The Why of Life”
A sermon by Brent J. Eelman
The ancient philosopher, Socrates, said, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” How does one examine life? By asking questions of it, hard questions. There are questions that do not have simple and comfortable answers. They are questions that seemingly have many answers, and some that have none. These are the questions of meaning. The questions with which the soul struggles. But this struggle of the soul is also one that creates wonder and awe and it is the foundation of any type of religious experience.
The philosopher, Britt Marie Schiller wrote, “By keeping a sense of wonder alive we are all engaged in thinking about how we might live and what makes life worth living.” Today is the first of four sermons on life questions: Why? What? Where? and How? These are foundational questions regarding human knowledge of the world around us… but they are also existential questions about life itself and the puzzling events that often occur. They are questions about the meaning and purpose of life itself.
There is an African proverb: “The one who asks questions, doesn’t lose his way.” We are people of “the way.” We are people who wrestle with being disciples of Jesus Christ in 2023, and we have questions. The first big one is “Why?”
The first text is from the book of Ecclesiastes. It is categorized as Hebrew wisdom literature. Ecclesiastes is a hard read, not because it contains difficult words, concepts and ideas… no! It is hard because it confronts us with some difficult truths that we would rather not acknowledge.
Ecclesiastes 9: 7-12
Go, eat your bread with enjoyment, and drink your wine with a merry heart; for God has long ago approved what you do. Let your garments always be white; do not let oil be lacking on your head. Enjoy life with the wife whom you love, all the days of your vain life that are given you under the sun, because that is your portion in life and in your toil at which you toil under the sun. Whatever your hand finds to do, do with your might; for there is no work or thought or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol, to which you are going.
Again I saw that under the sun the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to the intelligent, nor favor to the skillful; but time and chance happen to them all. For no one can anticipate the time of disaster. Like fish taken in a cruel net, and like birds caught in a snare, so mortals are snared at a time of calamity, when it suddenly falls upon them.
The second reading is the conclusion of one of the most popular chapters in the New Testament, Paul’s description of Christian love.
I Corinthians 13: 8-13
Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.
Today’s message is about one of those spiritual wrestling matches that all of us have with temptation, struggle, and existence. It is about the question, Why? It is a good and proper question haunts humanity. It is a question which the psalmist asked again and again. Jesus, dying on the cross, quoted psalm 22 when he shouted to the heavens, “Why have you forsaken me?” Why? Truly a vexing question.
Do you remember the 1984 Olympics? In the women’s 3000 meter race, the American, Mary Decker was the favorite. She had trained and practiced for this event for a decade. This was going to be the final achievement in a storied athletic career. She was the fastest in the race.. and yet in the midst of that race, she was tripped by a young barefoot south African runner, Zola Budd. I will never forget the look on Decker’s face.
Ecclesiastes is wisdom literature and of all the books in the bible, it asks the question “Why?” most profoundly. Its author was a man who had seen a great deal of life and he was pondering the mysteries of life. His introspection was the essence of wisdom. What did he see? The fastest person does not always win the race. The smartest person is not always the richest. The biggest army does not always win the war. Time and chance happen to us all.
I, personally, am troubled by this text. I have wrestled with it since seminary days. I am troubled by the whole idea of “time and chance.” Here the bible says it happens to us all. Why is it troubling? Because there is truth there that I want to deny.
- I truly want to believe that the fastest wins the race.
- I want to believe that the most intelligent will be recognized and will be rewarded.
- I want to believe that there is an essential fairness to life. And what that text says is “No.”
- I don’t like to hear that message, and yet I fear it is true.
This is the “why” of life. This is the question with which the soul struggles.
Each of us grapples with this question in many different ways.
- Why was I born?
- Why did I get sick?
- Why did I lose?
- Why did I get passed over?
We fight, we wrestle, and we argue with this question, because it is an essential question of meaning and purpose. WHY? We want an answer. We try and come up with things like: “It wasn’t meant to be?” (That works if it is something that happens to someone else.)
The question “why?” has produced more bad clichés than we can count, especially in religious circles. We’ve heard them. We have even said them.
- Love the sinner, hate the sin.
- Everything happens for a reason.
- When God closes a door, He opens a window.
- God won’t give you more than you can handle.
