[AI translation] Dear brothers and sisters, last Sunday I announced here in worship that I would like to speak again about the prodigal son. Now that you have listened to this word, you might say: is it not about the prodigal son? But yes, it is very much about the prodigal son. In fact, I would go so far as to say that it will be about the experience, the experience that the prodigal son has of being separated from the Father. It is the spiritual dimension of the journey that leads from the life of the raging pig to the trough of the pigs. I have read an extract from the bitter confession of the great prodigal son of the Old Testament, the famous King Solomon, which you have heard. Throughout the book of Ecclesiastes, and in this passage that I have just read, he describes what he observed in his own soul when he was separated from God. When he himself was living in that remote land, like the prodigal son of the New Testament.In fact, his testimony is nothing more than a negative evangelism of staggering power. For he describes where one goes "under the sun". This curious expression 'under the sun' occurs very often in the preacher's book. Someone has counted it - I believe him - he says 29 times. What is meant by this phrase, under the sun, is that what he writes about was all only on the earth's horizon, that is, under the sun. It lacks the 'above the sun' perspective. It lacks the transcendent, eternal perspective of things. Here we are talking about the experience of a man locked into his own world, locked into a purely this-worldly perspective. It is about what man can achieve in his own strength, without God. Without divine revelation. By mere human wisdom of life, at the most by a philosophical concept of God, or by a religiousness that is self-speculated. What does the sun get you? What does it achieve? Utter disillusionment, hiccups, pessimism, life-weariness, as when someone waves his hand so bitterly and says it is not worthwhile. It was not worth it. All is futility, and all is the torment of the soul.
Well, then, let us now examine only the little of Solomon's rich experience of life that I have just read out. What is this about? Solomon resolves - for he has had the means - to try once himself to do all that men usually do "under the sun," that they are so enthusiastic about, that they are so broken. In which they find the meaning of their lives, why they are so attached to this life on earth. He'll try it sometime! Let him know the true value of these things, what is good about them? Is it worth living for?
He says, "I said in my heart, 'Well, I will try you in the house of the living, that you may see what is good.'" So once he plunges into the pleasures that this earthly life can offer a man at all. In fact, that is what the prodigal son of the New Testament wanted. To live happily, to have fun with merry pals and friends in good company. Spending lots of money, enjoying life to the full. To experience all kinds of amorous adventures. Dolce vita! was his motto. Enjoy life while it lasts. Every hour must be cut off from its flower, that is the meaning of life. That's why it's worth living. Do you know, brothers and sisters, that this is the philosophy of life of many, many people today, and what is astonishing is that it is not only the young who think they have enough time to enjoy themselves, but also the elderly who think they don't have enough time to enjoy themselves.
This is what the world is chasing, a million and ever newer forms of pleasure. For the modern man, the serious and the joyful side of life are almost disconnected. Let's say work and pleasure. Work is increasingly becoming an unbearable burden and pleasure an increasingly necessary oasis in the desert of work. The latter is seen as the pleasant part of life, the former is seen as a necessary evil, lacking all pleasure and all pleasure. What Solomon says here, "Well, my love, I will try you in the watery dwelling," has become in the lives of very, very many people today a bale of what is the really meaningful part of their lives, and the rest is all there to cover the cost of it. But then Solomon - well, I don't know how long, but after a certain period of time - realised that the tragedy of pleasure is that you always need more of it. The general rules of arithmetic do not apply in the world of pleasure. One plus one equals two is valid and true everywhere else. For example, an apple and an apple are two apples. But in the world of pleasure, somehow it doesn't apply. For example, the pleasure of a glass of wine and another glass of wine is never twice as much as the pleasure of the first. The first is always more. One plus one is never two, but always less than two. And so it is with all the branches and forms of pleasure in the world of pleasure. And this is also the poverty of riches. For example, a very rich person might go on holiday with ten times as much money as a simple poor student. And yet, with ten times as much money, he cannot buy himself ten times as much pleasure as that poor student with that little. Or a man, for example, who is very rich, can invest ten times as much in the sumptuous furnishings of his large apartment as a simple young couple who are just starting out in life and have great difficulty in finding enough to furnish a room. But that rich man will not have ten times as much pleasure in his apartment as that other man in the same room. With double the money you can very often only get half the pleasure. One