Ecclesiastes 3:1-8
Walk down the street and ask people at random whether today’s reading sounds familiar. I am sure that the vast majority of responses would be akin to “Of course!” But that familiarity is not likely to be due to widespread faithful reading of the Bible. Instead we can chalk it up to the song by Pete Seeger, Turn! Turn! Turn!. Go ahead; have a listen. The lyrics for the song are drawn almost entirely — and almost verbatim — from the King James Version of today’s passage. All Seeger added was the oft-repeated “turn, turn, turn” and the final “I swear it’s not too late” (just after “a time for peace”).
Given that the Preacher evidently expected to be forgotten (Ecc. 1:11,2:16), I doubt he ever envisioned that his words would top the pop charts over two millennia later. But I bet he would have accurately predicted that Seeger would miss the point. Why do I think Seeger missed the point? Because of that last line (“I swear it’s not too late”), which reveals his underlying belief that with just a little more effort man can turn this ship around, that we can, in fact, achieve world peace and then pat one another on the back for a job well done. And that just does not sound like the Preacher to me.