Envy

"And I saw that all toil and all achievement spring from one person’s envy of another. This too is meaningless, a chasing after the wind" (Ecclesiastes 4:4).

There have been and will continue to be many places in this Biblical "rant" where The Teacher seems overcome by cynicism and is unable to see life for what it really is. But in this particular verse and passage, he does seem to take the blinders off and call us all out. The never-ending desire to toil, work and achieve, to be better than others and win at any cost often does spring, when we look carefully enough and can admit it, from some measure of envy. We want what the other person has, so we do whatever we can to get it, to obtain it, to even take it from them if we feel we must. Envy is often at the root of much of our conflict; James even puts it this way: "What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don't they come from your desires that battle within you? You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight" (James 4:1-2).

James and the Teacher could very well be describing our world. We see this sort of thing happening around the world in any one of the many wars or armed conflicts going on right now. We see it happening in the board rooms of major and minor businesses as employees jockey for position, wanting someone else's position and pay. I have seen it in a cemetery where, after hearing families pledge during the funeral to "stay together, as Mom would have wanted," the arguing over the inheritance begins almost as soon as the last piece of chicken is consumed at the dinner. All the toil and seeking after achievement springs, the Teacher says, from envy—wanting what someone else has.

Is it also possible we see it in the church? Do churches envy what another church has? Do pastors envy the pulpit of another pastor? Do church members wish they had the sorts of resources another church has (which is, of course, a rather ironic thought if you really process it)? And do denominations envy one another?

I will let you answer those questions, from your own observations. But I will say this: it has become awfully easy today to "demonize" fellow believers, to say that such-and-such a tradition is not truly Christian, to decide according to our own interpretation of Scripture that someone else has it all wrong? I was surprised to read online this weekend that we Methodists are not Christians and that a real Christian would never attend our church! Are we truly ever able to see what's in someone else's heart? Or is it possible we're acting from a position of envy? Is it possible that we're all wrong in some way and that God will have to straighten us all out in the end? Is is possible?

Envy, the Teacher says, is meaningless. And though I know I struggle with it, I couldn't agree with him more.