Despite the hullabaloo in Times Square last night, the vast amounts of alcohol consumed, the soon-to-be broken resolutions that were made, despite all of this, this day is no different than any other day. Yes, we mark the end of the secular year, which for purposes of historical dating makes a difference, as we will remember the next few weeks every time we mistakenly write 2011. And we will close the financial books, some starting to gather information for their taxes while others drag their feet until April 14th. But for many, the “year†starts at other times. Our Jewish brothers and sisters started their year some months ago. Communist China and people that share the Chinese cultural heritage have a different New Year. Twelve month a year Christians marked the beginning of the year with the start of Advent, in a cycle that is meant to loosely re-create the narrative arc of Christ’s life. And nine month a year Christians marked the start of the year with the beginning of the academic year.
So, it is one more day, really, as good a time as any to reflect and plan. And so we turn to the classic text of Ecclesiastes, drawn from the self-help books of the Biblical age, a genre that is known as wisdom literature.
Now look, this isn’t a Christian text. Scholars believe it was written no later than the Second Century BCE, that is, one to two hundred years before the birth of Jesus. And there are things in the passage that we have, well at least I have, difficulty reconciling with my understanding of Jesus’ good news. Time to kill? Time for war? Time to hate? Really? I mean, the “Day of the Lord†imagery in the New testament is problematic enough, all cataclysm and violence. But this passage seems to say that everything has its right time. And I dream of a day, I believe our covenant and even the Hebrew prophets point to a day, when war will be no more, when hatred and killing will cease.
But there is a core message to this text we can claim, one that is essential to our lives as individuals and our life as a community. Things change. The farmer doesn’t plant a crop and leave it in the field forever because that would just be ridiculous. She or he planted the crop intending for it to fulfill its purpose and then for things to change, a new crop is sewn. There is, as the Teacher in Ecclesiastes puts it, a time to plant and a time to pluck.
In the same way, there is a time to gather and a time to throw. Imagine where we would be, for example, had the followers of Jesus not been gathered together during his earthly ministry and the thrown out, or at least sent out, into the world.
This season, as we reflect on the ancient texts, maybe we can attend to this matter of time keeping. Maybe we can pray that we keep the right time, that we know when to plant and when to pluck, when to gather and when to throw, when to restore and when to discard. May we be wise keepers of God’s time. Amen.