Sermon Discussion Questions:
1. Read Eccl 11:1-6 together. What were the main points of the sermon?
2. How would you define "wisdom"?
3. What does "casting bread on water" mean?
4. What is the connection between admitting we do not know everything / cannot control everything and living a life of faithful risk? If you don't know when disaster will strike (Eccl 11:2), why should you be supremely generous (Eccl 11:1)?
5. Read the parable of the rich fool (Luke 12:16-21) and then read Jesus' words in John 12:24-26. What was the mistake the rich fool made? And what alternative does Jesus provide in John 12?
6. Thinking of your money, time, comfort, safety, etc.--what does it look like for you to live a life of faithful risk taking for the Lord?
“Once upon a time there was a Chinese farmer whose horse ran away. That evening, all of his neighbors came around to commiserate. They said, ‘We are so sorry to hear your horse has run away. This is most unfortunate.’ The farmer said, ‘Maybe.’
The next day the horse came back bringing seven wild horses with it, and in the evening everybody came back and said, ‘Oh, isn’t that lucky. What a great turn of events. You now have eight horses!’ The farmer again said, ‘Maybe.’
The following day his son tried to break one of the horses, and while riding it, he was thrown and broke his leg. The neighbors then said, ‘Oh dear, that’s too bad,’ and the farmer responded, ‘Maybe.’
The next day the conscription officers came around to conscript people into the army, and they rejected his son because he had a broken leg. Again all the neighbors came around and said, ‘Isn’t that great!’ Again, he said, ‘Maybe.’”
That is an old Chinese fable shared by Alan Watts, the pop-philosopher from the 50-60’s who first made Eastern spirituality palatable to Americans during the hippie era. He melded Buddhism and Hinduism together with Western religions and psychology to create much of the popular, California-esque spirituality we know today as those who identify as “spiritual, but not religious.”
The conclusion of the story, Watts tells us, is to learn that nothing in life is certain, and therefore nothing is good or bad, right or wrong, it just is.
Does the Bible agree with that?
Yes and no. Unlike Buddhism, Christianity believes that good and bad are objective and distinct. We believe that there are acts and deeds that are inherently evil, and there are things that are inherently good, and it is not just a matter of perspective. And this is the primary lesson Buddhism (and Alan Watts) derives from the short parable. But there is another lesson to learn that Christianity affirms heartily, and it is this: you do not know what tomorrow brings.
The book of Ecclesiastes has been a long lesson in humility for us. We have been reminded time and time again that so much of the arrogance and anxiety mankind experiences comes from a presumed knowledge of the future. And as we know begin to approach the close of the book, the Preacher from Ecclesiastes hits the nail one more time with a final reminder of what we do not know, what we cannot control, and how to live wisely anyways.
1 Cast your bread upon the waters, for you will find it after many days. 2 Give a portion to seven, or even to eight, for you know not what disaster may happen on earth. 3 If the clouds are full of rain, they empty themselves on the earth, and if a tree falls to the south or to the north, in the place where the tree falls, there it will lie. 4 He who observes the wind will not sow, and he who regards the clouds will not reap. 5 As you do not know the way the spirit comes to the bones in the womb of a woman with child, so you do not know the work of God who makes everything. 6 In the morning sow your seed, and at evening withhold not your hand, for you do not know which will prosper, this or that, or whether both alike will be good.
- Eccl 11:1-6
What you do not know, what you cannot control, what you can do
What You Do Not Know
Like the rest of the book of Ecclesiastes, this passage goes out of its way to emphasize what we do not know (see Eccl 3:11; 6:12; 8:17; 9:11). You may think: Why do we need to be told this again? Because he is writing a piece of wisdom literature, he is wanting to make us wise, and one way common misunderstanding of wisdom is that wisdom gives you total knowledge. The wisest person is the one who can see all ends, knows all possibilities, and has accounted for them. Nothing takes them by surprise, no questions stumps them, no mysteries baffle them.
