Tag Archives: Ecclesiastes 3

A Time for New Things

Featured by

“A Time for New Things”

Ecclesiastes 3:1-14 (3:11) – January 1, 2023

            Today is a fresh new year, a brand new calendar, new experiences each and every day. What bright opportunities are ahead of each of us! Just imagine – today is a time for new things, just as our Scripture reading this morning states.

            Today’s Scripture reading from Ecclesiastes talks a great deal about time. All different kinds of time, and lots of ways of marking time, too. “Time feels different to children who have known so little of it. For them years last forever. They are just beginning to sort out the difference between how long a time period feels and the fact that an hour is always 60 minutes long no matter how it feels.” [1]  

            Yet, many of us here have seen the passage of time, and many years go by on the calendar. Many people know that days, months and years can slip by oh, so quickly. When a child is 5 or 6 years old, it can seem like forever before the Christmas holiday finally arrives! But, when someone turns 75 or 86 years of age, the Christmases and the holidays seem to come faster and faster. Time surrounds each of us, here in this world, in this place and time.

            As we reflect upon this Scripture reading for today, we can also reflect upon what exactly the author of Ecclesiastes meant. “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven…” That can mean we ought to be serious and anxious about each little factor, or each tiny decision each of us makes.

Sure, some can go too far, and have a totally fatalistic point of view of life. That is the way some Bible scholars view the author of Ecclesiastes, who often says that everything is absolutely fated and predetermined. Many scholars view the author of Ecclesiastes as the aged King Solomon, and the writing in Ecclesiastes is mostly jaded, disheartened and questioning. Nothing is worth doing, no innovation, no creativity; no one can change anything ever. What a hopeless, helpless point of view. This view takes away free will, human decision, and the possibility of change. Why do anything, ever again?

            But, that way of serious, somber thinking can be really negative. Seconds turn into minutes, hours, days and months. Before we know it, sometimes we can look back at the passage of many days, many existences with sadness and regret.

            As we look through this clear choice each of us has on the New Year’s Day, we can certainly wonder about our personal choices. And, these choices sound like this Scripture reading, too. “A time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance.”  

            We can add “a time to be positive, and a time to be negative, a time to look forward, and a time to look back over our shoulders.” These additions are fully in keeping with the author’s intent, I think. Yet, each of us must think about what each of us is going to do with these words, choices and intentions. Each individual needs to weigh this decision in their own mind. And, what is the Godly decision?

            Another way to reflect upon this fresh, new decision is to consider what has happened to each of us in the past twelve months, and find within an eagerness, looking forward to the future. Again, we can view this new year as a new path in the pristine snow, ready for each of us to walk upon. We can track a fresh path where none has been before!

            Bible commentator Christine Valters Painter tells us that “the human desire [is] for renewal and new beginnings. St. Benedict in his Rule for monasteries writes ‘always we begin again.’  This impulse is the heart of what makes anticipation of the New Year kindle all of our longings for a richer way of being in the world.  There is something so very hopeful to me in this fundamental impulse.” [2]

            Remember, as Dietrich Bonhoeffer tells us repeatedly, we are Christians, together. A congregation is a group of believers gathered together for friendship, fellowship, and most of all, to worship together. We all come together to worship as a group of believers. We all come together to find commonality in this renewal and new beginning each January 1st. And, we all can find comfort, camaraderie and fellowship in the common coming-together as a family of faith.

             Yes, this new calendar page is an opportunity to begin again as individuals. Plus, January 1st is another opportunity to come together as a congregation and find a more hopeful, a richer way of being in the world.

            Just as the concept of time is foundational to each one of us, with this concentration of time so central, so this Scripture reading tells us that God has set eternity in humanity’s heart. Verses 11 and 12: “yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end. 12 I know that there is nothing better for people than to be happy and to do good while they live.”

            What a sentiment! And, what a wonderful way to decide to look at life. As we all begin again this first day of 2023, let us listen to the writer of Ecclesiastes. God has set a foundational sense of time in our human hearts, and God has set for us a task. There is nothing better for us than to be happy and to do good while we live. God has given us this precious gift: a God-given gift of time, and a God-given gift of being happy.

So go – do that. Be well, and be happy.

@chaplaineliza

(Suggestion: visit me at my other blogs: matterofprayer: A Year of Everyday Prayers. #PursuePEACE – and  A Year of Being Kind . Thanks!

