" Guard your steps when you go to the house of God. To draw near to listen is better than to offer the sacrifice of fools, for they do not know that they are doing evil. Be not rash with your mouth, nor let your heart be hasty to utter a word before God, for God is in heaven and you are on earth. Therefore let your words be few. For a dream comes with much business, and a fool’s voice with many words. When you vow a vow to God, do not delay paying it, for he has no pleasure in fools. Pay what you vow. It is better that you should not vow than that you should vow and not pay. Let not your mouth lead you into sin, and do not say before the messenger that it was a mistake. Why should God be angry at your voice and destroy the work of your hands? For when dreams increase and words grow many, there is vanity; but God is the one you must fear." (Ecclesiastes 5:1-7, ESV)
As I wrote in previous post (May 20th), the Preacher is slowing building up a structure of significance after dismantling all popular views of purpose and meaning. Thus far he has noted the importance of toil and community. Here he adds another brick, and a very significant one in Israelite culture: the sacred practices of worship. He does not argue for worship over against non-worship. I’m not sure the ancient reader would have even grasped a life void of worship. Rather, he points to the difference between sincere, reverential worship and pretense.
His basic argument is simply that worship is about God and not about what man does for God. Devote worshippers are not necessarily true worshippers. It is so easy for us to become more impressed with our acts of devotion than we are with God. We pile up the prayers, fill our services with songs, listen to a good bit of preaching, and think we’ve done a pretty good job of it. But hasty words, says the Preacher, are foolishness. Acts done simply out of habit or without sincerity are better to have never been done. It is better to keep silent than to offer a wordy, insincere prayer. It is better to never make a vow, than to make one and never keep it. Let your words and acts be proportional to your sincerity.
Why such care in worshipping God? Because, says the Preacher, “God is heaven and you are on earth” and “God is the one you must fear.” God is too great to trifle with. He is not someone you pretend to worship. God detests sham worship. One only has to give a cursory reading to Jesus dealings with the Pharisees to see that. Worship is serious business, because God is seriously awesome. A hint of sham trivializes the One being about whom nothing is trivial.
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