And if we think that that is wisdom, we will actually pursue it wrongly. You’ll assume that wisdom is about asserting more and more control over your life through the elimination of ignorance and risk. Wisdom is not the elimination of ignorance, and certainly isn’t the elimination of risk, but how to live righteously amidst them.
So, what do you not know?
First, you do not know when disaster will come.
Give a portion to seven, or even to eight, for you know not what disaster may happen on earth.
Eccl 11:2
We will return to this at the end, but we cannot predict calamities and disasters. We may be able to predict with some measure of certainty, but finding out you have cancer or that a hurricane is coming does not prevent the tragedy.
Second, you do not know how to guarantee success.
6 In the morning sow your seed, and at evening withhold not your hand, for you do not know which will prosper, this or that, or whether both alike will be good. Eccl 11:6
A farmer goes out and scatters seed, he does not know which crop will succeed. A young woman goes out on a couple of dates, she does not know if it will work out. An employee requests a raise from his boss, he does not know if he will get it.
Wisdom, like we discussed last week, will certainly help you. If the iron is blunt, one must use more strength, but wisdom will help one succeed (Eccl 10:10). Wisdom will help that young woman discern if the man she is seeing is someone she should be interested in. Wisdom will help give that employee the work ethic and mastery over his tongue to make him valuable enough to deserve a raise. But wisdom can not hand out guarantees.
Third, you do not know the works of God.
5 As you do not know the way the spirit comes to the bones in the womb of a woman with child, so you do not know the work of God who makes everything.
Eccl 11:5
In the same way, the Preacher argues, that you do not understand how a child in the womb becomes a living being, another soul, so too do you not understand the work of God who makes everything. Again, modern science tells us much about how a child is formed in the womb, but it does not tell us what makes that child a person, a living soul. The spirit of God makes each life a special instance of divine creation, divine act. And that, the most basic instance of human existence that all of us have experienced—being born—is the example the Preacher uses to demonstrate that you don’t know anywhere near to the total of what God knows.
33 Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! 34 “For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?”
- Rom 11:33-34
Draw a circle on your sermon notes, or picture one in your mind. Let’s say this circle represents everything that God knows. Every fact, every data point. Not just the mountain peaks of history, but every thing—how many grasshoppers hopped along the Midwest plains, 3,000 years ago…how many will be there 3,000 years from now? God knows. The trillions of thoughts and desires flying through the minds of every man, woman, and child—what your own thoughts and deepest desires truly are—something that may be hard for even you to discern—God knows. How the small trickle of a creek would over the course of millennia, turn into a raging river, and how every log and rock that fell into it would eventually alter the course and flow of the river, and so reshape the country side—God knows. Everything. Further, God not only knows all events from eternity past to future, and everything now…He also knows every possibility, as in, what would happen if one event were different than another. Now, aware of just how vast that circle is, if you had to draw a smaller circle inside that which represented the total sum of your own knowledge…how small would it be?
Maybe you have an inner skeptic inside of you that questions why this or that would happen if God supposedly exists. One reply you can give yourself is: Maybe I don’t understand why God would do this…but given what little I know, is it plausible that there is a good reason in the part of the circle that I am just unaware of?
You do not know.
What You Cannot Control
3 If the clouds are full of rain, they empty themselves on the earth, and if a tree falls to the south or to the north, in the place where the tree falls, there it will lie.
- Eccl 11:3
Here the Preacher shifts away from the emphasis on what you do not know. In fact, verse three seems to counter-balance the previous point about our lack of knowledge by pointing to things we can know: if dark rain clouds gather overhead, you can know that it will rain. If a tree falls over, you can know that it will lie there. Thus, we could learn from this that the Preacher is showing us that while we may not be able to know everything, wisdom does still encourage us to know what we can. If you look outside and see dark rain clouds, don’t plan a picnic. If you see a tree starting to dangerously lean to one side, don’t stand underneath it!
