An Unprofitable Life

Johnny Cash shot the music video for “Hurt” just seven months before he died. In his seventies, he sings from the “House of Cash” museum in Nashville, the monument to his glory. Images flash up on the screen of Cash at the top of his game: a young, cocky celebrity with the world at his feet. Millions of adoring fans scream his name. But now, Cash’s voice trembles. His hands shake. His face is deeply lined. He sings of all the people he’s known who have died, and how all that he chased and caught in his hey-day is empty and unsatisfying: “You can have it all—my empire of dirt.” Johnny Cash is a “world-weary sage.” He has seen it all, done it all, and he isn’t impressed anymore.

Solomon, our guide to Ecclesiastes, is a lot like that. Solomon was the wisest man in the world. Wealthy beyond imagination. Wildly successful. Educated, cultured, popular. But now Solomon is old. He has seen and done it all and found that “life under the sun”—life without God—is unprofitable. 2: “Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher. Vanity of vanities. All is vanity!” This word vanity, a refrain in Ecclesiastes, means something like ‘a puff of smoke.’ It is the vapor you exhale on a cold January morning, there for just a moment and gone the next. It is the bubble your kids blow and chase in the yard: so delightful as it hangs in the air, but as soon as you grab it…*pop!* (see James 4:14). “What does a man gain by all the toil at which he toils under the sun?” Solomon asks (3). “Life is vanity” means nothing is gained or accomplished. We expend all this energy working and doing; in the end it doesn’t make a lick of difference. You show no profit.

In 4–7, he describes the world as a huge, impersonal machine. It’s like the giant paper machine at the paper mill, cranking out endless sheets of cardboard, day after day, never noticing or caring about the human operator. Year after year, the world runs on the same, endless cycle: the sun comes up, the sun goes down, then does it all again. Rivers run into the sea, but water evaporates, clouds form, rain falls, rivers fill, and run right back into sea. I mow my grass, but it just grows again. I build a sand castle, and in the morning the beach looks like I was never there. Generations are born and die off. Kingdoms rise and fall. All things are full of weariness!" Solomon cries out (8). What’s the point of trying when I see that I’m accomplishing nothing?! I long to find meaning in life. I want to discover something new. I want to know that I’m significant and making a difference. But in the end, I see that it’s all been done already. The machine keeps on humming (9–10).

Solomon feels like Sysiphus, condemned by the Greek gods to roll a giant boulder to the top of a hill, watch it tumble down the other side, and then do it all over again. Solomon says that’s what life under the sun is like. And after all that, we all die (11). No matter how “amazing” my life is, I’m going to die at some point. A few people will be sad. The cars will pull over for my hearse for about a minute-and-a-half, and then they’ll go right back to what they were doing before. The machine grinds on! There’s a good chance that my great-grandkids won’t even know my name. If you’re paying attention to life under the sun, you’ll see how unprofitable it all is.

Does this seem like a grim start to the New Year? It’s actually the key to the happiest new year of your life! Solomon gives us a cold, hard look at what you can look forward to if all that you live for in 2022 is life under the sun.

But it doesn't have to be that way. You can walk with God.

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Article by Eric Smith
Senior Pastor, Sharon Baptist Church