The Gift and the Can Opener Text: Ecclesiastes 6:1-2
Introduction: The Sickness of Modernity
We live in a time that is choking on its own prosperity. Never in the history of the world have so many people had so much stuff. We have climate controlled houses, pocket-sized supercomputers, and grocery stores overflowing with food from every corner of the globe. By any historical measure, we are all King Midas. And yet, we are a miserable people. We are anxious, depressed, medicated, and perpetually aggrieved. We have all the riches, wealth, and honor a man could desire, and yet our souls are starving.
This is because our secular, materialist worldview has a massive blind spot. It believes that the good life consists in the accumulation of goods. It thinks that if you can just get the right combination of wealth, health, and status, you will have arrived. But the Preacher in Ecclesiastes, the ancient Hebrew philosopher Solomon, pulls back the curtain on this lie. He shows us that it is possible to have a life full of blessings, and yet be utterly unable to enjoy a single one of them. This is the great sickness of modernity, and it is a very old sickness.
The prosperity gospel, that gaudy and embarrassing heresy, makes the same fundamental mistake, just with a pious gloss. It tells you that God wants you to be rich, and if you have enough faith, you will be. But it defines "rich" in the same crass, materialistic terms as the world does. It promises you the peaches, but it has nothing to say about the can opener. And as we will see in our text, God is in the business of handing out a great many cans of peaches, but He is very particular about who gets the can openers. This passage is a severe mercy from God. It is a splash of cold water in the face of every man who thinks that the stuff is the life. It is a diagnosis of a sickness that is prevalent among men, and it points us to the only cure.
The Text
There is an evil which I have seen under the sun and it is prevalent among men, a man to whom God gives riches and wealth and honor so that his soul lacks nothing of all that he desires; yet God does not empower him to eat from them, for a foreigner eats from them. This is vanity and a sickening evil.
(Ecclesiastes 6:1-2 LSB)
A Common and Grievous Evil (v. 1)
The Preacher begins by identifying a specific problem he has observed in the world. This is not a rare, freak occurrence. This is common.
"There is an evil which I have seen under the sun and it is prevalent among men, " (Ecclesiastes 6:1)
First, notice the framework. He calls this an "evil." The Hebrew word is ra'ah, which can mean evil, misery, distress, or calamity. This is not just a bummer. It is a profound distortion of the way things ought to be. It is a glitch in the created order, a consequence of the fall. And he sees it "under the sun." This is Solomon's signature phrase for life in this fallen world, from a purely horizontal perspective. It is what you see when you leave God out of the equation. From this vantage point, life is a series of baffling, repetitive, and often unjust cycles.
And this particular evil is "prevalent among men." It is literally "great upon mankind." This is a widespread affliction. It is the spiritual equivalent of the common cold, only far more deadly. We must not think that this is a problem only for the one percent. The principle applies to the man with two fishing boats who is eaten up with envy for the man who has three, just as much as it applies to the billionaire who is terrified of losing his place on the Forbes list. The issue is not the amount of stuff, but the posture of the heart toward the stuff.
The Divine Giver (v. 2a)
Next, Solomon describes the man at the center of this tragedy. And the first thing we must note is the source of his blessings.
"a man to whom God gives riches and wealth and honor so that his soul lacks nothing of all that he desires..." (Ecclesiastes 6:2a)
This is absolutely crucial. The man did not get these things by his own wit, or by luck, or by grinding harder than the next guy. The text is explicit: "God gives" them to him. This is a direct assault on the idol of the self-made man. All good gifts come down from the Father of lights (James 1:17). Your business acumen, your strong back, your sharp mind, your fortunate inheritance, it is all a gift. God is the one who gives the power to get wealth (Deut. 8:18).
And the gifts are comprehensive. "Riches and wealth and honor." This covers the gamut of earthly success. He has material prosperity, financial security, and public respect. He has everything the world tells us we should want. His portfolio is diversified. His reputation is sterling. His soul, from an external point of view, "lacks nothing of all that he desires." He has checked every box. He has climbed the ladder and found that he is at the very top. He has won the game. But the game is not what he thought it was.