and one in the world of pleasure is never two, but always less than two. You see, it is so that the pleasure-seeker always needs a stronger thrill to maintain the same degree of pleasure. And because this is impossible, his soul becomes more and more dissatisfied. Pleasure as an idol cannot satisfy all man's needs. And therefore he very soon comes to the point where the pleasure for which he was so desperate is no longer enjoyed. And the entertainment he was so pursuing is no longer entertaining him. And the pleasure that he was so desperate for is no longer pleasure and no longer happiness. He had achieved everything miraculously, he had torn down every flower that stood in his way, and what had he achieved? Nothing. That he can no longer enjoy anything in the world. Listen, brothers and sisters, to what is said by a man who has really tried all the possibilities and forms of pleasure because he had the means. When he says, "Well, I will try thee in the watery dwelling to see what is good," he goes on to say, "And behold, it is vanity! Of laughter, I say, foolishness; and of mirth, what is the use? - It is vanity, folly, uselessness. This is the objective and experiential statement of the pleasures of this world - not of a man who walks the walk of believers in God, condemning these pleasures, but of a man of the world who has tried them all and hated them all. And he hated it not in terms of faith, but in purely human terms. He also hated it from the human point of view of thinking "under the sun", in the earthly horizon. So here it is not a man of faith who warns: 'Men, beware, for the path of earthly pleasures leads to the pig trough', but the cry of a soul separated from God, crying out to us from the past: 'Men, I know, I have tried, I have been through it all. Believe me: look where it leads me, where I have come to, I am at the pig trough, my whole life has become aimless and empty.
He then goes on to detail the same thing. When he writes, "I will make my heart to drink wine, ...and will take up this folly, till I see what it shall be good for the sons of men to do under heaven, according to the number of the days of their lives."
So again he is looking for what is good in it. For man is always seeking under the "sun" what is good for him. What is it that would make him truly joyful? What would make him feel that it was worth living for? Solomon thinks to himself: so many people are looking for that certain good in wine-drinking - and Solomon hasn't even seen the modern floor-stands and the refined cupboards of the flats - but if so many people are doing it, Solomon thinks, there must be something good in it! If it wasn't good, they obviously wouldn't be doing it. So he chews his own cud, like so many others. And he soon realises, just as so many others do, that the heart, hardened by wine, is oh so soon to smell the bitterness of the serpent's venom at the bottom of the cup. So that's not really good either. In fact, the worst thing about it is that it forces you to do it even when you know it's no good. In fact, when you already know how very bad it is - but you do it anyway. So he classifies it, he classifies this deceptive pleasure with the other vanities. So again, it is not the word of a believer that warns us here. To this I might almost say that he is an inveterate alcoholic, as if he stood before us and in his sober moment said: People, I know where this road leads: to the pig trough. I hated myself. Solomon's words - he almost has that disgust of disillusionment - are like a man who stands in front of a mirror and wants to spit in his own face.
So what is good in this miserable life? Solomon tries to use his immense wealth for something useful, something lasting. Behold, he goes on to write, "I have done great things for them; I have built me houses; I have planted me vineyards. I made me gardens and ornamental gardens, and planted in them all kinds of fruit-bearing trees. They shall make for me pools of water, that I may water the budding forest of the trees." No one could live so lavishly and create such a wonderful earthly paradise for himself as Solomon. You know, it could be said today, in our circumstances, that in addition to his beautiful, elegant and well-furnished apartment in Budapest, someone has also acquired a lavish villa on Lake Balaton, with a plot of land on the shore, a beautiful park, ornamental trees, shrubs, magnificent flowers, small ponds in the park with small fountains, fountains, the latest Mercedes, and a well-growing orchard behind the house... What more do you need, this is paradise on earth! But even this is not all, for behold, he goes on to say. And they have gathered for me silver and gold, and the riches of kings, and provinces; they have got for me singing men and singing women, and the beauty of the sons of men, and of women and wives. And I was great, and I reproved all that were before me in Jerusalem; and my wisdom was in its place. My eyes were desirous of a thing: I have not withholden them, neither have I restrained my heart from any pleasure..." So this paradise on earth had the power, the prestige, the gold, the silver, the women, the comfort, the service, all the trimmings of art, and all the delicacies, and the good friendship and admiring admiration of great and distinguished men. So everything, everything he could wish for, he could satisfy. It is as if someone today had five hits in a row on the lottery several times. How many people dream of even one!