The emphasis here, however, is not on what we do not know but what we cannot control. If the clouds are full of rain, they will empty themselves on the earth…there is nothing you can do to stop it, nothing you can do to make it happen when you want. If the tree begins to fall, you can’t put your hands up to prevent it, and the large piece of timber will lay where it lie. Much of our life is shaped by powers outside of our control. And verse 4 shows us what we tend to do when faced with powers we cannot control:
4 He who observes the wind will not sow, and he who regards the clouds will not reap.
The farmer who steps outside and finds it windy tells himself: bad day to sow seed, better wait for favorable conditions. The farmer who looks up at the rain clouds says: I’ll harvest later, it looks like it might rain. But, the Preacher warns, if you wait till you have perfect conditions, you’ll have no harvest. You cannot sit on your hands forever, waiting till all risk and uncertainty is gone.
He who observes the wind will not sow. He who waits for the perfect opportunity will never ask the girl out on a date. She who regards the opinions of her peers will never share the gospel. He who looks for the perfect job or college program will never be employed. Ecclesiastes here is telling us that we will be forced to make decisions and actions based on imperfect knowledge and less than ideal circumstances—which means that we are going to have to take risks.
Most of us don’t like risk, don’t like uncertainty. Why? Because we don’t like losing control, we don’t like having our will thwarted.
No one is changing a flat tire on the side of a highway, thanking God for interrupting their plans. So much of technology and modern society today promise us control over the uncontrollable. Think of those infomercials where some poor woman in black and white opens up her cupboard and is buried in an avalanche of disorganized Tupperware containers and lids, she tries to stop it, grimaces, but is helpless. The scene changes, full color, a smiling woman snaps her new food containers together effortlessly, places them in her organized cupboard with no struggle, no mess, no fuss. What is the company selling you? Control. The frustrations that the mess and disorder brought can be banished with three easy payments. Mattresses, vacations, hoses, lawn care, prescription drugs, tutoring for children—you can buy control. This is our society, writ large. From self-help, to parenting advice, to leisure, to home improvements, to pain relief—if life feels uncontrollable to you (and it does), then buy this, do that, eat this and your blood pressure, your marital status, your depression will be placed under the reigns of your control. Slowly, our culture has adopted the premise that everything in life should be manageable and controlled. It is all just a tap, a click away.
So, when we come face to face with something beyond our control, we are often paralyzed. We feel like we need more information. We recede back from making the decision, from committing, or if we do make a choice, we second guess it. You take a job, but the lack of certainty and risk makes you immediately start searching job boards. You start a new relationship, but aren’t 100% certain, so you remain emotionally distant. I know that a good number of you here have somewhat recently moved here: my guess is that most of you have questioned whether or not this was the right move because of the difficulty that comes with starting over in a new city. And that is hard—but my guess is that all of us feel a sense of “Life shouldn’t be uncertain, unpredictable, uncontrollable.” Now, why do we think that?
Interestingly, in the garden of Eden, Satan tempted Adam and Eve with forbidden knowledge (”the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil”) and it was through this knowledge that they would be “like God.” There is a sinful craving for control that really is just a heart saying: “I want to be God.”
What You Can Do
1 Cast your bread upon the waters, for you will find it after many days.
2 Give a portion to seven, or even to eight, for you know not what disaster may happen on earth.
Whenever I begin preparing for a sermon, I try to wrestle with the text by myself first before going to commentaries—it helps keep me from just regurgitating their opinions to you. But I sat for a good long while trying to understand what on earth verse one could possibly mean. If I throw bread into water, I will not find it after many days. I won’t find at after many minutes! And if I did find it, why would I want it? Who wants soggy bread? Ducks?
So I gave up and consulted some commentaries and found some help. There are two basic views. One, is the idea that “casting bread upon the waters” refers the shipping of grain in trade. You put your bread in the hull of a ship, and cast it upon the water. You “find it after many days” in that you see a financial return in your trade. Thus “bread” can refer to any kind of good you may be trading in—take the initial risk of sending it out over the water, and later you’ll enjoy the return on your investment. And so the encouragement to give a portion to seven or eight, in that reading, would be seen as an encouragement to not put all your eggs in one basket, all your grain in one ship, because you do not know what disaster may happen—a storm at sea, perhaps? Today, we would say: You should diversify your portfolio, don’t hang your entire retirement on one stock, for you do not know what disasters may strike the stock market.
