Ecclesiastes | Wisdom Lit 2025

For the summer months, Alyssa and I wanted to teach from some of the Wisdom Literature of the Old Testament, which include the Psalms, Proverbs, Song of Songs, Job, and Ecclesiastes. 

One thing I didn’t learn growing up is that each of these books offers a pretty distinctly different perspective on the human experience. They really need to be read together; otherwise, we risk forming a narrow view of life and faith. I actually believe that is true of the entire Bible. It takes the whole of Scripture to discern a fuller picture of who God is, who we are, and what life means. No one book offers that complete picture. The wisdom books even present us with conflicting viewpoints, and I think that’s a feature, not a flaw.

I know some people get uncomfortable with the idea that the Bible might contradict itself. And yes, there are many ways to think about what it means for the Bible to be God’s Word. What helps me is remembering that the Bible is a collection of books, written by about 40 different authors over 1,500 years…people with different experiences, cultural contexts, and personalities. And all of that individuality mattered to God. 

I believe the Holy Spirit inspired these authors and guided the formation of the canon of Scripture. In a way, the Bible, like Jesus, is both fully divine and fully human. 

So I don’t think the wisdom books contradict one another, but they do represent different experiences and questions, which I actually think is quite beautiful…and necessary. What two people have identical perspectives on anything, especially God, faith, and life?

It is the small book of Ecclesiastes that I invite you to consider with me today. I don’t remember the first time I read it, but it has long been a favorite. It is not as popular as Proverbs or Psalms, but it stands out. Ecclesiastes records the reflections of a person named Qoheleth, a Hebrew word for “the one who gathers.” More specifically the book is a memoir of sorts, about Qoheleth’s search for what it means to live a good life. 

There are actually two voices in the book: an anonymous narrator who frames the story, and Qoheleth, the Teacher or Preacher, who shares his reflections. I’ll call him by his Hebrew name—Qoheleth.

His thesis is introduced right away in chapter 1 verse 2: “Smoke, nothing but smoke. There’s nothing to anything, it’s all smoke.” (MSG) This is said almost 40 times throughout the rest of the book. 

The word Qoheleth uses in this refrain is hevel, which in Hebrew refers to vapor or mist. It’s something you can see, but can’t grasp. It’s there... and then it’s gone. It’s not that life is meaningless, it’s that life is elusive, fleeting, unpredictable.

Qoheleth even goes on to say things like, “I hate life. As far as I can see, what happens on earth is a bad business. It’s smoke—and spitting into the wind.” MSG Ecc 2:17

Cheery, right? 

If you’ve never doubted life, or questioned God, this book might rub you the wrong way. But Qoheleth was the OG, deconstructing faith before it was cool.

So why I do I love this book? 

Well. Growing up, my favorite Disney character was Eeyore, so maybe I’ve always been drawn to melancholy. But the truth is, I have always lived with some level of discontent, an ongoing stream of existential questions. A therapist once kindly told me this doesn’t mean I’m broken; it just means I’m more attuned than most to what’s missing in the world.

And if I’m being honest, countless times, life and all its struggle and darkness has not made sense to me; being human can feel like a meaningless endeavor. I can’t help but wonder what the point of all of this is. 

And yet, I still believe in God. (Phew. You can all breathe easier.) 

But how? How do we believe in the God of the Bible, a good and loving Creator of the universe, when the world looks and operates the way it does? How do we make the most out of this one life?

I know I am not alone in these feelings. I do not have to tell you that life is not how it should be. I am guessing the reality is that most, if not all of you, have wrestled with God, wrestled with your faith. And I’d argue the Bible tells us to take a number and get in line; we’re in good company. There are several books, including Ecclesiastes, that give voice to this struggle.

So let’s take a look. Even though Ecclesiastes is only 12 chapters long, there is no way I can do justice to the entire book in one sermon. But let’s take a quick look at some of Qoheleth’s conclusions.

First Qoheleth seeks wisdom, only to decide, “the greater my wisdom, the greater my grief. To increase in knowledge only increases sorrow.” (1:18) He realizes that both the wise and the foolish ultimately die, “In the days to come, both will be forgotten…Everything is meaningless—like chasing the wind.” (2:16,17b)

Next he seeks to enjoy life to the fullest, indulging in every pleasure, but concludes again, “it was all so meaningless—like chasing the wind.”

Then he throws himself into the work of his hands, only to discover, “I must leave to others everything I have earned. And who can tell whether my successors will be wise or foolish? Yet they will control everything I have gained by my skill and hard work under the sun. How meaningless!” (2:18)

Qoheleth names the injustices of life—even within the very systems meant to uphold justice. He concludes, “God created people to be virtuous, but they have each turned to follow their own downward path.” (7:29) He sees the abuse of power, the oppression of people, the vanity of wealth and the futility of hoarding riches. It is all hevel. Our life is a shadow.

