Ecclesiastes Was Wrong, Sort Of

The cynic in me sometimes gets the best of me, especially when I ponder the foolishness and thick-headedness of humanity, my own included. Why is it, I often wonder, that we keep making the same mistakes over and over and over again? Why do we hardly ever seem to learn from them? Why do we diligently read history but choose to ignore its lessons and so are doomed to repeat it as we do, much to our dismay, chagrin and personal and corporate suffering and regret? In my cynicism I wonder why we even bother to study history

Ecclesiastes, one of the wisdom writers of the Old Testament, had his own take on all this. He, too, must have studied the history of his people and observed the actions of his contemporaries and even of himself and simply came to this conclusion: “What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done; there is nothing new under the sun.” (1:9)

Yet, as much as I agree with him and as much as it is evident that history repeats itself so as to seem that there is truly nothing new under the sun, I must conclude that Ecclesiastes was wrong, sort of. And as much as it is obviously evident that we do not or stubbornly refuse to learn the lessons of the past, it is not written in stone that we cannot learn, that we must and will repeat those past errors ourselves.

Every moment of every hour of every day is new. It is not a repeat of the past nor will it be repeated in the future. Every moment is unique. That should give us hope and allow us to be optimistic even as we lament our failures to learn from our mistakes and our proclivity to keep repeating them over and over again. Because each moment under the sun is a brand new moment, we have the choice and opportunity to either repeat our mistakes of the past or not.

That has always been the case, of course. Every person and every generation is given that same choice. Thus, it seems, the question we need to ask ourselves individually and corporately is why we act the way we do. Is there some defective gene endemic to human beings that prescribes such foolish behavior so much so that Ecclesiastes noted its prevalence almost 3000 years ago?

Would that there were. Then we would be off the hook. We could blame our foolishness on our DNA rather than on our FSA – Foolish Selfish Actions. If our DNA were the cause, then God would be the one we could blame because God created us the way we are. The truth is our DNA is quite attuned to those times when our FSA want to control our lives. God created us and God’s Spirit lives in each and every one of us. That is why we do not have to repeat our past mistakes and sins.

We are not doomed to repeat history. God’s grace is there to enable us to keep each new moment new, to strengthen us to not do what we know is foolish and to do what we know is, well, full of God’s grace and love. Yes, Ecclesiastes observed what we still observe. Nevertheless, we have it within ourselves as persons and as a community, both of faith and of the world, to make ourselves, our world and all things new.