Amen. You can be seated. Yeah, that deserves some claps. Thanks be to God. This past week, my husband Ben and I got on a plane in Grand Rapids and flew to Denver, rented a car, and drove three hours east. This is the views out there. Have any of you ever driven from Denver east? There's a few reasons you would do that. One of them being to visit my grandma in western Kansas, the tiny German Lutheran farming community where my mom grew up. It's a town of 400 called Bird City. There's something about the landscape out there that expands my soul. It's remote with a sort of rugged beauty that makes me feel small. And you have to be prepared because there's a stretch of about 80 miles with no gas stations. It's the kind of land that gracefully draws you out of your current reality and reminds you that the world is wider and bigger and wilder and more spacious than you thought. And it reminds me that my life is simultaneously small and insignificant and also precious. Vast landscapes have a way of speaking to us in that way, or rather, God has a way of speaking to us through the vastness of a western Kansas grassland. One thing about our preaching life at Pillar is that we follow something called a lectionary, which basically helps us from just picking our favorite Bible passages. It takes us through from Genesis all the way up to one of the Gospels, beginning in the fall, culminating at a gospel for Advent, which takes us all the way through Lent. But then in the summer, we loosen up a bit, we depart from the lectionary, and John Brown says to me, You can pick whatever you want to preach on. So I was thinking about you all, praying, doing some Bible reading of my own, and I've recently been captivated by ecclesiastes. It's this ancient part of the Bible called wisdom literature with musings voiced by Solomon, one of Israel's wise kings. And he's wondering the whole time about what the good life is. So I'm hoping we can give ourselves fully to this often perplexing, all over the place sort of book of Ecclesiastes. My challenge to you is to pick one time this summer to sit down with it and read it through from start to finish. It'll take you 30 minutes to an hour and a half, depending on how rapidly you're going. It's meant to be read all together because Solomon goes on this journey of discovery. He's seeking after pleasure, he's seeking after riches. And he ends up concluding that everything is meaningless, but life is a gift from God. God is God, and we are not, and life is quite short. Ecclesiastes puts everything into perspective. Kind of like the western Kansas landscape. And in all of his meanderings, Solomon is less so trying to give moral instruction and more so trying to give us a check for where our priorities are. What's important to us? He's trying to call out those who have their priorities out of line. In short, he's saying, remember God. Remember that you're small. Remember that life is a gift. Remember that God is God and you're a creature. I love this from Fleming Rutledge, which really helped me orient my heart to Ecclesiastes. She says, the book of Ecclesiastes is a very important book of the Old Testament. It would be a good thing for our relentlessly optimistic, upbeat American form of Christianity if we all were to read Ecclesiastes once a month. The person who wrote it was a realist about human life. No pieties for him, no denial, no making nice, no pretense that everything is working out fine. Perhaps I'm drawn to Ecclesiastes because of its realism, its honesty. It's willing to call out our pretending. Because we all can pretend. Ecclesiastes jumps all over the place, which you'll see when you read it. But for now, I want to focus our hearts on chapter 5, verses 1 through 7. It's all about worship. What we're doing right now. Listen to this. Guard your steps when you go to the house of the Lord. Go near to listen rather than to offer the sacrifice of fools who do not even know that they do wrong. Do not be quick with your mouth, do not be hasty in your heart to utter anything before God. God is in heaven and you are on earth, so let your words be few. A dream comes when there are many cares, many words mark the speech of a fool. When you make a vow to the Lord, don't delay to fulfill it. It's better to not make a vow than to make a vow and not fulfill it. Don't let your mouth lead you into sin. And don't protest to the temple messenger saying, My vow was a mistake. Why would God be angry at what you say and destroy the work of your hands? Much dreaming and many words are meaningless. Therefore, fear God. This is the word of the Lord. When I read this a couple weeks ago, I was struck by verse two. Because it reminded me of a song that I had heard in childhood. God is in heaven and you are on earth, so let your words be few. Maybe you've heard it. We'll sing it for communion. You are God in heaven and here am I on earth. Popularized by Philips Craigendine in 2003. We'll sing it for communion, don't worry. You are God in heaven, and here am I on earth, so let my words be few. And then the chorus is, Jesus, I am so in love with you. Which is all God is longing to hear from us. God, I love you. Jesus, I love you. We can overcomplicate prayer. We can overcomplicate worship. And God is yearning for worship that's authentic. God doesn't want us to go through the motions to pretend. God doesn't want us to show up with a mask on. The Bible goes to great lengths to