Ecclesiastes 2:24-26

"There is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil. This also, I saw, is from the hand of God, for apart from him who can eat or who can have enjoyment? For to the one who pleases him God has given wisdom and knowledge and joy, but to the sinner he has given the business of gathering and collecting, only to give to one who pleases God. This also is vanity and a striving after wind." (Ecclesiastes 2:24-26, ESV)

At first glance, this little bit of text might sound like a pamphlet advocating hedonism or pleasure-seeking: there is nothing better than to eat, drink, and enjoy. But this hedonism, if it is that, is quite abnormal. Eat, drink, and enjoy your “toil.” A vocational hedonism? A working-class hero hedonism? The picture muddies even more, for God gives “wisdom and knowledge and joy” to the one “who pleases him.” A religious hedonism. So we have here a vocational, religious hedonism, which sounds a bit like a double shot vanilla mocha latte. Eat, drink, and be merry, and work your tail off. Do you what you want to do (sounds great), AND what God wants you to do (am I missing something?).

It would be impossible at this point to explain exactly how the Preacher puts all this together, for he going to take ten more chapters to do that. What is essential to see now is that he thinks all these things can and should be brought together. And it isn’t so hard to see where he is coming from. If you can’t enjoy your toil, let’s face it, you’re not going to find joy. Vocational hedonism is the only hedonism that is going to fly. And the only way you’re going to enjoy your toil is if that toil is placed squarely in the realm of God, for he is source of life, toil, and joy. Take him out of the picture, and all you have is vanity (i.e. no real pleasure). Vocational, religious hedonism.

So maybe there is nothing wrong with pleasure seeking. Maybe the problem is not the pleasure that we seek, but where we seek it. Of course these thoughts are hardly original to me. Augustine, Pascal, Jonathan Edwards, C.S. Lewis, John Piper, and others have much to say about these things. (If you don’t know these names, then you credit me the thought.) Maybe we don’t have to reform our passion for pleasure. Maybe we just have to alter the direction of its pursuit.