The Bible in a Year (with Fr. Mike Schmitz) - Day 151: Wisdom and Folly (2023)

Episode Date: May 31, 2023

Fr. Mike delves deeper into the lessons Ecclesiastes teaches us today about living wisely by keeping the end in mind, enjoying the present moment, and not worrying too much about other people's opinions of us. Today's readings are 1 Kings 9, Ecclesiastes 6-7, and Psalm 7. For the complete reading plan, visit ascensionpress.com/bibleinayear. Please note: The Bible contains adult themes that may not be suitable for children - parental discretion is advised.

Hi, my name is Father Mike Schmitz, and you're listening to the Bible in a Year podcast, where we encounter God's voice and live life through the lens of Scripture. The Bible in a Year podcast is brought to you by Ascension. Using the Great Adventure Bible Timeline, we'll read all the way from Genesis to Revelation, discovering how the story of salvation unfolds and how we fit into that story today. Today is day 151, day 151. We're reading 1 Kings chapter 9 and then two chapters out of Ecclesiastes chapters 6 and 7. We're also praying Psalm 7. If you're interested,

the Bible translation that I'm reading from is the Revised Standard Version, the Second Catholic Edition. I'm using the Great Adventure Bible from Ascension. Also, you can download your own Bible in a Year reading plan by visiting ascensionpress.com slash Bible in a Year. You can also subscribe to this podcast to receive daily episodes every single day for 365 days. As I said, it is day 151. We're reading 1 Kings 9, which is going to sound like yesterday, like a review of 2 Chronicles, because it is. It's a review of the other things that Solomon has done, and specifically the Lord's second appearance to Solomon we're gonna hear about, as well as diving more deeply into Ecclesiastes

and this incredible, incredible wisdom book where Koalath, the preacher, examines, what is the goodness of life? And what should I set my heart on? And what is it dangerous to set your heart on? That is today, 1 Kings 9, Ecclesiastes 6 and 7, and then praying Psalm 7. The first book of Kings chapter 9, the Lord's second appearance to Solomon.

When Solomon had finished building the house of the Lord and the king's house and all that Solomon desired to build, the Lord appeared to Solomon a second time as he had appeared to him at Gibeon. And the Lord said to him, I have heard your prayer and your supplication, which you have made before me. I have consecrated this house, which you have built and put my name there forever. My eyes and my heart will be there for all time. And as for you, if you will walk before me as David, your father walked with integrity of heart and uprightness, doing according to all that I have commanded you and keeping my statutes and my ordinances, then I will establish your royal throne over Israel forever, as I promised David your father, saying, There shall not fail you a man upon the throne of Israel. But if you turn

aside from following me, you or your children, and do not keep my commandments and my statutes which I have set before you, but go and serve other gods and worship them. Then I will cut off Israel from the land which I have given them. And the house which I have consecrated from my name I will cast out of my sight. And Israel will become a proverb and a byword among all peoples. And this house will become a heap of ruins. Everyone passing by it will be astonished and will hiss. And they will say, why has the Lord done thus to this land and to this house? Then they will say, Because they forsook the Lord their God, who brought their

fathers out of the land of Egypt, and laid hold on other gods, and worshipped them, and served them. Therefore the Lord has brought all this evil upon them. At the end of twenty years, in which Solomon had built the two houses, the house of the Lord and the king's house, and Hiram, king of Tyre, had supplied Solomon with cedar and cypress timber and gold as much as he desired, King Solomon gave to Hiram 20 cities in the land of Galilee. But when Hiram came from Tyre to see the cities which Solomon had given him, they did not please him. Therefore he said, What kind of cities are these which you have given me, my brother? So they are called the land of Kabul to this day. Hiram had sent to the king 120 talents of gold. Other works of Solomon. And this is the account of the forced labor which Solomon levied to build the house of the Lord and his own house

and the millow and the wall of Jerusalem and Hazor and Megiddo and Gezer. Pharaoh, king of Egypt, had gone up and captured Gezer and burnt it with fire and had slain the Canaanites who dwelt in the city and had given it as dowry to his daughter, Solomon's wife. So Solomon rebuilt Gezer. And lower Beth-haron, and Baalath and Tamar in the wilderness, in the land of Judah, and all the store cities that Solomon had,

and the cities for his chariots and the cities for his horsemen, and whatever Solomon desired to build in Jerusalem, in Lebanon, and in all the land of his dominion. All the people who were left of the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, who were not of the sons of Israel, their descendants who were left after them in the land whom the sons of Israel were unable to destroy utterly, these Solomon made a forced levy of slaves, and so they are to this day. But of the sons of Israel, Solomon made no

slaves. They were the soldiers, they were his officials, his commanders, his captains, his chariot commanders, and his horsemen. These were the chief officers who were over Solomon's work, 550, who had charge of the people who carried on the work. But Pharaoh's daughter went up from the city of David to her own house, which Solomon had built for her. Then he built the mill. Three times a year, Solomon used to offer up burnt offerings and peace offerings upon the altar, which he had built to the Lord, burning incense before the Lord. So he finished the house. Solomon's fleet.

