Links for today’s readings:
Mar 13 Read: Ecclesiastes 1 Listen: (2:21) Read: Psalm 49 Listen: (2:10)
Links for this weekend’s readings:
Mar 14 Read: Ecclesiastes 2 Listen: (4:03) Read: Psalm 50 Listen: (2:26)
Mar 15 Read: Ecclesiastes 3 Listen: (3:02) Read: Psalm 51 Listen: (2:19)
Scripture Focus: Ecclesiastes 1.9-11
9 What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun.
10 Is there anything of which one can say,
“Look! This is something new”?
It was here already, long ago;
it was here before our time.
11 No one remembers the former generations,
and even those yet to come
will not be remembered
by those who follow them.
Reflection: The Conservation of Wisdom
By John Tillman
The Teacher of Ecclesiastes says, “no one remembers the former generations.”
Watch kids interact with a record player from the 1980s or the first iPod from 2001 and you’ll agree. It’s a shocking reminder of how quickly “new” gets “old.”
However, these same videos also remind us that new things are based on old things. The vinyl record, the cassette tape, the compact disc, the MP3 player, the iPod, and today’s music players are just new versions of past things. Tomorrow’s way to play and listen to music will be an innovation based on today’s technologies.
When the Teacher, Solomon, said nothing is new under the sun, he meant more than just art or technology. He described the waters of streams and rivers moving to the sea and then returning to their source. There are glimpses of science in this wisdom. We’d be reading too much into it to say Solomon identified the conservation of mass centuries before Antoine Lavoisier in 1789. (We should, however, remember that Lavoisier proved the conservation of mass through precise experimentation. He didn’t discover it. Ancient thinkers, such as Mahavira in India described it as early as 520 BC.)
However, Solomon grasped that “new” water is not infinitely created. Instead, water that reaches the sea “returns” to the mountains and the heavens in an infinite cycle. Solomon found this “wearisome, more than anyone can say.” (Ecc 1.8) Why?
Westerners praise inventors and worship technology and “progress.” The Age of Reason reared us to seek power, control, and purpose through knowledge. Solomon bursts that bubble.
Solomon sees the eternality of the material universe and the trivial span of human lives. “Generations come and generations go, but the earth remains forever.” (Ecc 1.4) Our hearts hint at eternity, but we can’t hold it. (Ecc 3.11) We can conceive eternity but we can’t birth ourselves into it.
Anything we say, do, or build is less lasting than the water flowing to the sea. If we grasp it in our hands, it drips or evaporates away. The cliffhanger ending of this chapter is that the wisest man can’t find meaning in his universe—his wisdom brings sorrow and his knowledge, grief.
Solomon’s doubts are valid, and his struggle instructive, but don’t join his despair. The conservation of God’s wisdom does not rely on the wisest men. Little children can find it, staggering toward Jesus. (Luke 10.21; 18.16) Read on, pray, seek the Holy Spirit, and find wisdom.
Divine Hours Prayer:
The span of our life is seventy years, perhaps in strength even eighty; yet the sum of them is but labor and sorrow, for they pass away quickly and we are gone.
Who regards the power of your wrath? Who rightly fears your indignation? So teach us to number our days that we may apply our hearts to wisdom. — Psalm 90.10-12
– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Springtime by Phyllis Tickle.
Read more: More Wisdom, More Grief
Wisdom’s path leads us to discover our purpose in life and calling within the world.
Read more: The Promise of Justice
How can a world with no absolutes be upset about evil? So you suffered or were harmed… Well, what did you expect?
