“Then I saw that all toil and all skill in work come from a man’s envy of his neighbor. This also is vanity and a striving after wind” (Ecclesiastes 4:4-5)
According to a new survey conducted in June by ‘Finder’, Australia’s most visited comparison website, Aussies are getting into debt just to ‘keep up with the Joneses’. This is quite extraordinary given that we are in the grip of the worst cost-of-living crisis! In a poem by Victor Hugo, considered one of the greatest writers of all time, ‘Envy and Greed’ are two sisters. One day they are each granted one wish but on the condition that whatever they ask for, the other will receive double. Do you know what ‘Envy’ said? “I wish to be blind in one eye”.
One of the chief reasons why Cain murdered his own brother, Abel, was in part because of envy, long considered one of the seven deadly sins. The Teacher in Ecclesiastes makes it clear that envy which fuels a life of slavish striving and competition just to keep up appearances is fundamentally anti-neighbour.
However, envy is but a symptom of a much deeper problem. The root of envy is sinful pride; a worship of self, a preoccupation with self. To counter this, the Teacher in Ecclesiasts gives us a new question to ask. The question is, “How are we doing? We, not me”. Living for ‘we’, not just ‘me’, is a radical, alternate way of living. He presses the point in Ecclesiastes 4:7-12,
“7 Again, I saw vanity under the sun: 8 one person who has no other, either son or brother, yet there is no end to all his toil, and his eyes are never satisfied with riches, so that he never asks, “For whom am I toiling and depriving myself of pleasure?” This also is vanity and an unhappy business. 9 Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil. 10 For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up! 11 Again, if two lie together, they keep warm, but how can one keep warm alone? 12 And though a man might prevail against one who is alone, two will withstand him—a threefold cord is not quickly broken”.
What the Teacher is challenging us to do is to ask ourselves whether our busy lives are just for the benefit of ‘me’ or ‘we’? His point being, it is not what you earn or have in life but who you have in life that matters most. “All for one and one for all!”
We are hardwired by God for community. I do not just need an individual identity but a corporate one too. God has created us not just for Himself nor simply for service but for relationship with others. A biblical understanding of unity is more than just a matter of shared beliefs. It is a matter of shared life. It is a matter of ‘we’ and ‘me’. A DIY approach to Christian spirituality is not only unbiblical but detrimental to our well-being.
Christ in us, the hope of glory!
Mark
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