I don't think it is sexist, though I'll admit it's strange to assign a gender to an object or concept. There's no inherent superior role status implied by any of these examples, though, nor is there discrimination. Therefore, no sexism.
The concept of mother earth probably stems from all of us being born of this planet and the materials available here. There are many speculations as to the origins of "father Time", but many refer to the god Saturn being identified with the concept.
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I also don't think it's sexist... and I think many of these are wrapped up in myths and symbolism.

Humans only have two sexes (actually, we have more than that)... and, when telling stories about a creation myth, it's convenient to give things sexes. It gives a nice yin-yang appeal to it. Very balanced...
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I also do not think it is sexist.

Other languages like French use gender/noun association a lot more than we do with English. I think gender-specific words in English are a hold-over from earlier times. Maybe this is because English derives a lot of its words from other languages, especially French and German.

Personally, I am happy we don't have to memorize which gender is associated to each word in English. That could be one reason English is close to being the universal language - less work.
Source(s):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_in_English

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As a side point, it's worth noting that, while English is fairly gender-neutral, many languages assign a gender to all kinds of objects, actions, or parts of speech.
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I believe that this comes from ancient Greek mythology and the gods they believed in. They believed that the Earth was one god, Gaia, and was the mother of the titans, and through the titans the gods, and so every one on Earth, hence the name Mother Earth. The term Fathertime also has Greek roots, probably referring to Cronos, who was the god of time and the father of the Gods. Once more there is a family relation. Therefore as time went by people possibly started to use these terms due to the meanings that they referred to, like the earth (Mother Gaia) or time (Father Cronos).
Source(s):
Pure speculation. These are all guesses, but they sound good to me.

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