Lecture

In this lecture, we will focus on Ecclesiastes 5:1-7 NRSV and discover that the worship of God is not to be taken for granted but needs to be underpinned with a life in accordance with God’s will that is obedient beyond the worship itself. Now, this here is a practice reflection, and it turns to an exhortation about proper worship with particular focus on reverence for God and how we practice our religion, how we live our faith. Near the middle of the book, this section that we are looking at in our lecture today provides its first theological climax.

Let me summarize the content, but before I do that, I just want to read a few verses, so that you get a feel for what we are dealing with, here in the book of Ecclesiastes. “Guard your steps when you go to the house of God; to draw near to listen is better than the sacrifice offered by fools; for they do not know how to keep from doing evil. Never be rash with your mouth, nor let your heart be quick to utter a word before God, for God is in heaven, and you upon earth; therefore let your words be few. For dreams come with many cares, and a fool’s voice with many words” (Ecclesiastes 5:1–3 NRSV). So, here we have a religious, I almost want to call it a religious program, which calls us to a more theocentric attitude, an orientation towards God, which Ecclesiastes calls, in that very traditional phrase, that idiom of “the fear of God,” expressed practically through reverent worship and then practical obedience to the traditional demands of the Bible.

The advice concerning the making and keeping of oaths should be interpreted in the context of proper conduct in public worship generally. And just let me read a few words about these oaths, so again, that you get a feel for what’s going on there. I won’t read the whole section, but from verse four. “When you make a vow to God, do not delay fulfilling it; for he has no pleasure in fools. Fulfill what you vow” (Ecclesiastes 5:4 NRSV). You get the idea. Now, a lot of people get hung up on this and think, Oh, what about oaths and all this? In my understanding of this, this is just a kind of one general application that is, however, and that we should, however, practice elsewhere. So this exhortation then is a whole series of instructions and it falls into two related parts that are dealing with various aspects of public worship.

The first part contains five instructions and deals with proper conduct in worship in general. The second part then deals with the proper use of oaths in the context of worship and then contains three instructions. So, what we have here in chapter five then is one of the most instructional parts of the entire book with no less than ten commands in the space of just seven verses, which by the way is the highest concentration on instructions, exhortations in the book. And so, this alone, in addition to the theological emphasis on content and focus, tells us how important this is.

The sequence ends in verse seven with this, and again very evocative, talking about dreams and leading to the fear of God. “With many dreams come vanities and a multitude of words; but fear God.” So, we’ve heard about the fear of God in earlier lectures, but what does it then mean to fear God? And I want to ask to spend a bit of time on this now. Many think that Christians do not need to be cautious when they approach God. However, I believe what we are learning from Ecclesiastes, here in chapter five, is that this is a common misinterpretation of the symbolism of the tearing of the temple curtain at the moment of Jesus’ death. A lot of people think when that curtain was torn, the difference between God in heaven and us on earth was obliterated. I don’t think so. And what we’re learning from Ecclesiastes is that really, there is such a thing as sacred space. And the places where we meet God in public worship are sacred spaces, and the time we spend publicly with other Christians in the presence of God is sacred time.

Since the very identity of the curtain, I don’t have time to explain all of this in our lecture today, but there are several curtains in the temple, and the Gospels don’t tell us which of those two curtains was actually torn. The symbolism of its tearing must not be over interpreted. The distinction between holy and profane spaces has not been eradicated. All who therefore believe in Jesus, while they can have access to a personal relationship and a direct personal encounter with God, holy spaces even so still exist.

Holy space, if we want to talk about it in their terms, and I want to make a difference between holy places and holy space. Holy space typically refers to an architectural area, usually a space dedicated to regular worship by a religious community and demarcated through screening techniques such as walls, gates, curtains, which restrict access to a smaller number of people.

By comparison, sacred space refers to less defined spaces where religious communities sense a special closeness to God. For many people, for example, this is on mountaintops, or in nature, or in the desert, or at sea. So, these can be open spaces in nature, such as also the place in the desert where Moses encounters God in the burning bush, which God Himself declared holy ground in Exodus 3:1–6 NRSV.

In all of these perceptions of sacred space and all of the examples that we have in the Bible of sacred space and sacred places, special preparation and spiritual conduct is mandatory. Sometimes in the Christian tradition, these practices have become so externalized that they lack sincerity. And of course, the Reformation in the sixteenth century was in part at least, a reaction against such abusive practices in the church at that time.

However, the book of Ecclesiastes helps us to see that there is still something special about being in the presence of God. In the twenty-first century, the pendulum among Protestants in particular has swung in the opposite extreme. Personal and intimate access to God is often taken for granted and this can sometimes be observed in the casual informality of much modern worship in Western churches, particularly among Protestants. I believe this is unfortunate. Such informality is intended to express intimacy with God, aiming to reflect the casualness of close family relations and a relaxed attitude among best friends.

However. . .It can also sometimes lead to a kind of familiarity that subconsciously breeds contempt, misleading well-meaning Christians into forgetting that while God is indeed our Father and our Friend, He is also the holy other, holy, pure, and perfect. God is the Creator and King of the universe. He gave Himself in His Son to suffer on the cross for our sins. He is never to be taken for granted. Modern Christians and churches will do well to hear again the words of Ecclesiastes. Watch your feet when you go to the house of God; draw near to listen rather than to give sacrifice, like the fools do.