One, Two, Three

Read Ecclesiastes 4:1-12

It's hard to look at the tears of the oppressed. When they showed starving children on late-night TV to pressure me into making a donation, I instinctively changed the channel. Who spends their evenings learning about famines so they can do something to help? But Ecclesiastes is unsparing. No one consoles them. No one consoles them. The cruelty is paired with its unbearable aloneness. It's so dark that the Teacher concludes the dead are better than the living, who must continue to suffer. But even better are those who haven't made it into the world. Faith doesn't require us to be positive. We can see and grieve the darkness. When we aren't hurting others through oppression, we often destroy ourselves by competing against each other. We ruin our lives through the foolishness of working too hard or not working at all. We call it the rat race or keeping up with the Joneses. The need to get ahead can bury us. But if we see through the lie and opt out, sloth consumes us, too. Seeing the futility of it all, the Teacher recommends finding whatever contentment you can in working enough. To intensify his point, he tells a story of a man constantly working to get more and more and more. But one day he looks up. The detached observation breaks into the first person: "For whom am I toiling and starving myself of good?" He has no son, no brother, no one to share it with. Then the Teacher moves from the tragedy of one to the practical benefits of two. They can help each other during the day, keep one another warm at night, and defend themselves against a solitary attacker. But even better than two friends is the union of three. For instance, in The Four Loves, C.S. Lewis observed that when his friend Charles Williams died, he wouldn't have more of his friend Tolkien to himself, but less, because Williams brought out a side of Tolkien that was now absent. Even looking at life "under the sun"—that is, without reference to God—the Teacher gives us wisdom. Life is better when we balance work and rest, and go through it all with good friends. Anyone can benefit from these insights. But what if we listen to this wisdom with Jesus by our side? He is the friend who sticks closer than a brother (Proverbs 18:24). He entered into the tears of the oppressed that the Teacher only observes. He didn't just see the haze, but was handed over to it. On the cross, Jesus experienced the ultimate isolation so we would never have to be alone under the sun. The author of life allowed the emptiness of death to consume him so that we might be filled with his presence. Because we belong to Jesus, he can knit us into friendships that go deeper than practical help. We can call each other "brother" and "sister." Not only can we help each other with the practicalities of life, but we can encourage one another to follow Jesus. When Christ is the central strand of our friendships, we gain purpose and wholeness that makes us like him.