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Seek Life: All Else Is Vanity
A sermon preached by the Reverend Dr. Stephanie J. Nagley at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, Bethesda, Maryland on August 1, 2004.
Mata Hari, the World War I double agent, looked at her French firing squad, spit out her cigarette, and offered one last bit of wisdom, “Life” she said, “is an illusion.” Who would know more about illusions than Mata Hari? Her life was based entirely on illusion. She was beautiful and engaging. A siren who seduced French officers into giving up military secrets that she turned around and sold to the Germans. Then she seduced the Germans into giving up information important to the French. Her mistake was in believing she could do it all. Her mistake was in thinking that she was in control. That was ultimate and deadly illusion.
We all take on certain illusions to get us through the day. We all like to believe that we are, to some extent in control of our lives. I think T.S. Eliot had it right when he said, “Human beings can’t bear too much reality.” And so our particular and peculiar life dance is that of developing illusions and then having those illusions dashed all too frequently on the rocks of reality.
Every now and then we get into one of those cycles where everything seems to be going our way. We are the masters and mistresses of our fate. We are the farmers satisfied with our crops and thinking of new ways to store up life’s abundance. We are in control of our kingdoms. We are the movers and shakers of life. But then something happens and life intrudes.
And life seems to intrude in some of the most unexpected ways, simple things that rock our worlds. Like being in a turn lane stopped at a light. And there he is, that unwashed man holding a cardboard sign that says, “Please, help me.” You stare straight ahead but you can feel him looking at you. No matter what you choose to do in response, we are caught in the uncertainty, or guilt or anger or pity or the painful awareness that one of you has a better life. And what if the better life is his?
Life intrudes usually unexpectedly and breaks through our illusions that we’ve got it all under control. Sometimes the intrusion is at 3:00 a.m.. You wake in tears or dripping with anxiety and you’re not sure why. Or you know why your awake but you don’t know what to do. Life intrudes. Someone loses their job because someone in India or Africa can do it just as well but cheaper. Or someone dies and for reasons that don’t make sense. Life intrudes.
Life intrudes and suddenly nothing makes sense and we’re off searching once again for that order that allows us to go on. One minute we’re sitting on our porch with a cold glass of lemonade admiring our crops and thinking about that new edition and then we are the writers of Ecclesiastes asking, “What is life’s purpose? Is it all for nothing? Is it in the end all meaningless, all our striving, all our desires and wants, all our hopes and dreams?”
Those are difficult, impossible questions. But they are our questions. They are the fundamental questions of people seeking to understand life.
Seeking the meaning to life is what we’ve being doing since Adam and Eve frolicked in the garden, since folks built that tower called Babel so they could get eye to eye with God. Seeking life’s meaning has being going on forever, or at least since human beings have been around.
There was a rabbi, much and admired for his wisdom, who lay dying. His students came to his bedside seeking wisdom. His students lined up, singled file. As was the custom the most brilliant student was first, at the bedside, the second most brilliant behind him and so on until the end of the line where theirs a pleasant enough fellow a good three rooms away. The most brilliant student leaned over the rabbi and asked, “Rabbi, what is the meaning of life?” The rabbi drew a raspy breath and said, “Life is a river.” The most brilliant student turned to the second most brilliant student and whispered, “The rabbi said, ‘Life is a river’ pass it down.” And the word was passed from student to student until it came to that very pleasant, but not too bright, fellow at the end of the line. He said, “What does he mean, ‘Life is a river?’” And his question passed back up the line until the most brilliant student leaned over the dying rabbi and said, “Rabbi, what do you mean, ‘Life is a river?’” The rabbi shrugged, “So, maybe it’s not a river.”[1]
Like those students, like the writer of Ecclesiastes, we listen for the meaning. And like the writer of Ecclesiastes and those students we are often left with more questions than answers. There’s a kind of wink and a nod at our earnestness to possess life rather than to dance with life.
