From Ecclesiastes:
There is a vanity that takes place on earth, that there are righteous people who are treated according to the conduct of the wicked, and there are wicked people who are treated according to the conduct of the righteous. I said that this also is vanity. So I commend enjoyment, for there is nothing better for people under the sun than to eat, and drink, and enjoy themselves, for this will go with them in their toil through the days of life that God gives them under the sun.
(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Ecclesiastes 8:14-15 (NRSV) – June 10, 2014)
My stepfather was a good man with faults. That is probably a description that could apply to millions of people, probably most people — good with faults. Whether he would be classed by Qoheleth as “righteous” or as “wicked” — or perhaps somewhere in between — I have no idea. What I do know is that he enjoyed himself.
Most of my life as his stepson he worked as a tool-and-die man. In later life, he and a neighbor together invented an emergency chlorine gas shut-off system for municipal water chlorination systems. There was a market for this device and their company made a good deal of money, which they plowed right back into the business. My stepsister, my brother’s children, and I received a monthly stipend from the company for five years when, in accord with the stockholders’ agreement, we sold his interest to the other shareholders at his death.
He was always doing something. Gardening, restoring old furniture, “flipping” houses (I would swear my parents invented flipping!), making jewelry. If there was ever anybody in my life who followed the advice in Ecclesiastes to “eat, and drink, and enjoy [yourself],” it was my stepfather.
We now have some of the furniture he restored in our home, including a cane-back chair in our dining room. Several weeks ago I started writing a poem about that chair and, as it developed, it turned into a sonnet. However, I couldn’t finish it. I couldn’t come up with the final couplet. Today, the lines wrote themselves as I was reading the Daily Office.
I don’t know what, if anything, it has to do with today’s lessons . . . but it’s where my thoughts are, so it’s what I’ll record here. I think I’ll title this Veils Unveil:
The caning on the chair is beginning to come undone,
the caning my stepfather did; yes, you know the one.
We put it in the dining room about a year ago
and no one ever uses it; it’s only there for show.Truth be told, the dining room is seldom ever used.
It’s where we did our taxes, and often leave our shoes.
The cats sit on that old chair and watch the world go by;
they look out through the caning and I often wonder why.Standing in the kitchen, and looking through the door,
I’m looking through that caning, like a cat, and seeing more
than grass and plants and rocks and things, and passing automobiles.
What unhindered vision blocks, the veil of caning clear reveals.Imagination and remembrance, hidden meaning all around,
Veils unveil and shadows light; lost memories are found.
Qoheleth can be depressing! Later in today’s lesson he writes of the dead, “Their love and their hate and their envy have already perished; never again will they have any share in all that happens under the sun.” But I don’t believe that’s so! My stepfather’s handiwork sits in my dining room and I remember him fondly when I see it, when I look through the caning on the back of that chair. Just as the preacher admonished, “whatever his hand found to do, he did with his might,” and through that restored old antique chair, he still has a “share in all that happens” in our family life. And in that, I think, is a reminder of the Christian hope and promise that (as The Book of Common Prayer asserts) we will be “reunited with those who have gone before.” (Burial of the Dead, Rite Two, page 493)
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Father Funston is the rector of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Medina, Ohio.
I have already written one of these for today’s readings (see 
“Vanity of vanities! All is vanity.” The frustration of the Preacher is something I believe we’ve all experienced at one time or another. “What is the point of it all?” is a question every adult probably has asked at least once, if not several times. ~ In the past few days I’ve been part of two committees trying to schedule meetings in the same few days; coordinating the calendars of about twenty different people, all with work schedules and personal lives, is next to impossible and leads to precisely the kind of frustration Ecclesiastes voices. What do mortals get from all the toil and strain? ~ As our world gets more and more complex, the abilities to be flexible, to think in terms of alternatives, to see different potential outcomes as equally good (stop looking for the one, best answer), to share differing visions nonjudgmentally, to let go of personal involvement and trust others to do a good job in their own way even if it is not your way, to clearly communicate and consult with others about ideas, all these will help avoid the sense of futility evinced in these verses. Perhaps the most important skill is the one specifically alluded to here, the ability to turn off one’s mind at night! ~ One of the best pieces of advice I was ever given about those restless night-time thoughts was to write them down. If a thought persists, write it down. Then when it comes back again, look at it with disinterest; you’ve written it down and you will deal with it in the morning. Can’t do anything about it late at night, anyway; it’s all vanity. ~ The world is a rapidly changing and the rate of change is accelerating. Flexibility and a good night’s rest are essential survival skills.
I’m very tempted to ask, “O come on, Paul! You really didn’t expect them to remember you after you’d gone, did you?” But, of course, he did! It seems to me that Paul here is very much like modern clergy. I think we all expect to have lasting impact on the places we serve, but the truth is most of us will not. Clergy are transients; in the past half-decade I’ve seen studies variously reporting the average length of a pastorate across denominations as somewhere between three and five years. That’s not much time to make much of an impact. ~ Now, there are exceptions. Every parish seems to have its sainted Father Usedtobehere, that one priest or pastor whom everyone remembers with great affection. He (it’s usually “he” in my denomination because we haven’t had women in the presbyterate long enough yet) was the best at visiting, best at preaching, best at organizing, best at presiding at the altar, best at remembering parishioners’ birthdays, best at whatever. He is remembered as the paragon of ministry even by people who came to the parish after he departed! There’s really no competing with such ghosts. One just has to accept that they are here and will live on in memory long after one has gone . . . and that it is unlikely that most of us will ever enjoy such exalted canonization. ~ However, I’m not suggesting that we clergy adopt the attitude of the Preacher whose writing is also included in today’s lectionary readings: “I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had spent in doing it, and again, all was vanity and a chasing after wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun.” (Eccl. 2:11) As unlikely as it may be that any of us attain the celebrated status of parish patron saint, it is equally likely that we will have an impact (usually through something we think of as mundane or insignificant) on the lives of one or two people, maybe more. Most of us may not be remembered by the whole congregation as the cream of the clergy crop; the majority of the parish may (as Paul complained) quickly desert us. But those few will remember . . . and here’s the rub (as Hamlet might have said) – we don’t know who they will be, nor what action or word of ours may make the difference. We just have to try to do the best we can in any given pastoral situation, in most of which we may feel woefully inadequate, because we never know. ~ That’s what Paul should have remembered; that’s what the Preacher should have remembered; that’s what each clergyperson should remember! 
