As many of you will know by now, I received on Friday a letter from the University of Cambridge granting me a PhD under the Special Regulations which apply to applications made on the basis of published work rather than a thesis. So it is a touch ironic, and probably good for my soul, to be faced tonight with a passage from Ecclesiastes which so roundly declares that: Of making many books there is no end, and much study is a weariness of the flesh. The end of the matter.’ Many scholars believe those words were originally the emphatic conclusion of the book the final injunction to fear God and keep his commandments was apparently added later. That’s a bit unfortunate, as I haven’t finished yet, even if he has. I rather hope that perhaps he was just over-reacting to the final raft of editor’s queries. Well, we all feel like that at times, in which case, like half Hampstead, I expect that a day or two later he was scratching away at the next scroll.
The Teacher, whose wisdom is set down for us in the book of Ecclesiastes, had a pessimistic view of the world. His world was unchanging, life itself was fleeting, and any impact we might make on our environment or our society was ephemeral; injustice was rampant, and apart from the universal certainty of death the future was unpredictable. Vanity of vanities, all is vanity. This was the way God had made it, there was not much point trying to make sense of it. So the only wise course was to live for to-day, especially while we are still young enough to enjoy it, without fretting too much about an uncertain and probably miserable to-morrow. There is plenty of postmodern literature that would take a similarly depressing point of view. But the Teacher refuses to draw the logical conclusion that there is no purpose in life. The pessimism which has its roots in his observation of society has to contend with his convictions about God and judgment, which only makes sense if there is after all some overarching divine purpose in creation. But he is incapable of resolving this fundamental contradiction, which for him remains part of life’s deep uncertainty. No wonder he found it so wearisomely difficult to write his book.
There is some common ground in Paul’s advice to Timothy, which is presumably why these two readings are linked in our lectionary. Just as the young man addressed by the Teacher was to engage fully with the present, so Timothy was to be focussed and disciplined, like a soldier in the army, or a farmer, or an athlete in training. Our God does not want us to dwell in the past, nor yet to fret about the future. Consider the lilies of the field. But there is also one major and critically important difference. God’s overarching purpose is now clear, as it was not to the writer of Ecclesiastes. The whole world is to be saved by faith in Jesus Christ and our lives find their own meaning within that grand overarching narrative of salvation. Whereas the young man sitting at the feet of the Old Testament Teacher was advised to live in the present because the past could not be undone and there was no future, we are commanded to live in the present because the past can be forgiven, the future is glorious, and the present is our moment of opportunity. We have received the good news from others, and we in our turn are charged with sharing that same good news with others, as much in how we live our lives, as in what we say, so that those whose lives we touch may also be drawn into the narrative of God’s good news, and in their turn pass it on again. We still suffer the same roller-coaster ride of joys and sorrows that the old Teacher observed in the world that he knew, but now our experience of life is caught up with that of Jesus our Lord, and validated in all its richness by the life that he lived, and the death that He died.
We cannot live, nor should we try to live in the past or in the future, but rightly understood, the past and the future are an important part of our experience of the present. I felt sure that Father Terrance would have some apt illustrations of all this so I asked him, and he directed my attention to a couple of stories told by Anthony de Mello. The first reminds us how much we lose if we succumb to the temptation to live in the future. A wise old boatman was taking pilgrims to a shrine. One day someone asked him, “Have you been to the shrine?” “No, not yet,” said the boatman, “because I still haven’t discovered everything the river has to offer me. In this river I find wisdom; I find peace; I find God.” But the pilgrims didn’t even notice the river; their minds were so focused on the shrine they couldn’t see the river. They were missing so much because they were trying to live in the future. Another story explores the meaning of the present.
A visitor to the monastery asked the Master, “How long does the present last? A minute? A second?”. The Master replied, “Much less and much more. Less, because the moment you focus on it, it’s gone. More, because if you ever get into it, you will stumble upon the timeless and will know what eternity is.”
We celebrated on Friday the life of Alan Goodison, an excellent role model in this sense. Throughout his life he engaged wholeheartedly with whatever came his way, doing his job fearlessly and to the very best of his ability, enjoying the good things of life to the full, facing danger with steadfast courage, living with grief and infirmity without dissimulation or complaint, always ready to give himself in the service of others.
But Paul points us to a higher role model. Be strong, he says in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. What is this grace in which we should be strong? In God’s case, grace has to do with the mercy and favour which are the expression of his steadfast love for us, but in us grace is associated with that capacity for loving obedience to God’s will that we see supremely in Jesus himself, but also in the character of Mary his mother, to whom we attach the words full of grace’. When Paul commands Timothy to be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus, it is that characteristic of single-minded faithful obedience to God’s will that he has in mind. He sees it in the soldier who is totally committed to his task, in the athlete who is totally committed to his or her training regime and the rules of her sport, in the farmer who at least under the harsh conditions of Biblical agriculture had to be totally committed to his land and his livestock if he was to make a living. Our obedience has to be as serious as that, when it counts. But it does not have to make us miserable, driven people, uncomfortable to live with. The grace that was in Christ Jesus was not like that people loved to be in his company. Why? Because he loved them he loved them as his father loved him, without reserve. So it is that we should be obedient to God’s will, not as a matter of duty, but as our loving response to the love which he has shown to us. It is love that makes obedience an attractive way of life, love that is the secret ingredient of grace. It is only when I know that I am loved and valued by God that I am set free first to be myself, and then, by the grace of God which I have received, to give myself in love and service to my neighbour, not regretting yesterday, nor longing for to-morrow, but here and now in the eternity of the present moment.