The book of Ecclesiastes comes across from a writer who seems in desperate need of some cheering up. But the book isn’t just about despair. The book is a step beyond despair. The writer takes us to that place where the absurdity of our lives bumps up against what really matter. The writer moves us to a place of deeper meaning. He sees the temporality of our lives and delivers us to the only reality that matters, that remains constant, that has any true power. He faces into that reality too hard to bear, the reality that whatever we do or build or acquire is finite, but that there is a reality that is infinite and not of our making.
Every now and then we get a reminder that our lives are finite. We get a reminder that trying to possess life is like being called out of the shower, dripping wet to catch the phone only to reach it too late. Or more accurately it’s more like being called out of the shower naked, dripping wet in front of the window, listening to nothing but a dial tone. That’s not quite it. Trying to posses life is like being called out of the shower to catch the phone too late, standing in front of the window, naked and dripping wet with three guys who have come to clean the gutters staring back at you. That sums up the book of Ecclesiastes. That is the story of the farmer who going to store up all his treasurers, and builds bigger and bigger barns. Underneath all our careful planning and razor sharp reasoning to possess and control life is absurdity. All the ways we seek to keep our sense of being the masters and mistresses of our lives are ephemeral. We are naked and vulnerable to where life takes us. We may be horrified at being caught naked and dripping wet, but then we might as well laugh through our tears and embrace life as it really is.
Edna St. Vincent Millay said, “It’s not true that life is one damn thing after another, its one damn thing over and over again.” Ecclesiastes is a book about seeking that one damn thing over and over again. The book is about letting go of our illusion that what we create or acquire matters and lasts. The book reminds us that we are forever in the tension of our mortality and a reality that continues beyond time.
The writer tells about the seeker in us all, people who want to live in the illusion that we can build a life that lasts long after we’re gone and people who know that such building is vanity. Every now and then the illusions are dashed and reality bites. In the clash of illusion and reality we get a glimpse of God, the Mystery of Life itself. Somewhere between the foolishness of thinking we’re in control and having our barns fall down around us we catch the meaning we seek.
My life plan was to be a scholar and teacher of nursing. At the end of my second year as a university professor I was told my contract wouldn’t be renewed. The powers told me I wasn’t productive enough, which didn’t fit my reality. I was confused and pushed for more clarity. When pushed I was told the problem was my inability to conform, to play the game. I still couldn’t get it and kept pressing. Finally out of exasperation at my nagging the chairperson looked at me and said, “It’s your hair.” Seems the spikes and long tail didn’t fit the plan.
I was devastated. Everything fell a part. I shook my fist at God. Everything I counted on to define me was gone. But, in the void came a voice. In the void was a presence. I knew I wasn’t alone. I knew that there was a presence beyond anything the world could provide. Sometimes when everything is stripped away we get a glimpse of meaning, and we hear the whisper of God.
Well, as events unfolded, I secured a grant that came with significant prestige, not to mention paying all my salary. I suddenly was the darling of the department. I laughed. Nothing had changed. My hair was the same. I wasn’t more politically savvy. I laughed. I knew the insignificance of such accomplishments. All is vanity, but in the presence of the void is the voice, there is the life we seek.[2]
Life is vanity that is the life we think matters. All our striving and building and self-satisfaction is an illusion. Illusions get us through the day, but every now and then something happens. There we stand naked and dripping wet in tears and laughter.
We don’t find life’s meaning in the barns we build or fields we harvest or accolades we receive. All that is just gloss. We are merely seekers of the Life. And at the end the best that can be said of any of us is that we loved well.
Every now and then the clutter of our living parts and God peeks through reminding us what really matters and the meaning or purpose of our existence. We aren’t the makers of life. We don’t create meaning. We are the messengers. We are the instruments through which God has voice. This is our purpose, our task, and, yes, even our risk. This is our destiny. Everything else is but vanity.
[1] John Shea, Stories of Faith. (Back to article)
[2] From “It’s the Hair” a sermon preached by the Rev. Stephanie Nagley, August 5, 2001. (Back to article)
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