It’s Not That Serious
The list of things I no longer take seriously is long.
The earliest one I can remember is little league. I was a baseball kid in a baseball family in a baseball town. No “little leaguers” really existed there, only future Big Leaguers. I took batting practice till my hands hurt and threw the ball against the fence when nobody was looking from a young age, convinced I was going places.
But then my career ended in college, and the only way I ever made it behind the scenes of a Major League ballpark was as the chaplain.
Turns out, it wasn’t that serious.
The next one I can remember was image. I was a narcissistic and spiritually unconverted teenager. I went to church and was taught better, but when push came to shove in my mind, I was my own god. I lifted weights and chose clothes and washed my car and cultivated my social surroundings like I was setting trends for the hemisphere.
Now I’m unnoticeable in New York City (where some people do set trends for the hemisphere). I’m closer to 40 than 20, I have an SUV with a car seat, and the hair I obsessively fixed is gone. To the stranger as external judge, I’m “doing fine” but only in an unremarkable kind of way.
Turns out, it wasn’t that serious. Again.
I still make the same mistake. Through almost seven years of marriage, my most consistent mistake is to argue with my wife rudely and self-righteously because I’ve become convinced that something really matters that much. My marital lowlight reel is scenes of myself arguing like the justice of heaven is on my side, only to realize a day or two later 1) that’s probably not true and 2) even if it is, it’s just not that serious.
This is part of the human condition. “What’s important” is a deceptively moving target that tricks us into doubling down and over-investing again and again. Then we end up empty-handed.
What was important to you a year ago? Or five, or ten? How many times have you grabbed onto something as a must-have, only to realize later it was actually a take-or-leave?
Probably enough times that we all could afford to go ahead and loosen our grip on things.
The author of an ancient biblical text points us in that direction: “Vanity of vanities…all is vanity” (Ecc 1:2). All is vanity. All. If that’s true, we should reclassify the things that weigh heavy on our minds as simply not that heavy in the grand scheme. The things we think are crucial are usually quite optional.
He goes on: “What does man gain by all the toil at which he toils under the sun? A generation goes, and a generation comes, but the earth remains forever” (Ecc 1:3-4). In other words, pick a random previous generation. Say, everyone alive in 1900. Are the things they worried about still on radar? How about folks from 1800? 1700? Nope. From the tycoons and tyrants to the pastors and peasants, are all forgotten, and all their concerns with them.
Nobody’s aspirations or actions survive the weathering effect of time. “No one remembers the former generations, and even those yet to come will not be remembered by those who follow them” (Ecc 1:11). If you owned Manhattan Island itself, the tide of time would still wash away your influence like a sand castle.
This frustrates us because “God has put eternity into man’s heart” (Ecc 3:11). We want something to matter. We feel it must. So “all is vanity” feels like bad news. We’re left asking:
Is anything worth taking seriously?
Yes, there is still one thing, accordingly to Ecclesiastes.
There is still one ticket to the “eternity in our hearts”.
There is still one exit ramp from a vain life.
There is still one thing that is that serious.
And that is God. The person of God. And the act of respecting and following God.
After declaring every human pursuit meaningless, the author of Ecclesiastes lands here: “The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man” (Ecc 12:13).
Fear God and keep his commandments. That’s our “whole duty.” That’s the “end of the matter.”
It’s as if he’s saying, “It’s not your job to make your little life projects into something more lasting than they could ever realistically become. But there is a God who will impart lasting meaning to you. He will bring something permanent into your otherwise vapor-quick life. And the eternity in your heart will be satisfied.”
God is the way to everlasting significance. Respecting and following him is still the path to meaning, no matter how many disrespect him and follow themselves instead, swearing by that path all along. They will end up lost in the labyrinth of their own shifting desires, eternally on the wild goose chase of finding something that matters, only for fixed meaning to elude them again and again as their heart churns out a new hope.
But God is permanent reality. God is steady. And therefore God is the litmus test about whether a sports game or fashion statement or argument or relationship or career or bonus or vacation or sexual experience really matters.
One thing is certain. Our feelings are going to often scream, “This matters.” And they’re often going to be wrong.
God matters.
And for Ecclesiastes, that’s the end of the matter.
