The Absurdity of Power Ecclesiastes 4:1-3, 13-16; 5:8-9; 10:4-7, 16-20 Introduction This morning I want to give you the solution before I present you with the problem. It’s like sermon “Jeopardy!” So let’s do it. Answer: Jesus is King of kings and Lord of lords. If you’ve been around the church for a while, you’ve probably run into that saying – you might have read it in 1 Timothy 6 or in the book of Revelation. Or you might have heard all or part of it as lyrics to a song. Jesus is King of kings and Lord of lords. Now, what on earth does that mean and why does it matter to my everyday life? I mean, that’s the question, isn’t it? Because if Jesus being the King of kings and Lord of lords has absolutely nothing to do with life at ground zero, then why would it be worth knowing? I suppose it might just be a cool idea to carry around – but even if that were the case, that is what would make it worth knowing for you – that it was fun. My point is that even though we understand the words Jesus is King of kings and Lord of lords we don’t understand them. We don’t see how they matter. We don’t see why they matter. We don’t even really know if they matter. So, here’s what I’m saying this morning, the solution is Jesus is King of kings and Lord of lords, which means that he is the ultimate king and ruler of the universe. The book of Ecclesiastes will lead us to why this matters. Turn with me to Ecclesiastes 4. Before I read vv 1-3, let me tell you where we’re going in the book this morning: we’re going to hit five passages. Five passages from all over the book, each of them addressing the same theme: power. More specifically, they address political power as a solution to the problem of a fallen, broken world. Right now, your wheels should be turning because you know that Jesus is King of kings and Lord of lords. In that sense, he is the ultimate power in the universe – the ultimate political power in the universe. Jesus’ power and the power that Ecclesiastes talks about have to intersect somewhere. So we’re going to hit five passages that deal with political power as a solution to the problem of life in a fallen, broken world, or as Qohelet, the chief speaker in Ecclesiastes puts it, life in a vain, meaningless, absurd world, life “under the sun.” Is the problem with the world a power problem? Is the thing that makes life broken our lack of power or need for power? And therefore, does something like politics as a source of power give us the solution we crave. I should add at this point that I’m sure (because I know you) that most of you would consider yourself politically right of center. And therefore, I really want to pause to warn you of how you could take Qohelet’s approach to politics in the wrong way. You see government as the problem. So if you hear Qohelet bemoan politics as a solution to the problem of a broken world, you might jump right in there and say, “Preach it! Exactly. Government only adds to the problem.” If you were to read Qohelet this way, you’d miss the point entirely. Qohelet is saying something more sophisticated than that. He’s going to say that any approach to politics is absurd. The right is absurd. The left is absurd. The center is absurd. Small government is absurd. Big government is absurd. No government is absurd. It’s all absurd! I think Tim Keller is right when he says, In Marxism the powerful State becomes the savior and capitalists are demonized. In conservative economic thought, free markets and competition will solve our problems, and therefore liberals and government are the obstacles to a happy society. The reality is much less simplistic. Highly progressive tax structures can produce a kind of injustice where people who have worked hard go unrewarded and are penalized by the high taxes. A society of low taxes and few benefits, however, [can produce] a different kind of injustice, where the children of families who can afford good health care and elite education have vastly better opportunities than those who cannot.1 The point is that power can be wielded on either side of the isle…or when there is no isle, when might becomes right. The monarchy, which is the form of government that Ecclesiastes has in mind is just one form of aggregating power. Marxism is another way. Capitalism is another way. And on and on and on… All this is to encourage you not to let your political leanings alter your understanding of Qohelet’s pessimism about political power – and it’s going to be pessimistic. That’s Qohelet’s way. In the five passages we’ll look at, Qohelet is going to point out five problems with power that makes it absurd and therefore insufficient for dealing with life under the sun. Five Problems with Power 1.Problem #1 with power: oppression of the weak cf. 4:1-3. 2.Problem #2 with power: fickle followers cf. 4:13-16. 3.Problem #3 with power: corruption cf. 5:8-9. “Power tends to corrupt. And absolute power corrupts absolutely.” 4.Problem #4 with power: capriciousness cf. 10:4. 