"Vanity of Vanities"

August 3, 2025 - Advent Lutheran Church

Ecclesiastes 1:2, 12-14; 2:18-23; Psalm 49:1-12; Colossians 3:1-11; Luke 12:13-21

I’m waiting for the day when I ask one of my children to mow the lawn and they say to me, “What do mortals get from all the toil and strain with which they toil under the sun? Vanity of vanities, all is vanity!” And then ask what there is to eat.

That would, after all, be the proper summary of both our first reading and our Gospel text. All the money and time and labour we spend preparing for the future are pointless. We never know what’s going to happen, death comes to us all, even the great legacies we are striving to leave come to nothing. The writer of Ecclesiastes gets particularly irked about that one – “I hated all my toil in which I had toiled under the sun, seeing that I must leave it to those who come after me –– and who knows whether they will be wise or foolish?” We plan and save for those who will come after us and they treat our efforts nonchalantly or worse, as ridiculous.

Jesus is even a little harsher. He tells this story about the landowner who had such a good harvest he couldn’t store it with what he had so rather than just distributing it to those around him, he hoarded it in new storage facilities for the future. And what happened? He died and didn’t get to enjoy any of the abundance – not the next year, not even the next day. God called him a fool.

The messages from these two readings are counter to the messages we’ve been taught, though. We’ve been taught to plan for the future, to invest money in RRSPs, to save up to purchase a house or a nice car, to make sacrifices in the present for the long term. Kids in junior high are told to take courses now that will prepare them for university, which should in turn prepare them for a long and lucrative career, rather than choose courses for enjoyment. We are taught that every decision we make should prioritize the future, even at a cost to our present enjoyment. And so it’s tempting to hear these words from the Bible and think yeah, all is vanity, we’ll all die at some point, but then to dismiss them in favour of being practical.

Yet, I do believe that they resonate at some deeper level. Because despite what we’ve been promised by the world around us, things are not turning out as we’ve been told they would, especially for the young people in the world. University no longer guarantees a career, and a career no longer guarantees a house. Even a house doesn’t guarantee a stable future – we never know anymore when a wildfire or torrential rains will drive us out of our homes, or even when wildfire smoke will take away the very air we need to breathe. We don’t know what kind of future our children or even our grandchildren can expect as the world gets hotter and hotter. Some insurance companies are saying that 25 years from now, we can expect the global GDP to drop 15-50% and the consequences of that combined with climate change to reduce the world’s human population 15-50%.[1] How on earth can we prepare for that kind of future? What good are our RRSPs or investments for our children and grandchildren if there is no recognizable economy? No place hospitable enough to buy a house? What is the point of young people making sacrifices and working hard in university if there will be no jobs for them at the end because the economy is crashing under the weight of climate collapse? As Ecclesiastes says, “It is an unhappy business that God has given to human beings to be busy with. I saw all the deeds that are done under the sun; and see, all is vanity and a chasing after wind.”

 

Every Sunday, our readings come from the Revised Common Lectionary, which was put together by a committee in 1969. And they made some choices about when readings should start and when they should end, some of which are a bit peculiar. Like today’s. Specifically, when it comes to our reading from Ecclesiastes, it ends at verse 23. But I want to read you verse 24. After all of the vanity of vanities, everything is pointless and why do we even work so hard, verse 24 says, “There is nothing better for mortals than to eat and drink, and find enjoyment in their toil. This also, I saw is from the hand of God.” And later on, in chapter 9, it says, “Go, eat your bread with enjoyment, and drink your wine with a merry heart; for God has long ago approved what you do. … Enjoy life with the wife whom you love, all the days of your vain life that are given you under the sun, because this is your portion in life.” And, after Jesus relates the parable of the fool whose life is demanded of him, he then goes to tell his listeners that just as God feeds the ravens and clothes the fields with lilies, so will God feed and clothe them.

What we have here is the second half of the message – the future is not guaranteed but the present moment is filled with gifts from God. The present moment –– the food we eat now, what we drink now, the work we do now –– has been given to us by God for our enjoyment. The people we spend our time with now, the spouse or family member or pet or friend, are the ones whom God has put into our lives to make them enjoyable. Even the “toil” of our lives is meant to be enjoyed – that doesn’t mean we’re supposed to force ourselves to enjoy work we hate, but that we’re to set ourselves to work that we also enjoy.

             

The most important gift that God gives us is not the guarantee of a future, but the love of God today. In this moment. That love is embodied in those around us, in the food that the land grows for us, in the waters that nourish us, in the sun that shines on the world, in the moon and the stars that shine at night for our delight. Right now, the wild raspberries and the saskatoon berries are ready to be eaten, gifts from God for you. Right now, the people in this very space – in-person and online – are here to love you. Friends love you. Your pets love you. The land loves you. Today. Now. In a few minutes, you will be fed with the body and blood of Christ, the very presence of God in the bread and wine – nourishment for your spirit. The music we will sing together is a gift for your soul.

             

This is pure grace – that God gives us what we need to enjoy life now. Not after we’ve earned it, not even assuming we will earn it, not making us wait for the future to receive it. My kids would be right to respond with “all is vanity” the next time I ask them to mow the lawn. (They’re not here, though, so nobody tell them I said that.) But they would also be right to ask me what there is to eat, regardless of whether they mow the lawn. As Jesus says to his disciples right after he finishes the parable, “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat, or about your body, what you will wear.” God calls us to turn our eyes from an uncertain future so that we might enjoy this day, which God fills with what we need to enjoy life – food, drink, and companionship. Thanks be to God, Amen.

 

[1] https://actuaries.org.uk/news-and-media-releases/news-articles/2025/jan/16-jan-25-planetary-solvency-finding-our-balance-with-nature/