“There is a grievous ill that I have seen under the sun: riches were kept by their owners to their hurt, 14and those riches were lost in a bad venture; though they are parents of children, they have nothing in their hands. 15As they came from their mother’s womb, so they shall go again, naked as they came; they shall take nothing for their toil, which they may carry away with their hands. 16This also is a grievous ill: just as they came, so shall they go; and what gain do they have from toiling for the wind? 17Besides, all their days they eat in darkness, in much vexation and sickness and resentment.” – Ecclesiastes 5:13-17
Huh, unfortunately these words remind me of our modern economic maelstrom. Moneys have been spent poorly, ruining or damaging the futures of so many people across the world. Life savings have been cremated in the fires of economic confusion, and financial lifelines have been severed in the world of shady banking.
King Solomon, the purported author of this passage, would be wholly right in speaking of our current economic situation if it were not for one disturbing fact: the riches that were lost were often lost by those who did not own those riches. Money has been made and lost by others: investment bankers, financial advisers, and predatory lenders. It is a grievous ill, nay a communal sin, that the losers in the game we call “the economy” go to and fro on this earth, with a deadness and nakedness in their soul.
the rev. jimmy abbott 