5.Problem #5 with power: unfit leaders cf. 10:5-7, 16-18. These points are so obvious. The weak do get oppressed. Followers are fickle. There is corruption in government. Kings can be capricious. Leaders can be unfit for office. For these reasons, Qohelet despairs of the ability of politics to be a messiah – to rescue us from the absurdity of a world gone terribly wrong. The very absurdity he’s seen elsewhere in the world seeps into the hallowed halls of the king’s castle. There’s no escape from it. Wherever you turn, hebel is written all over everything. Vanity of vanities! Vanity of vanities,” says Qohelet, “all is vanity.” But let me ask this question: is this really the problem with power? Is the problem that the weak are oppressed, followers are fickle, that there is corruption and capriciousness, and that there are people in power who have no right to be there? Well, these are certainly complications associated with power, but in reality the diagnosis of the problem is too shallow. The problem goes much deeper than this – the problem is looking to power as our savior, as our hope, as the solution to the problem of life in a fallen world. If you look to power, to human power, political or otherwise, you are going to be deeply disappointed…because power simply cannot deliver on what it promises: “Have me, and all your problems will disappear. Have me, and all your problems will be solved. Have me, and I’ll rescue you from life in a fallen world.” I really wonder with all the unrest in Egypt and Lybia and now Syria, with as much enthusiasm and hope that the agents of political change have for the future, if they are not setting themselves up for disaster and deep disillusionment precisely because they are looking to regime change to do for them what only God can do! The problem of power goes much deeper that the corrupting influences of power. The problem of power goes to the very reason the world is so messed up in the first place. The problem of power has its origin in our fall into sin. Walk through the fall. We wanted to run the world. We wanted power. We were usurpers of power. When we fell into sin we gave into the temptation to take power over our own lives. “Rather than accept our finitude and dependence on God, we desperately seek ways to assure ourselves that we still have power over our own lives.”2 And we look toward two ways in particular to trust to our own power: (1) the kingdom of self; and (2) the kingdom of men. The Kingdom of Self Make no mistake you want to run your own universe. You are the king of your domain. You have laws that must be kept and rewards & punishments for those who succeed and fail to live with the borders of your territory. Paul Tripp in his great book A Quest for More puts it like this: We are all working to build some kind of society or culture. We either give ourselves to building the culture of self, or we joyfully participate in building the culture of the King [= the Lord]. Every day is shaped by the blueprints, laws, policies, structures, plans, politics, relationships, goals, purposes, and actions of some kind of civilization. If you are a human being you cannot escape this work. You are I are always being “civilized” and civilizing others into the culture of some kind of kingdom.3 Then he gets specific: When children are stuck in traffic with their irate father has he curses the existence of the auto-bound human beings who are in his way, [the children] are being civilized into a way of thinking and responding to life. When a teenage boy mocks a classmate to gain status with his peers, he is civilizing his target. When a mother lovingly teaches her children to live at peace with one another, they are being civilized. When a wife, in quest of material ease, spends their family into serious debt, she is civilizing her mate. When a pastor unfolds the transcendent glory of God before the people of his church, he is civilizing his people.4 And here’s the point: at every turn you’re engaged in some kind of kingdom-building activity. The question is: whose kingdom? Is it the kingdom of God or the kingdom of self? And what’s more is that because kingdom-building doesn’t take place in a singular and sweeping, momentous act, but in a series of simple and mundane acts (plural), your own battle between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of self in your heart can go undetected. No one says, “I’m bent on building my own kingdom – and I will destroy anyone who gets in my way!” No one says that – not explicitly. Instead, by a thousand tiny thoughts and behaviors and decisions we live that way. Or better, we live at ground zero as walking kingdoms in conflict – my kingdom vs. God’s. So what do you look for? How can you know you’re living for your own kingdom? Let me offer you three signs you’re living for your own kingdom: 1.You have territories of your heart/life that are off-limits to the Lord (and others). These are areas of sin that you know persist in your life, but you are unwilling or try to convince yourself that you’re unable to change. Maybe it’s a lust problem or an anger problem or a spending problem or a gossip problem or a substance problem or a food problem (excessive eating or dieting). It’s what the Puritans called “bosom sins” – sins you cherish, sins you don’t want to give up, sins you wonder what your life would be like without. But these territories don’t even have to be