The tears of the oppressed

Again I looked and saw all the oppression that was taking place under the sun: I saw the tears of the oppressed – and they have no comforter; power was on the side of their oppressors – and they have no comforter. And I declared that the dead, who had already died, are happier than the living, who are still alive. But better than both is the one who has never been born, who has not seen the evil that is done under the sun. Ecclesiastes 4:1-3

Have you read Ecclesiastes recently?

I wouldn’t blame you if your answer is No, because it’s a strange, distant book that doesn’t exactly hum with joy and positivity, but poses all sorts of thoughts and questions about the ups and down of life without providing clear answers. But it is part of God’s word, and it’s up to us to see what sense we can make of it in the light of scripture as a whole.

I’ve been reflecting recently on chapter 4, and want to start with verses1-3, which are as bleak and negative as any part of the whole book. The Tears of the Oppressed seems an obvious title.

Throughout human history vast numbers of men and women have suffered routinely under the cruel heel of oppression – injustice, war, poverty, persecution – and our daily diet of world news makes clear that nothing much has changed. Very much in the forefront is the plight of Ukraine; but there are many other, and possibly even worse, situations elsewhere.

Twice in verse 1 the writer of Ecclesiastes, seeing “the tears of the oppressed”, repeats the same mournful refrain: “they have no comforter”. How grim is that!

It’s been said that anything in this life is bearable if only we have someone to bear it with us. Well, I wouldn’t know about that, viewing the world as I do from my vantage-point of ease and relative luxury. But I hope of course that it’s true; hope still more that the vast multitudes of the oppressed do indeed have someone to share their suffering with them.

I read this morning in the paper about the large number of unaccompanied children who are seeking asylum in Britain. Unaccompanied children! – the very thought is too appalling to contemplate, especially as I think of my own happy, bouncy  grandchildren. But so, alas, it is. I saw too on the television news last night an elderly bent-over woman standing weeping helplessly in the wreckage of her little home in Ukraine, and could only thank God that somebody seemed to be embracing her. What difference such minimal comfort might make it’s impossible to quantify, but it was good to see.

The writer of Ecclesiastes, having reflected on the wretchedness of the comfortless, goes on to draw two conclusions which may seem rather shocking.

First, it’s better to be dead than alive: “I declared that the dead, who had already died, are happier than the living, who are still alive” (verse 2). There have been times in history when Christians who expressed such a thought would have been regarded as guilty of sin: such ingratitude towards God for the gift of life! Well, we live in kinder, more sympathetic days, and I find it hard to identify with that condemning attitude; God is God, so let him alone be the judge. But I have to admit that I am grateful for the matter-of-fact way that Ecclesiastes 4:2 expresses such a view, right or wrong.

The second conclusion the writer draws - if anything even worse - is that it’s better still never to be born: “better than both is the one who has never been born, who has never seen the evil that is done under the sun” (verse 3). That prompts various dizzy-making thoughts that it’s quite hard to get one’s head round: not least that, of course, if you had never been born, you wouldn’t know that you had never been born, because there wouldn’t be a “you” to do the knowing, would there? Still more, you couldn’t know if the life you might have been born into would have worked out as happy and largely trouble-free. Something else it’s best just to leave to the judgment of God!

But a conversation many years ago with a Christian friend has stuck with me. Her life had been hard, though she was still quite young, and as she reflected on the troubles she had endured, and was indeed still enduring, her conclusion, delivered in the same matter-of-fact manner as Ecclesiastes, was that “Yes, in fact, if I had been given the choice, I think I would have said ‘No thank you’”.

Perhaps I caught her on a bad day, for I knew that there were in fact joys and pleasures in her life as well; but, yet again, that is for God to judge. I personally didn’t feel any inclination to criticise.

Ecclesiastes 4 doesn’t offer anything particularly helpful as it looks sympathetically at the tears of the oppressed (that comes scattered in different parts of the book, especially as we persevere towards the end), so it’s up to us to pose to ourselves the question: How should I respond as I see these things, taking into account the whole span of scripture, and especially of course as I look to Jesus - for who could be said to be oppressed if not him? Such answers as I can suggest are, I’m afraid, terribly obvious and unoriginal, but I’ll offer them for what they’re worth.

But at the moment I’ve run out of space, so please join me again next time…

Father, thank you for the honesty of your word in scripture, even when it sems bleak and hopeless. But may reflecting today on the tears of the oppressed stir up in my heart a deep and Christlike compassion that makes, somehow, a practical difference to those who suffer so cruelly. Amen.