But, another interpretation is possible. Here is an ancient, Aramaic commentary on Eccl 11:1, written a few hundred years before Jesus was born: “Give your nourishing bread to the poor who go in ships upon the surface of the water, for after a period of many days you will find its reward in the world-to-come.” So, this commentary understood “casting your bread upon the water” to refer to giving alms to the poor, and the reward is given in heaven. To strengthen this view, there are Arabic and Egyptian proverbs that speak of throwing bread on water in the same way: doing good deeds for others. And this, up until very recently, has been the dominant reading of the passage throughout church history.
There is a bit of a cultural translation we need here with bread. Their bread would have been something similar to a pita: a flat, loaf that would have actually floated along the surface of water, at least at first. The image therefore is an arresting display of generosity. Be so generous that you float your bread along the river, assuming that someone else downstream will grab it who is need—it is an inherently foolish image, because, of course, much bread will be wasted. In other words, let your charity and generosity flow so freely from you that your goods are distributed in a bizarre liberality.
In this reading, the second part of the verse, “you will find it after many days,” is usually interpreted to mean that God will reward you for your generosity in some way. Jesus teaches: “give, and it will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap. For with the measure you use it will be measured back to you,” (Luke 6:38). Thus, you should give to seven, even eight—be supremely generous—because disasters are going to come, therefore many will be in need—you yourself may be in need! And if you are generous to others, then God will reward you.
So, which interpretation is correct? They appear to be polar opposites. Are we being told to be wise investors of our money, or are we told to be radically generous? I think the answer is both! We are being told to make the wisest investment with what we have been given, and there is no safer investment, no more promising return than to practice radical generosity. Jesus invites you to test His promise: with the measure that you use, it will be given back to you.
“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, 20 but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal.” Matt 6:19-20
People who hoard money tend to think they are being wise, but actually they are being fools. They have put their treasure in cardboard safes in the middle of a forest fire. It is just a matter of time before all of it perishes with the arrival of their inevitable death. Jesus instead invites us to put our treasure in the eternal bank accounts of heaven.
Consider Jesus’ parable of the rich fool:
16 And he told them a parable, saying, “The land of a rich man produced plentifully, 17 and he thought to himself, What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?’ 18 And he said, ‘I will do this: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. 19 And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.”’ 20 But God said to him, Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ 21 So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.”
- Luke 12:16-21
The man here appears to be a successful businessman. He doesn’t appear to do anything immoral or unethical. He is blessed with great bounty, and so he makes larger barns to store his surplus. Nothing sinister, right? What was his problem? He treated his riches like they were his own. He stored up treasure here on earth, not in heaven. Which is patently foolish since that very night his soul was required of him. He (1) did not know that he was about to die and (2) there was nothing he could do to stop it.
How is one “rich toward God”? Ironically, by giving your riches away. Casting them on the water. This is the paradox of the kingdom of God. Give, so that you may be rich. Empty yourself, so that you may be full. Lose your life, and you will find it.
This applies not only to money, but to any resource you have. Your money, your time, your energy, your talents, your relationships.
6 In the morning sow your seed, and at evening withhold not your hand, for you do not know which will prosper, this or that, or whether both alike will be good.
- Eccl 11:6
Here we see the Preacher weave together every thread into one simple exhortation. You do not know what will happen in your life, and you cannot control outcomes—but if you are scared to risk, to act even when outcomes are uncertain; if you are like the farmer who anxiously keeps checking the weather and waiting for perfect circumstances before you get to work—here is what you should do with what God has given you:
Use every opportunity you have. Not just in the morning, not just in the evening, but morning and evening sow the seed. You don’t know what disasters will come on the earth, you don’t know how to guarantee success, you don’t know what God is doing, and you certainly cannot control everything. But rather than letting all of that paralyze you into inaction, it should do the opposite. You don’t know what disasters are coming, so give to seven, even eight! Don’t hide your talent in a hole in the ground, but go out and multiply it! Invest in many ventures, give generously to all who ask, spend your life rather than hoarding it jealously. How much should you give? Enough that you have to alter your lifestyle for it. In other words, don’t just rely on giving out of your surplus. Alter your budget and lifestyle so that your giving is marked by radical generosity.
