L. R. Tarsitano—Saint Andrew’s Church, Savannah

The Twentieth Sunday after Trinity—October 24, 2004

No More Waiting

“Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest” (Ecclesiastes 9:10).

A vast number of human beings live their lives in what amounts to a state of paralysis. Instead of living, they are waiting—waiting for the right opportunity to come along; waiting for the right-sized bank account; waiting for others to take action; waiting for some magic moment in their lives when everything will be perfect and all of their problems will be solved for them, without their having to lift a finger.

This waiting can devour entire human generations, as people offer up the one real life that God has made available to them on the pagan altar of imaginary lives, utter impossibilities, and empty fantasies. They want a good life, but they never live at all because they do not submit themselves to God and to the life that God offers, whether in this world or in the next.

Solomon, the author of the words we heard this morning from the book Ecclesiastes, was an exceptionally flawed human being. God gave him a great kingdom, the kingdom of his father David, and God gave him great wisdom and ability. These gifts were given with a single condition: Solomon had to remember always that he was God’s servant and to worship his Divine Master alone. Solomon, however, violated this condition in spectacular ways, indulging himself, defiling himself, with every pleasure and vice available to an earthly king.

What we have in Ecclesiastes, then, is Solomon’s confession—his admission of his sins and his contrite recognition of the pointlessness of a life apart from God. We also have the wisdom of a reformed sinner who has tried every sin of human vanity and emptiness in this fallen world, which Solomon describes as “under the sun.” The “sun” here is the material boundary of a material world both fallen into sin and trivial in comparison to the glory and righteousness of God in eternity, where God himself is the perfect light of being and where there is no need for a sun that rises and sets.

What Solomon has learned, therefore, from both his sinning and repenting, is that God has given to each and every human being a life that has infinite meaning within the divine purposes. We encounter those purposes in the situation and state of life in which God has chosen to place us, so that “whatever our hand finds to do” in the life that God has given us should be done with all the strength of purpose that we can muster, especially as we discern God’s will for us, our divine calling, whether we are kings or subjects, rich men or slaves.

But if the value that God’s love places on us is infinite, leading within his purposes to eternal life with our heavenly Father, our opportunity to embrace God’s purposes and the value that they bestow upon us is not infinite. There is a time limit. There is “no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave” where we must all eventually go. We must embrace God’s will for us in the life of this world, “under the sun,” where we must frankly war against our own sinfulness and fallenness, or we will enter upon our deaths into that realm of everlasting pointlessness, damnation and hell.

If we wait for a life or a calling other than what God in his mercy and Providence has offered, we will lose our lives and die. What we want out of life, or in life, just doesn’t matter in the face of the heavenly Father whose will is to be done on earth as it is in heaven. What God offers in terms of joys to be shared and burdens to be endured in this world is the one opening that each of us has to the life of the world to come.

Nor should we think, as many foolish people do, that embracing our heavenly Father’s will somehow guarantee us earthly success or honor in the eyes of men. The Son of God made man, our Lord Jesus Christ, embraced the heavenly Father’s will in all perfection, and this world gave him the lash, the crown of thorns, and the cross. This fallen world, mired in sin “under the sun,” is more often than not a place of disappointments because sin should be at least as disappointing and objectionable to us as it is to the God who made us to bear his image and likeness.

Solomon saw the mercy behind our disappointments when he returned to his senses and repented his sins, so that he wrote: “I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all” (Ecclesiastes 9:11). The distortions and disappointments of a sinful world happen to us all, many times when we work our hardest and do our best. And yet, when we cling to God’s purposes and define our lives by our heavenly Father’s will, trusting in his perfection, we are no more alone, defeated, or undone than our Lord Jesus was alone, defeated, or undone on the cross. Whatever the world thinks that it has accomplished in harming and disappointing us, there is still the resurrection to come, confirmed by the resurrection of our Lord—there is still the victory of God’s purposes in every faithful man, woman, and child, established in Jesus Christ.

Where, however, God in his grace and mercy counsels hope and opportunity, the fallen world counsels despair. The world says, if life is not perfect, give up. The world says, if you do not like the life and vocation that God has offered you, wait around for another life and calling that will never come. The world says, if you discover that you are a sinner, as all men are, refuse to be forgiven—die in your sins.

Nevertheless, our good God never offers us defeat, although he does offer us humility as an integral part of his gifts of forgiveness, faith, and eternal life. God puts these words into Solomon’s mouth: “For to him that is joined to all the living there is hope: for a living dog is better than a dead lion” (Ecclesiastes 9:4). As long as we are alive in this world “under the sun,” no matter how great our sins or debased our circumstances, God is prepared to take us unto himself and to give us eternal life in his kingdom. The humblest living person, compared here to a dog, is being offered eternal love, mercy, and life right now. The “lions” of culture, finance, and power, on the other hand, however esteemed and honored in this fallen world, have neither hope nor life if they live and die apart from God.

St. Paul applies this divine promise of the gift of life to the humble and the faithful in this morning’s portion of the Epistle to the Ephesians (6:1-9). When St. Paul lays out his advice to children and their parents, to slaves, servants, and their masters, it all adds us to this: whether we are parent or child, master or slave, powerful or weak, honored or dishonored, if we live to please God we have a good life in this world and the surety of a perfect life with our Father in heaven. The only “good life” that exists is the life that we live within God’s purposes and according to his judgment of what is best for us. We cannot expect to wear the crown of the adopted children of God and to be the heirs of heaven if we are not willing, as well, to bear the cross with Jesus, the only-begotten Son of God and our saving Lord. Thus, it is true wisdom and grace simply to get on with the lives that God grants us, serving as we are able, according to the opportunities to serve him that have been supplied to us by our heavenly Father.

In these troubled times for the Church, I should like to suggest to you, as well, one more application of the divine promise of the gift of life. This week a committee of Anglican bishops appointed by the Archbishop of Canterbury published what is called “the Windsor Report.” The supposed purpose of the report was to lay out how the Anglican Communion of churches throughout the world could heal and discipline the spiritual breach caused by the rejection of God’s commandments regarding sexual morality by the American Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada. The bishops failed miserably in this purpose.

Instead of offering the Word of God to sinners in need of redemption, the bishops wasted the opportunity that God had given them in order to protect their fellow ecclesiastical bureaucrats and to chastise those foreign bishops who have offered aid and comfort to American Anglicans who have been persecuted by the leaders of their own churches for being too faithful and for keeping to the Word of God.

The Windsor Report, therefore, was a great disappointment to a great many people who had been waiting for somebody else to fix the problems of the churches in this country and in Canada. But that waiting was wrong, and the disappointment they felt was a waste of time.

Any layman or priest, any parish or diocese that wishes to be faithful to God is, and has always been, able to take up the cross and to follow Jesus Christ. The time to live for God and to serve his purposes is now, and not some time in the future after more reports, more meetings, and more failures by church leaders who do not lead because they do not follow the Lord. The cleansing of the Church is the task at hand for all faithful persons, to be taken up with all their might. And the success of that cleansing will not be known in the approval of men or in the earthly success of the churches. That success will be known in the will of God and in the witness of the faithful to the Lord Jesus Christ.

God is ready for us to serve him right now. There is nothing to wait for and no perfect set of circumstances that will solve all our problems. There is only the will of God, and when we free ourselves from useless, deadly waiting to serve him, in our lives, in our homes, and in our congregations, we will find that we are perfectly, entirely, and blessedly free. And we will discover as Solomon did that such freedom within the will of God is the true, natural state, under heaven, of the beloved children of God.