Texts: Ecclesiastes 3: 1-13; Revelations 21: 1-6

As many of you know, I love to sing, but, alas, as most of you know, I cannot read music. So, being totally undaunted by that limitation, back in the summer of 1997 I joined a chorus that was to sing with one of my all-time heroes, Pete Seeger, I hadn't told the rest of the group I couldn't read music. Pete – that's what he told us to call him – Pete put together a disparate and mixed group of people to join him in a concert he was scheduled to give in Katonah, New York, as a fundraiser for the "Clearwater," a replica of a nineteenth century sloop that sailed the Hudson. Since then, this festival has become a major event for protection of the Hudson and other great American rivers.

In 1959 Pete had put together a version of our reading from Ecclesiastes into the song known as "Turn, Turn, Turn." In the mid sixties this song was propelled onto the national song charts by a folk rock group called the Byrds. Pete's version gave the final line as, "A time for peace, I swear it's not too late," which resonated as the Nation sank ever deeper into the Vietnam conflict. He taught singing by ear so my disability, we'll call it, was not so apparent. To him, singing is a way of teaching and bringing people together because music is such a simple joy. Because he believes that a song is not a possession but a gift, he was pleased that so many singers bring their renditions to the public. There's much to be learned from not just his version of Ecclesiastes, he said, but from any song. How true.

Tradition attributed this short book to Solomon because of the opening verse stating that these are the words of the Teacher, the son of David; however, based on linguistic evidence, including the use of Aramaic and Persian loan words, most scholars date Ecclesiastes in the post-Exilic period, after 450 BCE but before 350 because there are no Greek linguistic influences. Taken as a whole, it laments the lack of justice and equity, the shortsightedness of people who worry about the little things of life, and cries out for reliance on God. It has some of the more memorable lines from Scripture, including "Remember your creator in the days of your youth" and "Cast your bread upon the waters."

One of the problems in preaching is that we only take a portion of a book and examine that, such as we are doing this morning. This poem needs to be seen in the context of what the writer – or writers – put down. The name of the book we have, Ecclesiastes, is a Latin translation of the Hebrew word Quohelet, which can be translated as either "gatherer" or "teacher," even "preacher" in some translations. Although the book as a whole indicates that the world is indifferent to the vicissitudes of life, God is not, and our reliance on God is what carries us through.

The New Year is a time when we think about the days ahead. So, we need to ask ourselves: What should we think? In two days our national circus called the race for the Presidency has a so-called test in Iowa, a state that reflects our nation about as much as its cornfields. Of course, many from Iowa would claim that we who are part of the eastern liberal establishment reflect the Nation even less. In March of last year – that was just yesterday – The Atlantic magazine carried a map of what it called the twelve Americas, each dotted across the Nation, a few very concentrated in certain parts, but a map showing our disparate character woven into one country. We are in both the monied burbs and the service worker centers, and although we in New Jersey are sixth in the Nation in the percentage of immigrants, in terms of raw numbers, we are well below the Southwest, Florida, and California. The Atlantic map looked at income disparities in conjunction with certain Census socioeconomic factors, such as type of work, population loss and gain, and non-Census factors, such as religion and beliefs. The Bible belt is where you expected it to be, in the south and along the Appalachian mountains; one segment called "minority central" made up primarily of African Americans concentrated in the South and Native Americans in the West has the lowest income, merging into segments of the Bible belt.

What's this got to do with seasons and time? And, what's this got to do, not to mention, our New Testament text from the Apocalypse, better known as the Revelation to John? We don't preach much from this book – quite frankly, we rarely read it. Most of us dismiss it as the fantasies of someone looking for salvation from Roman persecution. Its images of cherubim and seraphim, of winged serpents, not to mention horsemen of war, famine, death, and conquest, not pestilence.

The writer sees a new heaven and a new earth and a new Jerusalem, one that has survived even its destruction by Roman armies. He sees a time when God will dwell among the people and, as the writer so beautifully puts it, every tear will be wiped away and death and pain will be no more. But this is a promise beyond time and seasons, a promise for a future that is not of our own making. However, in our time and season, we do have the power to make a new earth. In this year 2012, which is now upon us, we can mold a future which is more peaceful and more caring.

This isn't New Year gush or schmaltz. Most of us will have broken at least one New Year's resolutions before the end of this day. We have an option to make at least one resolution as a community of faith. What should that resolution be? To be a stronger community, drawing our strength from the spirit that inhabits us? To be more caring and forgiving of our many – and they are many – foibles? To find a more imaginative way to reach out to a community that is largely secular with a witness that says who we really are as followers of the One from Nazareth?

How we accomplish any task in this New Year largely depends on how we envision our task. Our vision depends on our faith which, in turn, depends on our willingness to be vulnerable to God. I say vulnerable because vulnerability to God is different than strength of faith. Vulnerability to God means being open to risk – in our relationships with ourselves as well as each other. We cannot build a new earth, so to speak, unless we we are vulnerable, or open to whatever that may entail. That element of uncertainty makes us nervous but that is how we are called to live. Then we will live in the spirit of the Teacher, that there is a time for every season under the sun – and we pray that for a time of peace, it's not too late.

Let us pray: Gracious God, who has given us seasons and time by which to measure our lives, help us now as we seek new ways of understanding in this new year. Move us beyond our old ideas of the previous year into a new vision for this year and the ones to come. Amen.