The youth may have come from prison to the kingship, or he may have been born in poverty within his kingdom. – Ecclesiastes 4:14

Today’s Scripture Reading (November 4, 2019): Ecclesiastes 4

Victor Hugo’s classic novel, “Les Misérables,” tells the story of the struggle a man who has been thrown into prison for stealing bread for his sister’s children during a time of famine and economic downturn in France. Throughout the novel, Jean Valjean struggles to restore himself from prisoner to a more normal life. And at every step of the way, he is pursued by a police officer named Javert, who refuses to see Valjean as anything more than the convict that he once was, and who seeks to return Valjean to his prison cell. The novel explores the nature of law and grace amid the social upheaval that gripped France during the first part of the nineteenth century. It tells the tale of redemption and those who oppose it.

Redemption is essential to the functioning of our society. And we all require it. We have all committed wrong. No one on this planet can claim that they are entirely guiltless. The blame is ours, and we need to be allowed to find our path back from that place of sin.

Hugo says that he watched the arrest of a man in 1829 for stealing bread, the crime for which Valjean is convicted and thrown into prison. Hugo then imagined what it would be like to be removed from family for such a crime, and the plot for the novel began to take form. The book is not based on that man, but the possibility of a Jean Valjean exists in the man who was arrested for that 1829 crime.

Biblical experts are unanimous that this section is not historical. The Teacher is trying to speak about redemption and grace more broadly. But that does not mean that there are no examples of what the Teacher is saying. Specifically, the man who rises from prison to be king is very close to the story of Joseph, the son of Jacob, who was thrown into jail in Egypt, but finally restored and exalted to a position second only to the Pharaoh. And the one born in poverty in his own kingdom is not far from the story of David, the Shepherd of Bethlehem.

What is maybe more surprising is that the Teacher seems to argue that this kind of redemption is meaningless. Perhaps that is because we have the capability of continually sliding back into who we used to be. But I think here the Teacher is wrong. Redemption is never meaningless, and neither is our desire to do good, even if we fail, as long as we can learn to take advantage of this gift given freely to us.  

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Ecclesiastes 5