpected attacks. A life of independence is a fool’s bargain. It is trading in the expensive and lasting pleasures of relationship for the cheap and temporary thrills of freedom.
“This world is full of sorrow—because it is full of sin. It is a dark place. It is a lonely place. It is a disappointing place. The brightest sunbeam in it, is a friend. Friendship halves our troubles—and doubles our joys!” J.C. Ryle
Legacy
13 Better was a poor and wise youth than an old and foolish king who no longer knew how to take advice. 14 For he went from prison to the throne, though in his own kingdom he had been born poor. 15 I saw all the living who move about under the sun, along with that youth who was to stand in the king’s place. 16 There was no end of all the people, all of whom he led. Yet those who come later will not rejoice in him. Surely this also is vanity and a striving after wind. - Eccl 4:13-16
Perhaps the most tempting option for moral, religious people is this one. To live for a legacy left behind is in many ways wise—the Proverbs tell us that a good man leaves an inheritance for his children. Living in light of our own death is imminently wise. And considering how to use our time in the best means way possible to affect the greatest change possible—how could that possibly be wrong? Even the brief story the Preacher tells sounds so attractive. On the one hand you have a poor, wise youth who finds himself in jail for some reason (the underdog). On the other, you have an obnoxious, old king, drunk with power who thinks he knows everything. We love to see those guys fail. And, somehow, the poor, wise youth rises to power and leads an innumerable amount of people.
Yet, just a few generations later, people won’t remember him. I wonder if Solomon is thinking of the story of Joseph in Genesis, the poor, wise youth who went from being in Pharaoh’s prison, to being second in command over all of Egypt. Joseph did incredible things in Egypt, saved the nation from ruin, preserved the lives of millions through his planning. Yet, here is how the Exodus opens: “Now there arose a new king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph,” (Ex 1:8). And what do the Egyptians do to the Hebrews? Enslave them and murder their children (Ex 1:9-22).
What’s the lesson? Do good while you can with what you can. Live for others and try to make this world a better place for your children and their children. But even if you are remarkably successful, there is no guarantee that future generations won’t forget the good you’ve done, or undo the good you worked so hard to create, or won’t treat you like a villain. Abraham Kuyper, the Reformed theologian, was the Prime Minister of the Netherlands from 1901-1905. And today, the Netherlands is one of the most secular, anti-Christian countries in all of Western culture. That isn’t because Kuyper was a bad a Christian or a bad leader. Joseph wasn’t a bad leader! It is just a sign of how short our memories are, and how quickly things can change. And if you spend your life aiming at trying to shore up your legacy and secure your impact, then you will spend in striving after the wind.
The Joy of Contentment
Better is a handful of quietness than two hands full of toil and a striving after wind. - Eccl 4:7
It seems like the Preacher is relaying, in a different form, the old saying: better is the bird in the hand than two in the bush; better to enjoy what you have now, then lose it by pursuing what you don’t. And that is in part what he is saying. Better is one handful of quietness than two of toil and striving after wind. Jeremiah Burroughs, the Puritan, explains that most people believe that contentment is found through addition: you add things into your life—new possessions, new experiences. But the true path to contentment is actually found through subtraction. “The Christian,” he writes, “has another way to contentment. He can bring his desires down to his possessions.” Maybe you simply expect too much out of your work, out of your leisure, out of your experiences in life, and you need to lower your expectations, desire less.
But the real is found not only in the one hand vs. two hands, but in what the hands contain. One handful of “quiet” is better than two hands full of toil and striving for wind. A life consumed by envious toil, by the craving of laziness, by loneliness of independence, or the striving for legacy is a life that is as substantial and lasting as gripping the wind. You may have both hands full but they are full of nothing.
Move to another city, get a new job, hit a new PR, find a new TV show to binge, a new purchase, another promotion, another vacation…and your life will feel full, busy, maybe even meaningful and productive. But if all of those things are simply diversions and distractions, then you will move, you’ll take the trip, you’ll open the package…and you will find that you have not escaped the hell of other people, the hell of your current station. Hell will be right there with you.
“If our condition were truly happy we should not need to divert ourselves from thinking about it.” - Pascal
What do we need instead? We need quietness, which could also be translated simply as "rest," as it is in Isaiah: “In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength.” - Isa 30:16
How can you slow down? How can you find rest, without turning to laziness? How can you enjoy your work without being consumed by envy?
Realize that you were made to be in communion with God. That communion comes through faith in Christ. When you realize that the circumstances of your life are in God's hands, are set by Him, then you don't need to seek out diversions and distractions. When you aren't fleeing from the despair of your dislocation with your God, when you have become eternally decisively aware of God's presence in your life and know that He has welcomed you into His family, then you are free to simply live, work, and enjoy life under the sun.