King Solomon built a fleet of ships at Ezeon-Geber, which is near Eloth on the shore of the Red Sea in the land of Edom. And Hiram sent with the fleet his servants, seamen who were familiar with the sea, together with the servants of Solomon. And they went to Ophir, and brought from there gold, to the amount of four hundred and twenty talents, and they brought it to King Solomon. The Book of Ecclesiastes, Chapter 6. Frustration of Desires There is an evil which I have seen under the sun, and it lies heavy upon men. A man to whom God gives wealth, possessions, and honor, so that he lacks nothing of all that he desires. Yet God does

not give him power to enjoy them, but a stranger enjoys them. This is vanity. It is a sore affliction. If a man begets a hundred children and lives many years so that the days of his years are many, but he does not enjoy life's good things and also has no burial, I say that an untimely birth is better off than he. For it comes into vanity and goes into darkness, and in darkness its name is covered. Moreover, it has not seen the sun or known anything, yet it finds rest rather than he. Even though he should live a thousand years twice told, yet enjoy no good, do not all go to one place? All of the toil of man is for his mouth, yet his appetite is not satisfied. For what advantage has the wise man over the fool, and what does the poor man have

who knows how to conduct himself before the living? Better is the sight of the eyes than the wandering of desire. This also is vanity and a striving after wind. Whatever has come to be has already been named, and it is known what man is, and that he is not able to dispute with one stronger than he. The more words, the more vanity. And what is man the better? For who knows what is good for man while he lives the few days of his vain life, which he passes like a shadow? For who can tell a man what will be after him under the sun? Chapter 7 Wisdom and Folly Compared A good name is better than precious ointment, and the day of death than the day of birth.

It is better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting, for this is the end of all men, and the living will lay it to heart. Sorrow is better than laughter, for by sadness of countenance the heart is made glad. The heart of the wise is in the house of the mourning, but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth. It is better for a man to hear the rebuke of the wise than to hear the heart of fools is in the house of mirth. It is better for a man to hear the rebuke of the wise than to hear the song of fools. For as the crackling of thorns under a pot, so is the laughter of the fools. This also is vanity. Surely oppression makes the wise man foolish and a bribe corrupts the mind. Better is the end of a thing than its beginning. And the

patient in spirit is better than the proud in spirit. Be not quick to anger, for anger lodges in the bosom of fools. Say not, why were the former days better than these? For it is not from wisdom that you ask this. Wisdom is good with an inheritance, an advantage to those who see the sun. For the protection of wisdom is like the protection of money, and the advantage of knowledge is that wisdom preserves the life of him who has it. Consider the work of God, who can make straight what he has made crooked.

In the day of prosperity be joyful, and in the day of adversity consider. God has made the one as well as the other, so that man may not find out anything that will be after him. Inequalities of Life In my vain life I have seen everything. There is a righteous man who perishes in his righteousness, and there is a wicked man who prolongs his life in his evildoing. Be not righteous over much, and do not make yourself overwise. Why should you destroy yourself? Be not wicked over much, neither be a fool. Why should you die before your time? It is good that you should take hold of this, and from that withhold not your hand, for he who

fears God shall come forth from them all. Wisdom gives strength to the wise man more than ten rulers that are in a city. Surely there is not a righteous man on earth who does good and never sins. Do not give heed to all the things that men say, lest you hear your servant cursing you. Your heart knows that many times you have yourself cursed others. All this I have tested by wisdom. I said, I will be wise, but it was far from me. That which is, is far off and deep, very deep. Who can find it out? I turned my mind to know and to search out and to seek wisdom and the sum of things and to know the wickedness of folly and the foolishness, which is madness. And I found more bitter than death, the woman whose heart is snares and nets and whose

hands are fetters. He who pleases God escapes her, but the sinner is taken by her. Behold, this is what I found, says the preacher, adding one thing to another to find the sum, which my mind has sought repeatedly, but I have not found. One man among a thousand I found, but a woman among all these I have not found. Behold, this alone I found, that God made man upright, but they have sought out many devices. Psalm 7, plea for help against persecution, Ishigion of David, which he sang to the Lord concerning Cush, a Benjaminite. O Lord my God, in you I take refuge. Save me from all my pursuers and deliver me, lest like a lion they rend refuge. Save me from all my pursuers and deliver me, lest like a lion they rend me, dragging me away with none to rescue.

