“Double, double toil and trouble”

Ecclesiastes 1:1-14; 2:18-26

Luke 12:13-32

Antioch Christian Fellowship

August 5^th, 2007

In the final scene of William Shakespeare’s great Scottish tragedy, Macbeth, the king of Scotland is surveying the ashes of his life, having just found out that his queen had died over the guilt of her participation in the murders of the Scottish nobility, even the little children. He isn’t afraid – he has been promised by Satan, in the form of three witches, that he is safe until “Birnham Wood moves to Dunsinane.” They mock him, as Satan always does when we think we are safe in our own power. “Double, double, toil and trouble” they chant as they dance around the boiling cauldron in a mad, obscene ritual. No, Macbeth is not afraid; trees can’t move. He’s just immensely tired of a life in ruins. He mouths this immortal lament: 

“To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow; a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.” 

And then, the trees begin to move. And, you can see in your mind’s eye, the witches begin to dance again. 

Shakespeare was a Biblical scholar, and he borrowed this lament of Macbeth directly from our Old Testament scripture for today. King Solomon, the Preacher, is lamenting over the ashes of a life that had begun with so much promise. In the third chapter of the first Book of Kings, we find a newly crowned King Solomon conversing with God in a dream, and God asks Solomon what he desires. Solomon asks only for the wisdom to judge his people fairly, and discern between good and evil. And God answers: 

10 The speech pleased the Lord, that Solomon had asked this thing. 11 Then God said to him: “Because you have asked this thing, and have not asked long life for yourself, nor have asked riches for yourself, nor have asked the life of your enemies, but have asked for yourself understanding to discern justice, 12 behold, I have done according to your words; see, I have given you a wise and understanding heart, so that there has not been anyone like you before you, nor shall any like you arise after you. 13 And I have also given you what you have not asked: both riches and honor, so that there shall not be anyone like you among the kings all your days. 14 So if you walk in My ways, to keep My statutes and My commandments, as your father David walked, then I will lengthen your days.”  

As Prince Hamlet says in another Shakespearean tragedy: “Ah, there’s the rub”! Solomon will take all of the gifts promised by an incredibly generous and gracious God. He will be the richest, the most glorious, the most famous of all the kings of the Earth, But then he will begin to admire himself, to think that he is really something, to think that he really doesn’t need God anymore, and wisdom, the most precious of God’s gifts to him, begins to fade. He marries foreign, pagan women in order to cement alliances and expand his territory. And when discontent springs up in the harem, he allows the worship of idols to please his foreign wives. He doesn’t keep God’s statutes. He doesn’t keep God’s commandments. He doesn’t keep God’s ways. He turns his heart away from the God who had been so loving, so gracious, so generous. And the witches begin to dance.

   “All is vanity,” he cries. (Eccl. 1:8-9)   “All things are full of weariness; a man cannot utter it; the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing.  What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun.”

Solomon’s first and greatest gift from God, wisdom, had never been taken away. God doesn’t take our gifts away from us! No, it had not been taken away, just overwhelmed by Solomon’s lust for the other gifts, which God intended to be secondary. At the end, the wisdom that had been repressed for so many years comes rushing back like a tidal wave and Solomon sees himself as he really is, a man who has forsaken his God and is now empty and weary, in spite of his wealth, his glory, and his  fame. All is vanity when there is no God to pull you up from the depths, when there is no Lord Jesus who makes all things new, and Solomon fears that God is too far away now to reach out and save him.

   In our Gospel reading for today, Jesus rephrases Solomon’s lament by telling the parable of the rich fool, a man to whom every good gift had been given by God; a man who decides that instead of sharing these great gifts with the starving masses around him, he will build a larger storehouse, a pretty storehouse, to keep them in. And the witches begin to dance. As Solomon did before him, the rich fool decides to eat, drink, and be merry, and God says “for tonight you die”. Although Jesus was clearly talking about material wealth in this parable, I believe that He had a bigger idea in mind. That’s the way it was with Jesus: He was always less concerned about worldly wealth than he was about the riches of the Kingdom of God. In this light, then, it is fair to conclude that in this parable Jesus is also, and perhaps more importantly, focused on those fools who built pretty houses in which to store the riches of God’s Word, the Gospel, the Good News, when those pretty houses were surrounded by people who were dieing for the lack of that Good News. Jesus talked of the scribes and Pharisees of his day; what would He be talking about in our time.

   When you, my brothers and sisters, begin to forget that there is a price to be paid for listening to Satan’s whisper in your ear, and begin to believe, even a little bit, his lies, consider Macbeth, as the trees begin to move.  

   When you begin to forget God’s most wonderful gifts in order to indulge in those which make you feel more self-satisfied, more important, more exalted in this World, and you begin to feel that maybe you don’t need God so much after all, consider Solomon’s cry at the end of his life. “All is vanity!”

   When you begin to build larger, prettier houses to store your goods, be they material or more importantly the substance of Christ’s Gospel, and ignore the cries of the starving that surround you, consider the rich fool, who’s very soul was required of him that night.

   But last of all, when the witches begin to dance in your life, and they will, then fear not little flock. Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow, and not even Solomon in all his glory was arrayed as one of these. God will take a dead, shriveled mass of a bulb and transform it into something pure, beautiful, white as snow, with a fragrance pleasing to Lord. That is the promise that Christ gave us as He died on the cross. That is the promise that we believe as Christians. That even a miserable, wretched sinner such as I will be transformed, will be saved, will be made fit to live in God’s house forever! Even I! Amazing grace, how sweet the sound! Amen.