SCRIPTURE: Ecclesiastes 8
OBSERVATION/APPLICATION:
I have thought deeply about all that goes on here under the sun, where people have the power to hurt each other. I have seen wicked people buried with honour. Yet they were the very ones who frequented the Temple and are now praised in the same city where they committed their crimes! This, too, is meaningless. [Ecclesiastes 8:9-10]
The Teacher’s observation is that life is hard, that the righteous seem to suffer while the unrighteous seem to prosper – and they even do it in the “church”.
This is especially difficult for people who suffer, that the “self-righteous” religious people that are part of the problem in the world claim to be living with God’s blessing.
This is one reason why many people hate the so-called “christian” west, as they smuggly claim God’s blessing while using (wasting) 2/3s of the world’s resources for themselves, and living off of the hardship of the poor.
Are we the one’s that the Teacher is referring too?

What sorrow awaits you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs—beautiful on the outside but filled on the inside with dead people’s bones and all sorts of impurity. Outwardly you look like righteous people, but inwardly your hearts are filled with hypocrisy and lawlessness. [Matthew 23:27-28]
I think that we as christians really need to think this through, to discern where and how we are a part of the problem in the world today.
I am not saying that we are the problem, the problem is actually a universal phenomena, living in the heart of all people.
But as those who “frequent the temple” or claim to be religious, followers of Jesus, the harshest warning is reserved for us who ought to know better.
Outwardly we look like righteous people, but what lives in our hearts?
Are we just as greedy, lustful, wasteful, just as committed to pleasure and things, as the rest of the world?

The wisdom of the Teacher is not just an observation about life “out there”, it applies to me first.
I need to look within, to see whether his observations expose my own sinful, selfish heart.
This requires serious, prayerful reflection, thinking long and hard about our values and priorities and morals.
This requires sincere humility before God and others, admitting our hypocrisy and our need for God’s mercy and help.
And as those who know God, and are recipients of His grace, we have a greater responsibility to be humble, fair and gracious in our relations toward others.

PRAYER:
Lord, forgive me for subtly thinking that I am better than others, that I am somehow more blessed because I believe in God and follow Jesus.