O Lord, my God, if I have done this, if there is wrong in my hands, if I have repaid my friend with evil or plundered my enemy without cause, let the enemy pursue me and overtake me, and let him trample my life to the ground and lay my soul in the dust. Arise, O Lord, in your anger. Lift yourself up against the fury of my enemies. Awake, O my God. You have appointed a judgment. Let the assembly of the peoples be gathered about you, and over it take your seat on high. The Lord judges the peoples.

Judge me, O Lord, according to my righteousness and according to the integrity that is in me. O let the evil of the wicked come to an end and according to the integrity that is in me. Oh, let the evil of the wicked come to an end, but establish the righteous. You who try the minds and hearts, oh righteous God. My shield is with God, who saves the upright in heart. God is a righteous judge and a God who has indignation every day. If a man does not repent, God will wet his sword. He has bent and strung his bow. He has prepared his deadly weapons, making his arrows fiery shafts. Behold, the wicked man conceives evil and is

pregnant with mischief and brings forth lies. He makes a pit, digging it out, and falls into the hole which he has made. His mischief returns upon his own head, and on his own skull his violence descends. I will give to the Lord the thanks due to his righteousness, and I will sing praise to the name of the Lord, the Most High. Father in heaven, thank you so much. God, thank you so much. Thank you for your word and thank you for your wisdom that you share with us. Thank you for allowing us to ask questions and to question reality. Thank you for letting us, inviting us to question goodness and question righteousness and question the mystery of evil and our own mystery of evil in our own hearts.

Thank you for allowing us to come before you with all these questions and with all this brokenness that's not just around us, but is also in us. Thank you for sharing your word, the words of Koala, the words of the preacher who gets to ask big questions and invites us into asking those big questions. We give you praise and we thank you in Jesus' name. Amen. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Okay. So here we are with 1 Kings chapter nine. We're getting to the end of the reign of King Solomon.

And so we see a bunch of building because he's Solomon the builder. We see a bunch of activity that he's doing. And we see, again, a picture of Solomon kind of getting towards the end of his life. And so what we're going to see in the next two days, 1 Kings 10 and 1 Kings 11, is the ultimate, I would say this, the wise one, the wise one ending his wise life in foolishness. The builder, the great builder ending his life in ruins. And that's going to be more of Solomon's story as we continue our journey with him for the next couple of days. Even though, as we know, God has warned him. That second dream that God appeared to him saying, yeah, I will bless you.

I will be with you. I will establish your throne like at the throne of your father forever. Just do not turn away and serve other gods. And we're gonna find that Solomon does not take that to heart. He might for a day, he might for a week, he might for a couple of years.

But you know, so often it's not how we start, it's how we end. And speaking of not how we start it's how we end and speaking of and how it's not how we start not how we end ecclesiastes can be a very troubling very confusing book but also can be very inspiring if we just receive it the right way for example when it comes to endings and beginnings here's the author colette here's the author solomon the author of ecclesiastes saying uh yeah death the day of your death is better than the day of your birth. Like what? Better to go to the house of mourning than the house of feasting. Ah, better sorrow than mirth. It's just, okay, I don't understand. What are you trying to say? One of the things

that the author, the wise one is trying to point out is we recognize that all things are going to have an end. We recognize that all things are going to have an end, then we live with clarity. We can then live with purpose. But if I'm just focusing on the beginning, if I'm just focusing on the start without focusing on the ending, then I will probably live incredibly foolishly. I will live a life of folly as we're going to see that so many people in the scripture and in our lives, what do they do? What do we do? We have good beginnings. We don't always have great endings. And so the wise one is saying, yeah, the day of death is better than the day of your birth. It puts things in perspective. Was it Stephen Covey who had said, begin with the end in mind as a way to live wisely, because I

know what's coming or I have an idea of what I want to end up. Therefore, I'm going to live in a way that's intentional, trying to get towards that place. Part of the wisdom of Ecclesiastes. But another thing, it begins with chapter six, where he says it's the frustration of desires. It says there's an evil under the sun that lies heavy upon men, that here's a person to whom God gives wealth and possessions and honor, lacks nothing they desire, but he doesn't have the power to enjoy them. But a stranger enjoys them. This is vanity. Now there's a possibility that this can be, yeah, they've been given all these gifts and

all this work. They've been blessed in so many ways, but someone else enjoys the fruits of their labor, that being a vanity, a meaninglessness, a vapor. But there's also a thing called anhedonia. If you know what anhedonia is, it is an inability or unwillingness to enjoy oneself. You know, hedonism is taking pleasure, right? It's a kind of a idea, a mindset of this oriented towards pleasure. Anhedonia is, you know, if you're anhedonic,

the opposite of hedonism. It's an inability or unwillingness to enjoy oneself, to have gifts, to be surrounded by gifts, to be surrounded by life, to be surrounded by, as it says in scripture here, possessions and wealth and honor, but not have the ability to enjoy it. Not letting oneself say, oh my gosh,

