Competiton is a natural state of humanity, and isn’t necessarily even a bad thing. Good runners get better when competing against other good runners. But as followers of Jesus, we cannot let competition get in the way of the command to love our neighbor.
Even outside of our specific religious commands, though, Ecclesiastes describes how this focus on competition can turn into a life alone and isolated from one another. We see this in the story of the childless man who nonetheless works himself to death in isolation. We see this in the story of the arrogant king who will take no advice.
That story calls back to the beginning of the chapter, which laments the oppression and evil of the world, to the extent that the Kohelet calls the dead and unborn better off than the living.
As a church, we have a different priority than competition with others, both corporately and individually. Our purpose is to love God and love others, and that toil is never wasted.
— Sermon Notes, Alison Robison, Renew Church, Lynnwood WA, June 25, 2023