And then if you ask him: Well, Solomon, were you happy at last? You have drunk so much from every cup of joy and success that you can't hold it in any longer. Were you satisfied, did you finally find in all this what was worth striving for, what was worth living for, what was worth sacrificing for?! And the shocking thing is, brothers and sisters, no. Still no. All this riches, luxury, splendour, magnificence, it seemed to him again as vanity, and as torment of the soul. Behold, the disillusionment of his disappointed soul he thus puts into words, "And behold all my works that my hands have done, and my labour which I have laboured in; and, lo, they are all vanity and labour of the soul, and are of no profit under the sun!" It is as if a suicide candidate were speaking here.
Is there no lasting joy and peace for the human heart even in having achieved all that it wanted? That it succeeds in everything it desires? Behold, here is one who can say of himself that what his eye-eye had desired he did not have to deprive himself of, for he could satisfy it all, and yet he is unhappy, boundlessly unhappy. It is as if Solomon were to come to us - not with a message from the other world, but from this world - and say to us: There is nothing under the sun, no nice house, no car, no multitude of amorous adventures, no travel, no riches, nothing to satisfy a man's soul. All is vanity, and all is the torment of the soul, and believe me, there is no meaning in such a life. You know what's so shocking? That someone wrote this more than three thousand years ago. It is the same thing that modern fiction and drama today presents to its readers in so many different forms and with such shocking reality: it is a terrible thing to have everything, but to have nothing inside, or rather, to have nothingness, nihil inside.
Do you see why I have said that this bitter self-confession of Solomon is in fact a dramatic negative evangelisation? It is because it is - just like modern fiction and drama today - nothing more than a painful, desperate cry for God, for salvation. How right is St. Augustine, who also, drenched in the pleasures of a terribly turbulent youth, said. And how unheard of is Jesus right when he says, "What profit is it to a man if he gain the whole world, but hurt his own soul?"
Here is an example of a life that shows that everything, everything is futile as long as it is "under the sun". So long then as it is only earthly, only finite, only human in horizon, so long as it is only human in horizon of things: toil, love, joy, pleasure, riches, wealth, prosperity, the whole of life; so long as it is only human in horizon, it is all vanity, and all the torment of the soul. Brothers and sisters, we cannot help it, we are created in such a way that only what God gives, what God gives in Jesus, truly satisfies the soul! And if a man has received all that he desires from life, but not what God gives in Jesus, then it is precisely what makes this "all" beautiful and worthwhile that is lacking.
It's as if Solomon is just telling us: Believe me: It is not worth living only "under the sun", because even this life "under the sun" is only given meaning, purpose and substance by that which is "above the sun" - Who is "above the sun": the Eternal God! And if I know that there is an eternity, and if I believe that with the death and resurrection of Jesus this eternity was opened up to this earthly world, to the "under the sun", then I live differently "under the sun". Then suddenly not only success, joy and happiness, but even sorrow, failure and disappointment have meaning, purpose and substance. And then what the Apostle Paul says is true: "Your labour is not in vain in the Lord."
All I can say, brothers and sisters, is that it is worthwhile to belong to Christ with all your heart! It is worth following Jesus with all your life! No one has ever regretted it. No one has ever been splashed with it, no one has ever said that it is vanity and torment of the soul. I don't know what happened to Solomon in the end, but I do know what can happen to us. For I know that the door of our heavenly Father's house and heart is open. He is waiting for us, he loves us. Is he still waiting? Does he still love us? Even me? - a Solomon might say. Yes, still. Even you - and even me. The door is open, brothers. And once Jesus said that He is the door. So His two arms, like two door handles, open wide, calling to those who are weary and burdened, "Come to me, all you who are weary in all your vanity and burdened in all your anguish of spirit! In me you will find rest. Do you hear? As if through that open door the angels' song were now filtering out to us:
Your Father's love is waiting,
Your comfort is waiting for you.
Come from far away,
Oh, come home!
Could you now, standing with me before Jesus at the Door, truly, from your heart, say:
I come bringing nothing,
embracing your Cross,
Naked to clothe me,
Orphaned, trusting to pity me;
Sin gives no rest:
Wash it off, O, for it is consuming!
(Canticle 458, verse 3)
Amen
Date: 21 January 1968.