On Sunday we'll ask the most fundamental question one can ask of life, what's the point of it all? That's the theme Solomon is considering in our Old Testament lesson, Ecclesiastes 1-2.

"Think of Ecclesiastes as the only book of the Bible we know was written on a Monday morning," wrote Philip Rykens, "and probably by a philosophy major." Solomon is asking the big questions of life, and is unsatisfied with the answers. “Everything is just vapor that vanishes,” laments the King. If life is vapor, Solomon tries to suck it all in.

You see, Solomon lived his life as a sort of philosophic experiment, probing every facet of the human experience for significance. Will work give meaning? After some testing, no. How about romance? Not really. Gardening? No. Music? No. Frustrated, Solomon considers whether food or drink can at least numb the pain of his futile existence. (Spoiler: It doesn't).

Like Solomon, we crave meaning and find ourselves malnourished on our diet of gadgets and vacations. We may not like to think ourselves as kings and queens, but as wealthy as Solomon was, he couldn't have dreamed of the level of opulence that we each take for granted.

The abundance of food and clean water, the air conditioning, the limitless supply of entertainment we carry around in our pockets. Modernity has made Solomons of us all. That's why we desperately need his message.

The good news Solomon will preach to us on Sunday is this: meaning is to be found, we just have to look in the right place. Ecclesiastes does that which the eucharist does, it calls our attention upward, "above the sun," to the heavens.

To know God, this is the point of life. Starved for meaning and in the throws of hunger pangs, Solomon invites us to put down our vape and pick up a fork and knife. Come Sunday, take and eat, and be filled with meaning!