The Divine Withholding (v. 2b)
Here is the pivot. Here is the tragic turn. The same God who gave the gifts withholds the ability to enjoy them.
"...yet God does not empower him to eat from them, for a foreigner eats from them." (Ecclesiastes 6:2b)
The word for "empower" here is the Hebrew shalat. It means to give power, dominion, or authority. The man has ownership, but he does not have dominion. He has the title deed, but he cannot enter the property. He has a feast set before him, but he has no appetite. God has not given him the spiritual taste buds to enjoy the meal. He can afford the finest restaurants in the world, but everything tastes like ash.
This is a sovereign act of God. Notice the symmetry: "God gives... God does not empower." The same hand that opens is the hand that closes. This is a terrifying thought for the unrepentant, but it is the bedrock of reality. God is not a cosmic vending machine that we can manipulate with the currency of our good works or our "faith." He is the sovereign Lord who gives and takes away, and He does both according to His good pleasure.
And the ultimate insult, the final twist of the knife, is that "a foreigner eats from them." Someone else gets the enjoyment. It could be a spendthrift heir, a conquering army, or the probate lawyer. The man works his entire life to build a fortune, living like a pauper so he can die a millionaire, and someone who did nothing to earn it reaps all the benefits. He hoards the seed corn and never plants it, and in the end, the rats get it.
The Final Verdict (v. 2c)
Solomon concludes with his grim assessment of this state of affairs.
"This is vanity and a sickening evil." (Ecclesiastes 6:2c)
"This is vanity." The Hebrew word is hebel. It means smoke, vapor, a puff of wind. It is something that you cannot grasp. It looks substantial, but when you reach out to grab it, your hand closes on nothing. A life of accumulating blessings that you cannot enjoy is the very definition of hebel. It is a chasing after the wind. It is an immense amount of effort for zero return. It is the ultimate bad investment.
But it is more than just vanity. It is a "sickening evil." The phrase here means a grievous sickness or a sore affliction. It is a spiritual disease. This is the man who is eaten up by anxiety over his stock portfolio. This is the man who is so terrified of losing what he has that he lives in a constant state of miserly fear. This is the workaholic who sacrifices his family on the altar of his career, only to find himself old, lonely, and rich. It is a sickness of the soul, and it is a miserable way to live. We are not to envy such men. We are to pity them. They are the walking dead.
The Gospel Cure
So what is the point of all this? Is the Preacher just a cynical Eeyore, telling us that life is miserable and then you die? Not at all. Ecclesiastes is not a book of despair; it is a book that drives us to the only source of true joy. The problem is not the riches, wealth, and honor. The problem is a heart that is not right with God.
The gifts are not the problem. The gifts are good. The problem is that we want the gifts without the Giver. We want the peaches, but we don't want the one who alone can provide the can opener. And what is the can opener? It is the fear of the Lord. It is a heart that receives everything as a gift, with gratitude. It is a heart that knows that "a man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions" (Luke 12:15).
The ultimate expression of this truth is found in the gospel of Jesus Christ. Jesus is the man who had all the riches, wealth, and honor of heaven. He was not given them; they were His by right. Yet He willingly emptied Himself of them (Phil. 2:6-8). He became poor, so that we through His poverty might become rich (2 Cor. 8:9). He experienced the ultimate "sickening evil" on the cross, where He was forsaken by the Father, so that we might receive the ultimate blessing: fellowship with God Himself.
When we are united to Christ by faith, God gives us the greatest gift of all: Himself. And when we have Him, we have the can opener for every other blessing. The Christian can enjoy his wealth, because he knows it is a tool for the kingdom. He can enjoy his food, because he receives it with thanksgiving. He can enjoy his family, because he sees them as a gift from a good Father. He is empowered to "eat from" his blessings because he is eating with the one who blessed him.
The man in our text lacked nothing that he desired, and yet he had nothing. The Christian, in Christ, may have very little in the world's eyes, and yet he possesses everything (2 Cor. 6:10). Do not chase the vapor. Do not strive for the peaches while ignoring the one who holds the can opener. Fear God and keep His commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. And in that duty, you will find the gift of joy, a gift that no foreigner can ever take away.