Welcome back after the 7-week break to focus on the Zoom study of my newest book The Lord’s Prayer: Walk in Love. It was a fun and inspiring series with over a dozen friends across a couple states! I hope you'll check out the videos. Of course, you can still get the book on Amazon.
We are returning to the look at Ecclesiastes 3:1-8. This
week we are at verse 5 that says, there is a time to throw away
stones, and a time to gather stones together. In this unsettled time of
violence in some cities, and angry, abusive political rhetoric it’s easy to
identify stones that are being flung, both literally and figuratively.
What was the author of Ecclesiastes thinking, though? Many
commentators think this is a reference to the clearing of a field or vineyard.
Rocks and stones make it difficult for cultivating crops and need to be cleared
out. Often these stones are then used to create stone walls around the fields. This
is done around the world, often without mortar, even today.
A few commentators note that invading armies sometimes covered fertile fields with rocks so that the people could not farm. According to I Kings 3:19 this is what Hebrew King Joram did to the Moabite lands. As with all war-time actions, it is brutal and causes hardship on the people who can least bear the additional burden.
The stones that are gathered might signify altars built of stone. For instance, when the Children of Israel crossed into the Promised Land, Joshua commanded, take up twelve stones from the middle of the Jordan, from right where the priests are standing, and carry them over with you and put them down at the place where you stay tonight. This was to be an eternal reminder that the people crossed the Jordan on dry land.
It could also be a reference to gathering stones to build the Temple in Jerusalem, and the throwing away of the old building blocks in favor of the new and finely carved ones.
The writer of Ecclesiastes was certainly not thinking of the
‘gathering’ of the Gentiles into the Kingdom. We could however be reminded that
Ephesians 3:19-22 makes the argument that non-Jews were in fact, no longer
strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of
the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and
prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone. In him the whole
structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord; in whom
you also are built together spiritually into a dwelling-place for God. The
Body of Christ is like a temple, each of us being one of the building blocks.
Is there a lesson we can find in this verse about gathering
and throwing stones? Do we gather our own stones of hate or anger and then
throw them at others? Or do we clear the land of the stones that keep us from
being fertile soil? Do we take the stones and build walls, or perhaps we build
paths with them?
What stones do I need to gather out of my field to make room
for good seed?
Are there stone walls I need to remove?
Next week we’ll look at the second half of verse 5 which
calls us to consider embracing and refraining from embracing. In this time of
social distancing, we are all doing a lot less hugging. Is that what it means?
