Spreading Around the Wealth
It seems
that much of this chapter is a chapter that talks about dealing with the
uncertainty of the future. Before I go
into this chapter, I want to take a moment to talk about the relevancy of this
topic in our culture. Yesterday I worked
at the Mobile Food Pantry through the Real Life Center. Because it is Christmas, we had a guy at the
end of the line asking people if they had any prayer concerns and if we could
pray with them before they went home. Of
the 200 or so people we served, all but 2 wanted prayer. So this poor man was swamped with prayer
opportunities. What an incredible
problem to have, right? So I offered to help give this man a hand praying for
and over the people. I found myself
kneeling down outside of people’s cars and praying with them as they drove
through a parking lot receiving food supplies.
It was a very profound experience to pray with and for these people.
But as I
prayed, I came upon a discovery. Want to
guess what was the most requested prayer?
Hope. Hope for their health. Hope for their country. Hope for their finances. Hope.
Every single one of the cars that came through had a spirit of
uncertainty about them. This is a
difficult world and a difficult time in which we live. Jobs are not plentiful at all. Health insurance is becoming mandatory as
well as more and more expensive. We are
a world that needs hope because our future is very much uncertain. It is with this frame of mind that I come to
Ecclesiastes 11 today.
The author
of Ecclesiastes is absolutely promoting an attitude of “spreading the
wealth.” He tells us to be generous with
seven or eight. There are a few reasons
to do this. First of all, temporal
blessings do not last forever. They come
and they go. I think that’s ultimately
why we have the cliché: The Lord giveth and He taketh away. We are accustomed to things falling into our
life as much as we are familiar with things falling out of our life.
So what
does this have to do with “spreading the wealth?” Well, the odds say that a whole community
will not suffer loss at the same time.
So, if I can create relationships of generosity with the people around
me, then when I am in a position of having a need someone else might be in the
position of filling my need. Likewise,
when they are in a position of having need I might be in a position to help
fill that need. The opening verses of
Ecclesiastes 11 teach us the importance of community and communal generosity.
Not Focusing Too Much On Reading the Signs
As we move
along in this chapter, Solomon also gives us the teaching to not observe the
wind or regard the clouds. I need to be
a little careful here, because this is one of those teachings that if pushed to
the extreme it can lead us to a bad teaching.
However, in its nutshell what Solomon is teaching us is that if we care
too much about the conditions of the world we’ll never get any work done.
For
example, I can remember living in Pennsylvania and thinking about planting
flowers. We could technically get frosts
as late as June 15th. However, we
typically didn’t get frosts past May 15th.
So I had a choice to make every May.
Do I plant knowing a frost could come or do I plant late knowing that I
have planted after any frost? But if I
wait until June, then I might have waited too long and the plants might not
have enough time to grow and mature and give the fruit of its growth. I can add to it that June was usually a very
rainy and cloudy month, so seeds put into the ground in June would often run
the risk of rotting before they sprouted and could handle the water better.
Solomon’s
point? If we wait for the absolute
perfect condition, we will often miss our chance. If we watch the winds and watch the clouds,
we’ll talk ourselves out of many good opportunities – but perhaps not ideal
opportunities – to get the work done. In
the end, we have to ask ourselves one simple question. What’s more important, accomplishing the work
with an assumed risk because of less-than-ideal circumstances or only working
under ideal circumstances?
As I said,
we really need to be careful here. I
don’t want to give the impression that we shouldn’t care about the
circumstances, either. When the time is
wrong, the time is wrong. You don’t
plant most things the day before expecting a big frost or a heavy snow. You don’t buy a new car if you are struggling
to pay your bills. You don’t take your
family out to an expensive dinner if you don’t have the money to also put food
on the table at home the rest of the week.
We must seek balance, not either extreme. Pay attention to what is going on around you,
but don’t seek the ideal so much that you miss out on a good opportunity to do
the work that God has placed before you.
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