The Courts of The Lord

Ever notice how no matter how hard you work you can never get to every task that lies before you or really make things nice? While you are planting a nice garden, the inside of the house is being systematically dismantled. While you are doing laundry the kitchen becomes a sugar encrusted sea of refuse and despair. While you are cleaning the school room, someone is eating a crumbly bun quietly in the car. Of course you do, but you probably aren't struggling through Ecclesiastes and the last tiny little bit of school and the sudden panic that it is nearly June and there is a whole bunch of stuff that needs to be done and look nice–like painting the the parish hall, and coping with that awful cleaning closet with all the vile chemicals, off of which the door fell–all at the same time. Or you are a nice holy person who doesn't descend into rage at the first sign of dirt. You are that clever mature person who can “let it go” and “focus on the people”.

I am profoundly discouraged that someone like Solomon, who never did a day of house work in his life or had to interact with his thousands of children, and who probably walked in a stately way around the walls of Jerusalem, the courts of the temple, watching everyone labor industriously away, and who, in fact, did see its completion, he is the one who most perfectly articulates this never ending spinning and doing the same thing over and over again and never getting anywhere.

Eccleisastes has always been my favorite book of the bible. I like that Solomon, who ended up being so bad, wrote so much of the Bible. I like how every chapter of Proverbs circles back to the troublesome wife. I like all the bits about children being really foolish and needing not only the rod of correction but also to be told what to do and where to go. Plus, I enjoy being sad. It's my favorite thing. And also, Solomon perfectly articulates the truth that the Christian life is never, no matter how many times noted heretic and charlatan, Joel Osteen tries to say it, about going From Strength to Strength. It's always about going from weakness to brokenness to humility to Jesus. I think that's one reason why the American church is in disarray. We don't want to go from weakness and poverty to suffering and sickness. We want to go from strength to glory and from glory to honor and from honor to acclaim. If you're on the Sweetness and Light Life Plan, you are eventually going to be disappointed. Look at Solomon. What could be sweeter and lovelier than having everything your heart desires. And look where it got him. If you know that you are on the Death and Suffering Plan, you will never be disappointed.

But you know, one chafes, every now and then. One would like the Death and Suffering Plan to include finishing something, anything. One would like to it not to blow away in a puff of a Saturday morning of children smearing milk and bizarrely colored processed sugar up and down the floor and table. One would like the doors of the cleaning closet not to fall off and have to move everything around again. And, more than anything, one would like not to feel guilty for whining about it.

Anyway, Ecclesiastes isn't the last word. It is only for now, under the sun, which isn't even here today. Under the Gray ought to be the Binghamton version. Jesus finishes something. Salvation is nothing to sneeze at. Redemption and all that. He finishes stuff all the time, like eradicating all the sin and dross and wretchedness from your soul. His work is not a vain spinning, a chasing after the wind. He is faithful, unlike me, to complete all his work. I will try to be comforted by this, even though I have a hard time valuing his work as much as my own. He is walking around the courts of my mind, surveying his labors, making plans and adjustments. I should just go get that door and be grateful.