Happy New Year!
Welcome to the first day of 2021. I know that for a lot of us 2020 has been a rough year and we are happy to be waving goodbye to it and looking forward to a better year in 2021. And, for many of us, this is the time of year that we set our "New Year's resolutions" and make all sorts of plans for how we will do better in the coming year. It is a time of hope and optimism as we say goodbye to the old celebrate the new. This is a cycle we repeat every year and I have been reflecting on how our lives seem to naturally fall into a rhythm or seasons. So, the lectionary reading for New Year's Day this year seems quite appropriate:
For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:
a time to be born, and a time to die;
a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;
a time to kill, and a time to heal;
a time to break down, and a time to build up;
a time to weep, and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
a time to throw away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
a time to seek, and a time to lose;
a time to keep, and a time to throw away;
a time to tear, and a time to sew;
a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
a time to love, and a time to hate;
a time for war, and a time for peace.
What gain have the workers from their toil? I have seen the business that God has given to everyone to be busy with. He has made everything suitable for its time; moreover he has put a sense of past and future into their minds, yet they cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. I know that there is nothing better for them than to be happy and enjoy themselves as long as they live; moreover, it is God’s gift that all should eat and drink and take pleasure in all their toil. Ecclesiastes 3:1-13 (NRSV)
If you think about it, our lives are full of all of these things. Weeping and laughing, mourning and dancing, breaking down and building up. And we look back and hope that the weeping, the mourning, and the loss will be something we can leave in the past and that the future will be full of dancing, laughter, and gain. But, the truth is all of life is full of all of these things. Even the year 2020 had bright points if we are willing to look for them. I don't say this to dampen anyone's optimism for the future, because I hope, as you do, that the year ahead is full of joy and that we can move past the pandemic and the political quarrelling and that our society takes big steps in the direction of justice and peace. But, I think sometimes we can get so focused on what comes next and how we can improve the future or how bad the past was and how maybe we will never recover from it, that we lose sight of right here and right now.
I think perhaps the greatest encouragement we can get is this: it is God's gift that all should eat and drink and take pleasure in all their toil. You see, we don't really know what is coming tomorrow and we can't change what has happened in the past, but, we can enjoy what is right in front of us today. That is the gift God gives to us. So my New Year's resolution this year is to find joy in the common place. To enjoy myself, my family, and my friends. To eat and drink and take pleasure in my work. To recognize that God is in each and every moment, the good ones and the bad ones. Because, right now is the only guarantee we have and if we can't find joy here, we won't find joy anywhere.
God bless you,
Pastor Luke
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