show us that superficial religion, religion where we're showing up and pretending is meaningless to God, actually offensive to God. You can hear God's broken heart in the voice of Isaiah. The Lord says, these people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is based on merely human rules they've been taught. And then Jeremiah giving voice to the broken heart of God, you are always on their lips, but far from their hearts. God wants our hearts. All of us. And God is inviting us to authentically and honestly talk to him. It's about integrity. Listen to this from Eugene Peterson as he describes the voice of the author of Ecclesiastes. He refers to him as the preacher. The preacher is not going to instruct us in right and wrong pleasures. That's not his style. He's not a moralist. We do live in a moral universe and need to learn to make moral decisions, to choose the right and refuse the wrong, to choose God and deny evil. But the preacher has more to do with discriminating between the real and the illusory, the authentic and the false, the actual and the fantastic. It's in these matters that the preacher is a guide. His question is not what is right, but what is real. What is real? His repeated conclusion regarding much of what we value and center our lives on is that it's vanity, hot air. What's real and what's illusory, what's authentic and what's false. God is inviting a posture, a heart posture in worship that has integrity, that's authentic, that's true to where you're at and who you are. It's the kind of worship that takes seriously that God is God and we're not. It's the kind of worship that realizes God is the creator of the world and we're creatures. Worship that takes seriously that our life is a gift. I wonder how all this talk about worship hits you today. Maybe you're not quite sure about faith, you're new to church, you're not sure how to talk to God at all. Here's the good news. You don't have to pretend. Maybe you're a lifelong Christian wondering if it's all even real. Here's the good news. You don't have to pretend. Maybe you're an overwhelmed parent without a second in the day to even pause to pray. Here's the good news, you don't have to pretend. Or maybe you're slightly apathetic, and this passage leaves you feeling more condemned than encouraged. Here's the good news, you don't have to pretend. Bring that to God too. God is in heaven and you are on earth, so let your words be few. The passage isn't saying don't tell God what's on your heart, but rather be actually honest. Let your words be few so that the only words you're saying are the true ones. We're being invited to actual intimacy with God. The kind of closeness where we don't just pray to pray, or talk to talk, or sing to sing, but a closeness where we encounter the living God. It's the kind of true intimacy where nervous chatter fades, and we stand before God in total authenticity. Think of a close friend, someone you're able to sit with without the small talk. That's what God is offering to be for us and inviting us into. When I first began wrestling with this passage, I was thinking back to my middle school prayer journals, where I would just write to God everything. My words were not few. But I do think it delighted the heart of God to hear all about the boys I had crushes on and the things that I felt guilty about and all the things that I wanted. It was like a surface level kind of talking, but it was, it had integrity, it was real. It was me as a 12-year-old riding out in my heart to God. That delights the heart of God. It's not an invitation to say less, it's an invitation to say only what's true, only what's honest. The wisdom here is to say less fluff, say less rigid, going through the motions, prayers, say less fancy things to try to impress God. But say what's real and pause your own chatter for long enough to actually listen. That's the word of wisdom to my seventh grade self. To listen to God. Guard your steps when you go near to the house of the Lord. Go near to listen. True worship is not a duty to perform, it's an encounter with the living God. It's not rattling off our own vow to get what we want, but it's listening, standing in awe of God. It reminds me of this often-quoted interview with Mother Teresa. You may have heard this before. There's a CBS television interview talking with Mother Teresa. And they say, When you pray, what do you say to God? And she says, I don't say anything, I listen. And then this interview is like, well, okay. When God speaks to you, what does God say? And she goes, He doesn't say anything. He listens. And if you don't understand that, I can't explain it to you. Can you imagine being the CVS interviewer? You're with this saintly woman, and she's just talking about this experience of being with God. That's almost hard for me to wrap my heart around. God is in heaven and you are on earth, so let your words be few. I've thought of three examples from our trip at West that try to get at this presence of few words that God is inviting us to. It's a moment when words are few, but presence is authentic and real. I wonder if these moments could give us a glimpse into what the writer Ecclesiastes is saying. Moments when words are few, but communication and presence are genuine and real. The first is riding horses. These are the two horses that Ben and I rode. On the left, we have Apollo, Ben's tall steed. And on the right, mine was named Lucky. Horses