Think of your time and energy as well here—for some of you, giving money away may not be that difficult, but making time for others feels very hard. And maybe you guard your relational energy because you have invested in relationships before, and friends have moved away, or friends have hurt you. And it feels tempting to just say “Not again.” Friend, cast your bread on the water. Give generously and without reproach, try again, build a new relationship—you don’t know what will happen! Who knows, it may prosper! Share the gospel with that non-Christian friend of yours, who knows what may happen!
The Preacher is inviting us to live a life of risk. And there is something in us that recoils at it. But Jesus showed us why this is a life worth living:
“The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. 25 Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. 26 If anyone serves me, he must follow me; and where I am, there will my servant be also. If anyone serves me, the Father will honor him. - John 12:24-26
Jesus is showing us the pathway to real life. If you refuse to lose your life, you ironically will lose it. But if you die before you die, you find life. Jesus is the ultimate seed who risks his life, and perishes, but on the other side, finds true life. Death and then resurrection. And He has faced down the scariest and darkest of risks: Hell, your sin, the judgment of Good. When He tells you to follow Him, interestingly He is telling you to follow Him only a secondary sense. He is dying at the cross so that you won’t have to, He isn’t dying on the cross and saying: Now, you all will die too. His death is a ransom for you, unique. But, He is showing you that His once for all, unique sacrifice is a model to emulate: follow God, not matter how risky, and you will be taken care of! You’ll find fruit and life. But if you try to hoard your goods, your life, your time, your energy—you’ll actually rot and die.
So, when was the last time you did something risky for God?
Trust God for the results. The image of a seed growing makes us think of Jesus’ parable of the kingdom: “26 And he said, “The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground. 27 He sleeps and rises night and day, and the seed sprouts and grows; he knows not how,” (Mark 4:26-27). The seed grows apart from the will and work of the farmer. We sow, another waters, but God gives the growth. God is the one who watches over our modest efforts in this life—He is the one who looks at your deeds, your charity, your giving, your evangelism, your efforts towards building relationships, and He provides the growth. And he is going to let you fail and flop hundreds of times, He isn’t going to eliminate risk or uncertainty because He loves you. If you always succeeded, if you never were left in the dark, or uncertain, you’d start to think you were like God. And God loves you too much to let you be that successful. But, here is what we do know: God will make all the good deeds and efforts of His people prosper, even if we can’t see it. The hymn of my seminary has a line pulled directly from this passage in Ecclesiastes:
Morning and evening sow the seed,
God’s grace the effort shall succeed.
Joe Bellanti, our former elder here, many years ago was serving as a pastor at another church here in town. He went out on a home visit to a family in the church. The wife and her three boys were regularly attending, but the husband wasn’t. So, Joe went and met with the husband to discern what it was that prevented him from coming. And, I’ve asked Joe about this, Joe cannot remember anything exceptional about the meeting. Just another casting of seed. Who knows what will happen? Probably nothing. But something did happen. That man was, unbeknownst to Joe, very affected by that meeting. And, unbeknownst to Joe, began to finally live in obedience to Christ after that. He changed how he related to his wife and his boys and became a serious Christian, and began regularly attending church. That man then gave an inheritance of serious faith to his boys. One of those three boys, eventually got married, and had three children himself, and similarly raised his children with the same kind of seriousness and sincerity of faith he saw modeled by his father. One of those children eventually became my wife. I would not be who I am today if my wife was not who she was—I most likely wouldn’t be here today as your pastor, were I not supported, encouraged, and helped by my wife. So, in more ways than one, if you appreciate my ministry here, go tell Joe Bellanti thank you.
You have no idea what the consequences of your actions are in life. So, morning and evening sow the seed. That means having to make choices in the face of uncertainty. That means sticking your neck out when you are not guaranteed results. It means investing in relationships and doing invisible work that it feels like no one else notices and does not always seem fruitful.