Ok, wow, thanks Brandi, super uplifting sermon…

So what? Where do we go from here? 

I think Ecclesiastes offers a few important takeaways, some apparent in these few snapshots and some that require reading all 12 chapters.

The first: Qoheleth is an honest friend. 

Reading Ecclesiastes is like sitting down to coffee with that friend who shoots straight with you. The friend who shares hard truths because they love you, and truth is kindness. The friend you know gets it. The friend who doesn’t rush you through your grief or anger because it feels uncomfortable to them, but instead sits with you in those heavy feelings so you don’t carry them alone. 

Qoheleth doesn’t do feel-good religion. He doesn’t pretend there is a reason for everything. He doesn’t throw out empty platitudes like “God won’t give you more than you can handle” or “this too shall pass.” He is welcoming us into his raw and unfiltered processing.

Life, he says, is often random. And sometimes, deeply painful.

The second takeaway: God welcomes our sincere wrestling. 

Some might say Qoheleth’s honesty borders on heresy, but I see it as faith. It is faith in God that fuels this wrestling. It is faith that demands that we call God to account for the broken and destructive ways of the world. It is my unwavering faith that causes me to question the human experience because it often falls woefully short of what God intended. Or at least what I hope God intended. 

Tim Mackie from the Bible Project puts it, ”Qoheleth compels us to an honest faith that’s willing to acknowledge the presence of doubt that we cannot dismiss and questions that we can’t always fully answer given our human limitations.” 

Ecclesiastes is proof that God and the Bible give us freedom to struggle with the big questions and doubts.  And I want you to hear this clearly: we welcome your wrestling too. We do not want you to wrestle alone. We want to be a church family that does not dismiss doubts or hard questions, but is honest in the processing and growing of our faith. This is part of what it means to live an integrated faith.

The third takeaway Ecclesiastes offers us: God gives us good gifts.

Qoheleth actually does not write a lot about God, but what he does write is crucial. He makes it clear that God is the one who gives good gifts. 

In Chapter 9:7-9 he writes, “Seize life! Eat bread with gusto, drink wine with a robust heart. Oh yes-God takes pleasure in your pleasure! … Relish life with those you love each and every day of your precious life. Each day is God’s gift. It’s all you get in exchange for the hard work of staying alive. Make the most of each one! Whatever turns up, grab it and do it. And heartily!” 

Here is what I do not want you to hear…I do not want you to hear Qohelth’s counsel to find joy where it can be found as spiritual bypassing. What I mean by spiritual bypassing is the tendency to use spiritual beliefs and practices to avoid negative feelings or unresolved wounds. 

Qoheleth doesn’t ignore the pain of life, he spends chapters describing it! This is also not instruction toward self-centered consumption of pleasure as a means of escaping the pain. 

In spite of all the hard stuff we endure, Qoheleth insists that joy is possible. And not only possible, it is holy. 

Enjoying good food, meaningful work, friendships, beauty—these aren’t distractions. They’re acts of worship and gratitude. Joy, when life is hard, becomes a radical act of faith.

The last takeaway is: Fearing God means letting God be God.

Ecclesiastes ends with this simple (but not easy) conclusion: “Fear God. Do what he tells you. And that’s it. Eventually God will bring everything that we do out into the open and judge it according to its hidden intent.” (12:13)

This is where Qoheleth lands. All that we do needs to be rooted in a fear of the Lord. This is advice echoed all throughout the Bible. This fear is not the same as being afraid of, but it is a holy reverence and a humble recognition that we are limited, and God is not. We cannot fully understand the ways of the Creator who made the entire cosmos from nothing, and is moving it daily toward restoration.

Ecclesiates doesn’t offer us tidy answers. But it does give us permission to ask, to feel, to live honestly before God.

There is a beauty in our holy discontent, in our longing for meaning and our hope for things to be made right. But don’t let the longing keep you from living. Keep going. Do something. 

To close, I want to share the words of Cole Arthur Riley, the author of Black Liturgies: “It can feel foolish to pause to marvel at the stars when the world is burning. Or to find the world beautiful when you’ve known it to betray you. But wonder is a liberation practice. A reminder that we contain more than tragedy. Beauty is our origin and our anchor.”

When so much lies beyond our control, at the very least we can choose how we show up in the world. We can choose to stay open-hearted despite suffering being a very real part of life. We can choose to ask for help, and to offer help. Each day is gift, an opportunity for joy, and ultimately an invitation to join with the Spirit in embodying God’s loving and merciful presence in a broken and hurting world.