[1] http://worshipingwithchildren.blogspot.com/2013/11/new-years-day-years-b-c.html

[2] http://www.patheos.com/Resources/Additional-Resources/New-Year-New-Beginnings

A Time for Everything

by

“A Time for Everything”

eccl-3-1-everything-cursive

Ecclesiastes 3:1-13 – January 1, 2017

Expectations. Excitement! A fresh, new start. With eyes wide open, we all have the opportunity to make a new beginning, this New Year’s Day of 2017. New brooms sweep clean. New, fresh, sparkling clean, not a spot or speck to be seen. At least, not yet.

 As our scripture lesson from Ecclesiastes 3 says today, there is a time for everything. God has given each one of us a sense of the passage of time. God has implanted that within us, and we are placed in this construct of time, of past, present and future.

What are we to do with this concept of time? And, the idea that time is a never-ending stream? That, somehow, each of us is intricately bound up in this bubble called history, and together or separately, each of us has specific things to do. Or, not do. To look behind at 2016 with longing or regret, missing opportunities lost, or gazing ahead with expectancy, looking forward to what 2017 has to bring into each life?

What new, fresh excitement, and expectations!

Let’s take a common example. A door. We can either be on one side or the other of a doorway. One side—inside—and the other—outside. One side—in the past—and the other—in the future. It’s difficult to straddle both parts of a world, and at the same time to strive to do both of these either/or activities stated in our passage from Ecclesiastes, today.

Thinking further, Doors are good images for New Year’s Day. We have closed the door on last year, on 2016. We’ve opened the door to a new, sparkling clean year.

When each of us walks through a door, things can change—either a lot or just a little. As one bible commentator says, “When you go from outside to inside, you use a quieter voice, you wipe off (sometimes even take off) your shoes, you expect to do different things.  Walking through doors tells us where we are and who we are. “ [1]

Janus is the Roman god of endings and beginnings. A two-headed god, with one head looking backwards into the past, and the other looking forward, into the future. This god presided over gates and doors, and was sometimes shown with a gatekeeper’s keys and staff. There can be a great deal of change and transition from one place to another, as one year changes into the next.

Some people have a great deal of baggage left over from last year. Lots of stuff to carry with them into the new year. What does our scripture passage say? “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven.” There are several ways to view this poetic look at life and death, and everything that comes in between, but one way is to acknowledge this overarching structure as a foundational basis for understanding the cosmos, life itself.

Sure, some can go too far, and have a totally fatalistic point of view, saying that everything is absolutely fated and predetermined. Nothing is worth doing, no innovation, no creativity; no one can change anything ever. What a hopeless, helpless point of view. This view takes away free will, human decision, and the possibility of change. Why do anything, ever again?

However, we can leave our baggage and stuff, old and tattered, tired and worn, just drop it, even brand-new stuff with price tags still attached. We can look forward to a new year, a new chance to walk into the future with head held high, and eyes open to new possibilities.

I have an opportunity to realize and remember the many blessings that God provides in each of our lives, on a regular basis. Do you remember each of those blessings that God provided in your life, in 2016? Can you name each one, and thank God for it? Nope, me, neither. But, here is a concrete way to help you remember each one in 2017. Here is a real action step to take.

It’s called The Jar Project, and features jars with the following label attached: “The Jar Project. Starting New Year’s Day, I will fill this empty jar with notes about good things that happen. On next New Year’s Eve, I will empty it and remember that awesome things did happen this year.”

There are various other ways people think of this activity. Some people call it a Gratitude Jar, or a Blessing Jar. Put in strips of paper with things or people you are grateful for, or that you have been blessed by, in 2017. Then at the end of the year, each of us will have a whole year of wonderful, awesome blessings to truly thank God for.

Come with me, back to the doors of our sanctuary. We can offer prayer, asking that these doors welcome many visitors during the coming year and that all who come through the doorway be blessed.  I am going to write on our church doors with prayers for all who will come through the doors this year (worshipers, visitors, brides and grooms, parents bringing babies to be baptized, families and friends coming to bury their dead, members of community groups which will use the facilities).

Please, I encourage each of you, each household, to repeat this in your own homes. God’s richest blessings on you and your family in 2017.

 

God of doors and homes, bless this home this year and every year.

Bless all who come and go through this door, both those who live here and those who visit.

May all who enter through this door come in peace and bring joy.

May all who come to this door find welcome and love.

May the love and joy in this home overflow and spread into the community and the world. [2]

[1] http://worshipingwithchildren.blogspot.com/2013/11/new-years-day-years-b-c.html New Year’s Day, Including children in the congregation’s worship, using the Revised Common Lectionary, Carolyn C. Brown, 2013

[2] http://worshipingwithchildren.blogspot.com/2013/11/new-years-day-years-b-c.html New Year’s Day, adapted from Including children in the congregation’s worship, using the Revised Common Lectionary, Carolyn C. Brown, 2013