Sermon            Our Commitments                  Rev. Douglas Taylor               3/7/21

I officiated at a wedding yesterday. Very sweet – there were 7 of us in the house along with a few more watching on zoom. It was brief and everyone wore masks, most of us wore two masks. It was perhaps the fourth time in this past year that I’ve worn my dress shoes for work. I wore my slippers to our Christmas Eve service, for example.

My point, really, is that weddings are special. It is the most common example of a commitment, a vow, a promise, that we all understand in our society.

Creating a family is about building a series of interconnected commitments with other people. In our first small story – the one about Little Critter trying to be www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtiJXg–D6M&ab – we can identify with wanting to keep a promise, a commitment to someone else, but also wanting to have fun and live in the moment. There may be a multitude of reasons you struggle to follow through with a commitment you’ve made to another person. This small story offers that our struggle to be true doesn’t mean we don’t want to be true. It doesn’t mean we can’t keep trying.  

The second most common connection for people into the concept of commitment is found in the question “What do you want to do when you grow up?” Or among adults at a meet-n-greet, “So, what do you do?” It is a question of vocation or career. What do you do? What are your obligations and commitments because of your work? In the big story we just heard https://vimeo.com/73026206, the thief changed careers and became a sower of acorns and of beauty. She was almost tricked into a commitment, surprised by her own willingness to keep the commitment. She made the promise half-heartedly. When she discovered the depth of what was asked of her, she decided to stick with it. As a thief, she was just struggling to survive. Suddenly she found herself in a commitment that compelled her to do better, to be better – by making the world better.

Maybe these stories connect in some way for you. Maybe they do not. Tell me about your commitments? Think about the times you’ve struggled to keep a commitment (as with our first story) or a time you’ve been surprised to find you made a commitment and then chose to keep it (as with our second story).

And, just to keep this interesting, I’ll now share a third story. I attended a clergy workshop focused on commitments and theology and our calling as ministers. The opening activity was a reflection exercise done in pairs. My partner asked me “Whose are you?” and I would respond. After an acknowledgement and breathe, they asked again. This went on until I ran out of answers. Whose are you?

Whose am I? To whom or what am I most committed? To whom or what am I accountable? Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote: “A person will worship something – have no doubt about that.  …That which dominates our imaginations and our thoughts will determine our lives.” (from Singing the Living Tradition Hymnal, #563).

For me, when I attended that workshop and sat with this question about my commitments, I worked out some answers for myself. I made a list. I find making a list comforting. This may be true for you as well or it may not be. That part is not important. It is the wrestling and acknowledging of your commitments that is more important.

Here’s the thing though – I had my family on my list, my loved ones. Just like in our first story with Little Critter, I have commitments to people in my life and that is part of what drives me to do certain things. I also had work on my list, my calling, this congregation, and so on. Back when I made my list, I thought my work was to put everything in a ranked order. Which commitments are more important than other commitments? I put God at the top of my list, and myself second.

To whom am I accountable? Whose am I? The top of my list is God. Mostly this is a theological concession – what else can I do? I have sometimes clarified what this means to me by substitution the word ‘Love’ in place of the word ‘God.’ Whatever is the ultimate reality – that’s what I’m trying to acknowledge. That is what I am saying holds my highest commitment and loyalty.

Next on my list is myself. At the time that made perfect sense to me. But over the years I struggled to find a better way to articulate this second commitment.

I don’t mean this to say I am egotistical or self-absorbed. But there are so many examples of people in our society who are. Greed and narcissism have allowed significant tearing of the fabric of our society. “This above all, to thine own self be true.” This is a line – not from the bible or a sage, it is from a character in Hamlet written by William Shakespeare.  The Character saying the line, Polonius, is a self-serving and ironically pompous character.

And yet, to list myself as one of my top commitments I am trying to talk about keeping true to my own integrity. I am talking about taking care of myself so that I can keep all the other obligations I have made.

And maybe now I think a list of ranked order is less helpful because these commitments have dynamic interactions. My promises to myself and those to my spouse and these others to my congregation all interact. And sometimes one or another is momentarily more important. What I mean is, this is not something cut and dry. There is a messy imperfection to life and I am a messy imperfect person. Aren’t we all?  Still, it’s worth wrestling with the questions.

How is it for you? To whom are you accountable? To what are you loyal? What are the commitments that impact your daily living?

All of these stories, all of my reflections, this is merely an invitation for you to name and acknowledge for yourself your own lines of commitment and accountability. Where does it fit for you? And tucked into that invitation is the opportunity to make a change if you find it warranted, to struggle perhaps to become better, if that is what would help you keep the commitments that matter.

Come, let us shine what light we have, let us live in our integrity, and we shall love to the best of our ability.

In a world without end,

May it be so.