sinful. They can be good things turned ultimate things. Your children. Your spouse. Your desire to be married. Your money. Your job. Your education. The territory doesn’t have to be evil to be marked as “Mine.” But whether they are evil things or good things turned ultimate things, the bottom line is that they are off limits to the Lord. You say to God, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know…but…” “I know I have to get this right, but not right now.” You effectively say to the Lord, “You can come this far, but no farther.” And you know they’re off limits to the Lord because whenever your friends even bring it up – or something close to it up – you get touchy and defensive. You minimize and blame-shift and make excuses and favorably compare yourself with other people. When you live for the kingdom of self, you have territories of your heart/life that are off-limits to the Lord (and other people). 2.You have “rules” – unstated rules that other people must comply with. Like any king, you have edicts. You have rules. Here’s a sample:5 People must listen to me. You say, “That’s not my rule! I don’t have a rule, ‘People must listen to me.’” Okay, do you get indignant when people get distracted in a conversation with you? I must be in control. When things happen contrary to your expectations, or without “fair warning,” how you do you feel? Are you anxious, fearful, irritable, angry? My will must be done. If things are not accomplished immediately, do you feel frustrated and angry? I have to be right. So you defend yourself, attack and condemn other people, revise history, destroy others’ reputations, excuse, schmooze, blame. I do whatever pleases me – TV, food, sex, porn, shopping, entertainment, DVDs, computer games, vacations, surfing the web. I do those things any one who interferes will banished from the kingdom…relationally. And that last example – how people who interfere must be banished from the kingdom – goes to the idea that people in your life have to comply with these rules. At this point, the people in your life are either obstacles or vehicles – vehicles to advance your kingdom purposes or obstacles to achieving them. The vehicles are rewarded and the obstacles are punished. So when you live for the kingdom of self, you mandate compliance with the edicts of your kingdom. 3.You are self-reliant. Kings are powerful. Kings are honorable and wealthy and mighty. They have no needs – they supply the needs of others. The great kings of the world are self-sufficient and self-reliant. But the kingdom of God only works on the principle of embracing your weakness, your neediness, your desperation: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Or “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst [who are starving] for a righteousness that is not their own.” This is the kingdom of God. So to the extent that you run away from your weaknesses and liabilities – to that extent are you living for the kingdom of self. This most clearly manifests itself in a prayerless life. People who pray are dependent like children on the heavenly father. Prayer is for people who are starving, who are desperate, who know they need help and can’t do life on their own. Self-reliant people are allergic to prayer. To pray is to admit my own weakness and helplessness – a fatal flaw for a king. So then – three signs you’re living for your own kingdom: (1) territories of your life are off-limits to the Lord and others; (2) you mandate compliance with your list of “rules”; and (3) you are self-reliant [= prayerless]. The Kingdom of Men But the kingdom of self isn’t the only way we trust to our own power. We also look to the kingdoms of men! We look to a political solution to solve what only the Lord can solve by his grace. But like the living for the kingdom of self, living for the kingdom of men isn’t all that obvious. Let me quickly offer you four signs that you are looking to government to compensate for your feelings of powerlessness in a world gone awry. 1.You are near obsessed with politics. What you read, watch, and listen to is dominated by what’s going on in Washington. If all your thoughts are taken up with politics, if, as they say, you live and die by politics, then you’re living for the kingdom of men. 2.You can’t imagine how someone could be a Christian and hold a different political viewpoint than you. This is far more commonplace than we care to admit! I can’t tell you how often I’ve heard people use how people voted in the 2008 Presidential Election as a litmus test for whether or not someone is a genuine Christian. Listen: Jesus is not a Democrat or a Republican! The kingdom of Christ cannot be identified with any human approach to government. That’s why in the book of Revelation the city of God comes down out of heaven! It’s an other-worldly regime that must be given to us as a gift from God; it can’t be manufactured here on earth! So if you can’t imagine how someone could be a Christian and hold a different political viewpoint than you, you’re living for the kingdom of men. 3.You are overly elated or deflated depending on the success or failure of your candidate. This was especially apparent in 2008! The gloom and