Vanity of Vanities: A Sermon on WikiLeaks and Ecclesiastes

Ecclesiastes 1:12-18

I, the Teacher,^* when king over Israel in Jerusalem, applied my mind to seek and to search out by wisdom all that is done under heaven; it is an unhappy business that God has given to human beings to be busy with. I saw all the deeds that are done under the sun; and see, all is vanity and a chasing after wind.^*
What is crooked cannot be made straight,
   and what is lacking cannot be counted.
I said to myself, ‘I have acquired great wisdom, surpassing all who were over Jerusalem before me; and my mind has had great experience of wisdom and knowledge.’ And I applied my mind to know wisdom and to know madness and folly. I perceived that this also is but a chasing after wind.^*
For in much wisdom is much vexation,
and those who increase knowledge increase sorrow.


NOTE: This sermon is written for Preaching and Pop Culture, an independent study I designed with Chris Scharen. The topic for this third of three sermons is "WikiLeaks and Open information"

Sermon

Sir Francis Bacon is credited with a famous quote that goes like this: “Knowledge is power.” This innocuous phrase has become a sort of motto for the 21st century. Who could disagree that the more we know about life the better it becomes? For modern people, the purpose of life seems to be two-fold: part one is to accumulate as much wealth as possible, and part two is to glean an equally impressive array of knowledge. In our formal schooling we are tested on knowledge often with standardized information and textbook regurgitation. We are taught by the scientific method and how to debate rationally. The importance of test scores is stressed from the time we learn the alphabet. Success comes to those who prove their knowledge. Those who are able to give the desired answers will get better paying jobs.

All of this occurs for a very good reason in principal. It is good to learn. It is good to read books and learn skills, to gather information and to put it into practice in tangible ways. The proper way to assemble a combustion engine is important as are the rules of punctuation. Yet, this rather self-evident view on the importance of knowledge rams up against today’s reading from Ecclesiastes. If we are honest about the implications, this reading should probably leave us at least a little troubled. It brings up awkward questions. What if this knowledge we have gained doesn’t actually get us anywhere? What if knowledge isn’t actually power but an illusion? To say that knowledge and wisdom are mere chasing after the wind seems a short step away from nihilism.

Ecclesiastes has a very counterintuitive message for we who live in the 21^st century. We live in a WikiLeaks world. With a basic knowledge of the internet and a bit of curiosity everything is at our fingertips. Thirty years ago if you had a question about a famous quotation or a baseball player’s statistics you would need to pore over a library catalogue of many out-of-date reference sources. Today, you can Google an answer in seconds from your computer, your phone or countless other digital, electronic devices that are being developed at a dizzying rate. If knowledge is power, we are a pretty powerful people. Daily newspapers have given way to radios and televisions, which have given way to computers and smart phones, and the future guarantees only more and faster means of accessing the information that we all crave. Knowledge is a rushing river always flowing past us; it is easy these days to feel as if we are swept away.

This is precisely where Ecclesiastes has some surprisingly wisdom. The reality is that we have this knowledge as a tool, not as a life jacket; it can help us but it does not save us. When knowledge is sought as a means of power it is only vanity, but as a tool for the work that God put us on the earth to do it is necessary and good. The author of Ecclesiastes, who calls him or herself Qoholeth, writes, “For in much wisdom is much vexation, and those who increase knowledge increase sorrow.” The message is simple and clear: the more you learn, the more complicated the world becomes. Things no longer look black-and-white; instead everything begins to look many shades of gray. This can be frightening, and yet it can help us to see those who we previously ignored.

Knowledge is one of those strangely wonderful things in life that only matters when it is shared. To horde information benefits nobody. This is the founding principle of an organization like WikiLeaks, which seeks to make secret government documents public on the web. The fact that knowledge is power is evident in the mixed but strong reception that WikiLeaks has received. Opinions have been decidedly vehement on both sides of the issue. Whether you agree or disagree with the idea of complete and open information you cannot deny that the audience is captivated by it. We always want to know what’s going on! On some level, we are still children who keep asking the question, “Why?” though good manners have long taught us it is most proper to stay quiet.

Questions drive us. We ask trivial things like, “Where do you want to eat?” or “What shirt matches these shorts?” And we ask deeply meaningful questions like, “Will you marry me?” or “Would you like to be marked as do not resuscitate?” The questions matter; the answers matter. But what matters more, if Ecclesiastes teaches us only one thing, is that knowledge is not an end to itself. You can learn and learn and learn, but all will be chasing after the wind. Yet, when that knowledge is shared it becomes a gift of unimaginable power.

This is the life of faith in a nutshell. To know Jesus Christ means that we feel the overwhelming need to share that faith with the world. We don’t hold it secret, as if to horde Christ’s power, but we make it known through the gospel. That is what knowledge is about. Nothing is new under the sun, writes Qoholeth. What is new and enlightening is the message of Jesus Christ, given for you. That is life-changing information; it is knowledge finally greater than a mere tool. It is the knowledge of salvation that overcomes the vanity of vanities, and gives us the freedom to find meaning in whatever earthly knowledge we accumulate in the time being.

So, when you feel like you are chasing after the wind you do not need to find meaning in a WikiLeaks document. You don’t need to spend your life poring over library books, Google searches or Facebook posts. Knowledge on its own is the vanity of vanities, but through Christ we are given knowledge of a different kind, knowledge of salvation that frees us to love and serve God and not our own self-serving need to know. So, go forth in the knowledge that you have been saved by Christ, who has risen from the tomb, and that is all you need to know.

Amen.