The last one is particularly problematic. Early in my ministry, I was with a couple, Bill and Cindy. Their son, Johnny, developed cancer at the age of 4. Nine months later, he died. They let me walk with them through the ups and downs of their travail and shared openly with me. When Johnny died, I was there when the doctor (who just a week before delivered my child), pronounced him dead. They shared with me about how difficult it was to hear the different cliches that people offered, trying to answer the question why. The most troubling was “God won’t give you more than you can handle.” Cindy looked at me and said, “Does that mean that if we were not so strong, Johnny wouldn’t have died?” Why? Why? I am not sure we will ever discover a satisfying answer in this lifetime… and yet we still need to struggle with it.
How can we approach the why questions with integrity? I am going to suggest three things.
First: I believe that it is important, vitally important, to the development of the personality and spiritual growth, that we struggle with this question. I doubt that we ever get clear answers. But I do believe that we gain wisdom in this struggle and somehow within that struggle we move closer to the reality of God.
Consider the lives of the great women and men of history and you will see individuals who faced the abyss of this question with moral courage. The wisdom literature of the Old Testament blesses this struggle.
Job, a good man, wrestles with the demons of reality pondering the question “Why?” “Why have I lost my family, my farm, and my health? Why do I have such idiots for friends?”
Ecclesiastes shares the candid reflections of one who openly struggled with “why?” I believe that the struggle is heroic, and we should not give in to it. Like Jacob wrestling the angel, we need to hold on to that struggle.. and though we are wounded by it, it will bless us.
Second. We can live with great gaps in our understanding. Though we struggle with the question why; though we may never get a complete and satisfying answer, we can still live and exist joyfully.
Most people treasure Paul’s great chapter on love in Corinthians 13. But the conclusion of that chapter is fascinating description of the existential reality of humanity. Paul concluded by saying: “Now we see in a mirror dimly, someday we shall see face to face. Now we know in part… some day we will know fully.” He was stating that though we may never know, in our earthly lifetime, the answer the question “why”… there is an answer… and someday we will understand.
We are limited human beings and our biggest limitation is our own ego and sense of self importance.
- We are unable to see the big picture.
- We are unable to comprehend what is going on.
- We will never understand fully?
- We cannot expect the why question of life to be answered satisfactorily.
But someday it will, and we will see face to face. How do we live then?
How do we exist with this most uncomfortable reality? We love. The prescription to love, is the ethic that enables us to live with the loose ends of life.
- We don’t understand why everything happens, (even when we think we do). We don’t understand one another’s motivations.
- We don’t understand the shortcomings of others.
- We don’t understand ourselves, so we need to practice love.
We need to practice forgiveness, and I am sure that there is someone you need to forgive today. We need to bear one another up. We need to learn patience in our relationships. Love endures all things, indeed it enables us to endure the reality of not completely knowing why.
Third. We need to appreciate the wisdom from Ecclesiastes. “Go, eat your bread with enjoyment, and drink your wine with a merry heart; for God has long ago approved what you do.” There is an earthy realism to this advice. It sounds like, “eat, drink and be merry,” which is offensive to our puritan heritage, but it is an affirmation of the goodness of life and that life is a gift to be enjoyed. The life that God has given to us is good. Live it fully, despite life’s essential unfairness. Live to the glory of God.
When I ponder the life of Jesus, I see the joy that he took in life. I suspect that the reason he got some people so upset was because he knew the essential goodness of life, and lived that way. In Matthew 11, he addressed some long-faced pharisees about the abundance of life. He quoted a children’s song, “‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we wailed, and you did not mourn.’” Then he added a commentary:
“For John (the Baptist) came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon’; 19 the Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ Yet wisdom is vindicated by her deeds.
That is the Jesus we know and love… the Jesus who richly enjoys life in God’s creation… This is the Jesus we need to proclaim to the world.
The tough questions in life are the ones we can’t answer and the usually begin with the word “why”. As you try to understand the meaning of your life, I encourage you to continue to struggle with that question, because there is a blessing in that struggle. As you deal with all the things that you don’t know and understand these moments of frustration and anger, practice love. It enables us all to live with the incomplete knowledge that we have.
Finally, in the midst of life’s struggles do not lose sight of that which is so important and so essential. Focus your life on those things that matter. Paul wrote to the Philippians: “Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, pure excellent, think about these things.” Think about these things… and ask yourself, “Why?” Finally, in the words of Ecclesiastes, “Enjoy the life that God has given to you.” This is the good news. Amen.
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