doom that I heard coming from the mouths of many conservative, evangelical Christians over the election of Barak Obama, as if the world were ending, was mind-blowing. At the same time, the hyper-elation of Obama’s supporters over his election was just as troublesome. If you believe that having your candidate win an election (or having your candidate lose an election) is the beginning or end of the world, then you’re living for the kingdom of men. 4.You are angry and cynical about politics. If you are angry and cynical about politics, then you betray that you’re putting too much hope in them to solve the world’s problems. You say, “Wait a second! The reason I’m angry and cynical is because I’ve come to realize that politics isn’t the answer.” To which I say, “Yeah, but you’re angry and cynical. If you saw politics according to the standards of the gospel, you would not be angry and cynical about the political process, you would recognize that in this life, the best it can be is a shade of gray and that what we hope from any form of government or political ideology is that it will be lighter on the gray scale.” Because we know that there is only one city of God and that we will never achieve it in this life, we won’t be angry or cynical. Our anger and cynicism betrays putting too much hope in the kingdom of men and having those hopes dashed. The point here is that we do look to the kingdom of men to solve what only the rule and reign of Jesus can ultimately solve. Until we realize this– we will be forever locked into the stalemate of political polarization and demonization that plagues our political process. Keller’s analysis is spot on! Listen: In any culture in which God is largely absent, sex, money, and politics will fill the vacuum for different people. This is the reason that our political discourse is increasingly ideological and polarized. Many describe the current poisonous public discourse as a lack of bi-partisanship, but the roots go much deeper than that….[T]hey go back to the beginning of the world, to our alienation from God, and to our frantic efforts to compensate for our feelings of cosmic nakedness and powerlessness. The only way to deal with all these things is to heal our relationship with God.6 In other words, we look to the kingdom of men to solve what only the kingdom of God can solve. This is why Qohelet’s solutions to the problem of power have no power. He offers five. One is simply an expression of exasperation – the other four are expressions of resignation…almost as if to say that the problem of power is insoluble. Five Solutions to the Problem of Power 1.Solution #1: Avoid your birth cf. 4:2-3. 2.Solution #2: Get used to it cf. 5:8. 3.Solution #3: Keep your composure cf. 10:4. 4.Solution #4: Keep your mouth shut cf. 10:20. 5.Solution #5: Enjoy yourself while you can cf. 10:19. The True Solution These solutions are totally insufficient for dealing with the problem of power. And the reason they’re totally insufficient is that they don’t go deep enough. Only one solution goes deep enough – Jesus is King of kings and Lord of lords! We need regime change. That’s why it’s such good news that Jesus is King of kings and Lord of Lords! The regime change we need is first and foremost heart-change. We need King Jesus to occupy our lowly hearts, as the song goes. We need him to own everything about us. We need him to reign supreme. We need him to conquer every rebel power and will to power in our hearts. We need him to break down all our resistance to the holy war he’s waging for control of our lives. And because he is the risen King of kings and Lord of lords, he has the power to do it! He can change the regime of self! What we need is the rule of Jesus Christ to hold sway in our hearts and from there in the world. It’s why at the end of the book of Revelation the city of God descends from heaven, why the kingdoms of this world become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ (which is just another word for “King”) (Rev 11:15). The only thing that will allow you to look from this-worldly kingdoms is to look to the other-worldly kingdom of Jesus Christ, who both provides us with the example and the grace to seek him rather than the power that we crave. Our normal response to our powerlessness is to deny it and retreat into the claustrophobic confines of the kingdom of self. Or to hope against hope that a political ideology or party will be our strength when we are weak. But his example, we see that power comes through weakness. Rather than wielding a sword and commanding his disciples and a legion of angels to rout the Roman army, he tells Peter to put his sword away and refuses to do anything except to submit to the authority of the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate. And by refusing to exercise his rightful power, he rescued us from our powerlessness. Only by admitting your powerlessness can you experience the power he died and rose again to reclaim. Secure in his love for you, your lust for power is cut at the root and you are set free to live a life of love for others. That is the gospel. And that is what it means when we say that Jesus is King of kings and Lord of lords! Amen.