can't talk. They're gentle giants, but they say so much with their eyes, with their movements. And to communicate with a horse, you don't need to say much. It's a shifting of weight, a pat on the back, a slight movement of the reins, and they respond. Few words, but a depth of understanding. Next, I'm thinking of my grandma, who we visited in Kansas. This is her. Her name is Dolores Dorsch, farmer's wife, high school PE teacher, quilter, gardener. She's on hospice care, which includes comfort measures, which means she's slowly dying and she sleeps a lot. She didn't wake up from her sleeping the whole two days that we were there. But we sat with her for dinner and for breakfast and for lunch, eating our own meals while she sat by her food and slept. Going through the motions of community and hospitality and presence. Perhaps she knew we were there. Few words, but a depth of presence, a depth of meaning. If you've ever sat with someone as they died, you know what I'm talking about. The last moment of few words comes from the wedding we attended. It was on a working ranch in southern Colorado where the bride grew up. She's a rodeo world champion. They have 40 horses. We're all sitting there in this valley on our hay bale pews. The entire wedding party is entered. Come thou fount is playing on the speakers. And everyone is captivated as the bride and her dad ride over the hill down toward the wedding on horseback. She's wearing a full ball gown. And the horse handled it great. And we were captivated. I was weeping. It was like we were held in awe by the beauty of the moment. No one was speaking, but something sacred, something tender, something was communicated. It's like a moment too deep for words. God is in heaven and you are on earth, so let your words be few. That's the invitation to a moment of total authenticity, presence, and just being with God. And I'm not saying you have to go from this place and cultivate a private spiritual moment for yourself. If that happens, great. I'm saying authentic worship is happening here in community, God's gathered people, the church. May this be a space of authentic worship. I believe that it is. The invitation is to enter more and more deeply into that. I did a little searching on that part about vows in verses four and five. When you go to the house of the Lord, when you make your vow, don't delay to fulfill it. And I learned that there was this practice in temple worship where people would make a vow so that God would fulfill his end of the deal. So, like, if I do this, God's gonna do this, and then God would come through and do his thing, and they would be like, well, maybe I don't have to do my part anymore. The emphasis of all of that is on integrity. It's an invitation to honesty, authenticity, and truth telling. To keep your word with God. I want you to hear the message version of this passage because it's stunning to me and it really helps me enter in. This is a paraphrase translation that sometimes when I read a part of the Bible that I feel perplexed by, this is where I go. So listen to this. Watch your steps when you enter God's house. Enter to learn. That's far better than mindlessly offering a sacrifice, doing more harm than good. Don't shoot off your mouth or speak before you think. Don't be too quick to tell God what you think he wants to hear. God's in charge, not you. The less you speak, the better. Overwork makes for restless sleep. Over talk shows you up as a fool. When you tell God you'll do something, do it now. God takes no pleasure in foolish drivel. Vow it, then do it. Far better not to vow in the first place than to vow and not pay up. Don't let your mouth make a total sinner out of you. When called to account, you won't get by with, sorry, I didn't mean it. Why risk provoking God to angry retaliation? But, and this is the part I want you to hear, against all illusion and fantasy and empty talk, there's always this rock foundation, fear God. Against all illusion and fantasy and empty talk, there's always this rock foundation, fear God. Translated differently, stand in awe of God. That's the invitation and the challenge to stand in genuine awe of who God is with our whole selves. And we don't have to look far to see what that looks like in a human being. To see what genuine worship and honest prayer could be like for us. Jesus shows us in the fullness of humanity, he's modeled perfectly for us what a life of authentic communion with God looks like. He was always stealing away to be alone with God. He wept before God, asking the calling to die to be taken from him, but submitting to his will nonetheless. He prayed bold prayers and real prayers, trusting the Father's presence with him always. Jesus has gone before us to model true worship and true prayer. And because of Christ's death and resurrection, we are invited to participate in genuine true communion with God by the Spirit. God has drawn near to us in Jesus Christ and has bridged the gap between creature and creator, between heaven and earth. In Jesus, God in heaven has come to the earth to taste and experience the fullness of what it means to be a human. So pray with honesty, in the confidence that Christ truly understands. God is truly for you, and the Spirit is actually with you, helping you to pray. But against all illusion and fantasy and empty talk, there is always this rock foundation. Fear God. In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.