Wisdom, vanity and humility
A Sermon for Evensong
The book of Ecclesiastes is an insidious book, a rebel
within the canon of Scripture. It claims
to be written by Solomon, the great king of the golden age of Israel. It recalls the time when Israel and Judah
were one people, before the rebellious schism that happened under Solomon’s
son. This was the time when the riches
of the kingdom were countless. Gold,
precious stones, cedars, spices, garments, weaponry, ships, ivory, apes and
peacocks are all recounted as among the wonders of the age (1 Kings 10). This was the time when the Queen of Sheba
came to see the great wisdom of Solomon, and marvelled at the wisdom of the
king, and the opulence of his palaces.
This was the king with at least a thousand women in his harem (1 Kings11.3). This was the king who built the
Temple of the Lord, and a palace for himself to match. And to all of this, to the golden age of
Israel and on the lips of the golden king of wisdom, the theme of Ecclesiastes
is this: “Vanity of vanities! All is vanity.” (Ecclesiastes 1.2).
Ecclesiastes is one of the books of the Bible described as
‘wisdom literature’. The best known of
these is the Book of Proverbs. That too
is ascribed to King Solomon. The
tradition of wisdom literature stretches from the days of Solomon, the wise
king, right the way to the time of the New Testament. There is a third book that is claimed for
Solomon, which we find in the Apocrypha, called the Wisdom of Solomon. But where these books are confident in their
wise assertions, the Solomon of the book of Ecclesiastes is more sceptical,
more doubting. To read Ecclesiastes, which is a short book – 12 chapters and 8
pages of my Bible – is to read a book that includes doubt, touches despair, and
shatters an approach to life that sees everything easily put in its place. To any easily constructed, and overly
confident argument, in life or in faith, Ecclesiastes responds with its
repeated cry of ‘vanity’. The earliest
Jewish commentaries have to argue for its place in Scripture at all!
In our well-known passage this evening, Ecclesiastes speaks
of a time for everything. But notice two
things. First, that, according to
Ecclesiastes, there is a time for all kinds of things. And that includes some things we might prefer
to have no time for. So there is a time
to die, a time to kill, a time to weep and mourn, a time to hate and a time for
war. These are spoken of in a matter of
fact way. They are simply there. And, of course, at the very least we have to
acknowledge that death, killing, weeping, hatred and war are still realities in
our world. However much we might wish
them not to be. Ecclesiastes resists the
rose-tint of our religious spectacles.
Our ecclesiastical order of seasons and times for reflection will always
have to content with the rhythms and seasons of life to which Ecclesiastes
points. Death, for Ecclesiastes, is part
of life; an insight matched only by St Francis’ invocation of ‘Sister Bodily
Death’ in the Canticle of the Sun. It is an insight from which Christians and
the Church all too often flee.
Ecclesiastes will not allow this.
So Ecclesiastes points to the uncomfortable truths, the bits
we’d like to gloss over. And the second
thing to notice from our passage this evening is that there are limits to what
we can know. Our reading concluded that
despite all the gifts of intellect that God has given to human beings, “they
cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end”. However much we find out, however clever we
get, there is always more to know and we never have a complete grasp of any
aspect of human knowledge. In the face
of all forms of hubris about human knowledge, religious, philosophical,
scientific or political, Ecclesiastes responds by wielding a small but very
sharp pin. We do not know the half of
it.
The wisdom of Ecclesiastes, seeing vanity in everything, is
to point to the unpleasant and uncomfortable truths; and to reminds us that
there is always more to learn. And
attending to this wisdom should lead us to the virtue of humility. What are we missing? What more is there to know? This is, of course, the foundation of good
science. One science journalist has
described scientific method as ‘formalised humility’. Albert Einstein is
reputed to have said that “My religion consists of a humble
admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight
details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind.” Science, at its best, has always been about a
humble approach to the world, allowing the evidence to dictate our theorising;
acknowledging the gaps and the inconsistencies in our knowledge; and on
occasion turning over a whole way of looking at the world for one which better
fits the evidence. The best science is
humble.
And if the best science is humble, it
should hardly need saying that the best religion is also humble. But it does need saying, again and
again. Humility is a Christian virtue. Not just humility in dealing with others, but
humility in being honest about our own faith and doubts, humility in
acknowledging the gaps in our knowledge and the inconsistencies in our
thinking. The great Anglican theologian Richard Hooker wrote, ‘Think ye are
men, deem it not impossible for ye to err’.
It is wise advice. Humility is
required when we meet those from a different tradition, Christian or
non-Christian. We have much yet to
learn. Humility is required when we
encounter those who don’t believe, they too have much to teach those of us who
do believe. (The Catholic theologian Denys
Turner used to say that we need atheists to teach us which gods we don’t
believe in!)
Just imagine that this shared appreciation of the virtue of
humility was the basis of the discussions about science and religion instead of
the shrill and theologically illiterate confrontations of Dawkins and his
disciples (and the shrill and often equally theologically illiterate ‘defences’
of religion made in response). There is
much that could be learned about the nature of and need for faith in both
science and religion. Much too could be
learned from a deep discussion of the importance of doubt in both science and
religion. More still could be learned
about the genuine points of tension and difficulty between good science and
good religion.
But this evening let us give thanks for the insidious and
rebellious witness of Ecclesiastes to the uncomfortable truths of this life and
to the limits of human knowledge; and for its cry of ‘vanity’ to all forms of
human pomposity. And let us learn the
way of humility. Amen.
Given at Derby Cathedral 26.1.14.
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