I can actually take joy. I can laugh. I can rejoice in what I have is, that's a burden. That is a burden to be anhedonic. And so we have to, I think so many of us, we can be like this. We can fall into that trap where it's just like, nope, I got to get back to toil. I got to get back to work. I got to get back to the thing because I'm worried about the bills and I'm worried about the mortgage and I'm worried about these things that are real, right?

Obviously. back to the thing because I'm worried about the bills and I'm worried about the mortgage and I'm worried about these things that are real, right? Obviously, but maybe you have kids and maybe God's calling you to stop and just, okay, enjoy the fact that you have kids. Yeah, but they're noisy and they're messy and they're, yeah, but they won't be noisy and messy for long or forever at least. Maybe you're alone and you're like, I can't enjoy this time alone. Well, yeah, but you've been given silence. You've been given the gift of quiet and peace and time to think, freedom maybe even to travel or freedom to serve. That there are so many people who, ah, they have other obligations because their lives are full of family. I'm just trying to spin this.

And I don't mean to spin it in a way that is overly Pollyanna-ish, but, or overly naive by that sense of, okay, so I'm single. Yes, I'd love to have a family. Yes, I'd love to have a spouse, you might say. But okay, but I also am free. I'm free to serve people who would not be able to be served by me if I had a family or by me if I had a spouse. And so to be able to say that, to see that and say, okay, let me take joy in what I do have, not be sorrowful of what I don't have. Last couple of things. There is just this great verse in chapter seven, verse 10, that says, say not, why were the former days better than these?

For it is not from wisdom that you ask this. Why were former days better than these? Like back in the good old days, they were so much better than times we're living through right now. And basically, Coleth is pointing out, the author of Ecclesiastes is pointing out, yeah, you're not being smart when you say that. You're not being wise when you ask the question, back in the day, why was it so much better than today? Because that is not the case. I think it was Augustine, St. Augustine, who had once said something along the lines of, do not wish for the good old days, essentially, because back in the good old days, you wouldn't have thought they were the good old days, something along those lines. Yeah, that was a, that was a pretty much a butchering of his quote.

But the last, last little note, verse 21 in chapter seven says, do not give heed to all the things that men say, lest you hear your servant cursing you. It says, don't give heed to all things that people say, lest you hear your servant cursing you or anybody cursing you. Cause that can really make us sad. It can really ruin our day. Here's someone saying something negative about you. But he goes on to say, your heart knows that many times you yourself have cursed others. And I just think about how often does someone's, not even like overly cruel comment, but just a slightly critical comment, how often can that ruin our day? It can

just kind of be that sliver that gets under our skin that just bothers us. And think of all the times we have said those kinds of things about other people. And now it's not just merely a matter of like, well, you've done it too, but I think it's a matter of wisdom. And the wisdom is this. Someone could say about me, they could say, oh yeah, he's not that, I mean, he's fine. He's not that smart or he's fine, but he's not that whatever the positive thing is. And that could really, you know, I could let that be a burr under my skin. I could let that be something that really bothers me. But how many times do I offer my own assessment of someone's podcast or someone's show or

someone's whatever it is that they're doing and I don't really even mean anything. It's just, I'm just sharing my opinion. So again, it's not even just a matter of like, Hey, you do it too. But it's a matter of, okay, let me think when I do it, do I really, does it mean that I've really taken the time and have come down to the conclusion? Here's my assessment of this person as a person, or here's my assessment of this person as whatever it is that they're doing. Like, nope, I was probably just being a little bit too loose with my criticism. And it probably didn't really mean anything when I said it. So maybe when someone is saying it about me, maybe take it with a grain of salt.

I don't know if that makes any sense. It made sense to me when I was thinking about it. And this is one of those times where you say, yeah, Father Mike, you were off today. And I'd say, okay, maybe I just have to think of the seventh chapter of Ecclesiastes verse 21. Just think, yes, today, not the most articulate. What a gift. I'm so grateful we have 365 of these because, you know, it's day 151. You get to get a chance to kind of redeem yourself on day 152. But today is the day that the Lord has made. And so

we rejoice and are glad in it. We rejoice and praise the Lord. And we rejoice and pray for each other. I am praying for you. Please pray for each other. And please pray for me. My name is Father Mike. I cannot wait to see you tomorrow. God bless.