January 16th: "The Great Re-Commitment"
The First United Presbyterian Church of Loveland
“The Great Re-Commitment:
Rev. Amy Morgan
January 16, 2022
Isaiah 43:1-7
But now thus says the Lord,
he who created you, O Jacob,
he who formed you, O Israel:
Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;
I have called you by name, you are mine.
When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;
and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you;
when you walk through fire you shall not be burned,
and the flame shall not consume you.
For I am the Lord your God,
the Holy One of Israel, your Saviour.
I give Egypt as your ransom,
Ethiopia and Seba in exchange for you.
Because you are precious in my sight,
and honoured, and I love you,
I give people in return for you,
nations in exchange for your life.
Do not fear, for I am with you;
I will bring your offspring from the east,
and from the west I will gather you;
I will say to the north, ‘Give them up’,
and to the south, ‘Do not withhold;
bring my sons from far away
and my daughters from the end of the earth—
everyone who is called by my name,
whom I created for my glory,
whom I formed and made.’
Luke 3:15-22
As the people were filled with expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Messiah, John answered all of them by saying, ‘I baptize you with water; but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing-fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing-floor and to gather the wheat into his granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.’
So, with many other exhortations, he proclaimed the good news to the people. But Herod the ruler, who had been rebuked by him because of Herodias, his brother’s wife, and because of all the evil things that Herod had done, added to them all by shutting up John in prison.
Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.’
It might have been called it the Great Resignation of the 1st Century. Farmers left their fields and shepherds abandoned their flocks. Cooks left their kitchens and carpenters left their benches. People came from all the cities and towns along the Jordan, all kinds of people. Wealthy folks and slaves, government employees, soldiers, artisans. The resigners of the 1st century relinquished everything, rejected the status quo wholesale, to make the dangerous trek into the wilderness following a hair-clad, bug-eating non-conformist.
The forces leading up to this Great Resignation might sound familiar to us today. They experienced conflicts of culture, class, and religion. The primarily agrarian population along the Jordan river felt alienated from the wealth and customs of the nearby Greek and Roman cities. Their rulers were instruments of an empire so wealthy and powerful it felt invincible, creating disillusionment and dissatisfaction with government authorities. Their religious leaders disagreed about theology and practice, forcing people to choose sides or sort things out for themselves.
In this environment, people begin to question the value of their commitments and the purpose of their lives and work. They get to the point where they know that the things they are committed to now are not fulfilling and meaningful. And so they resign from those things and go out into the desert seeking something new.
John the Baptist offers them a fresh start, a clean slate. He offers them a baptism of repentance, meaning an opportunity to turn and go a different direction. And this is such a transformative experience, people begin to wonder if this guy, if this way of life, is worthy of their commitment. They are filled with expectation, but they also have questions. They don’t want to drop one set of unfulfilling commitments to re-commit to something equally life-depleting.
One commentator observes that “questions in the Gospel of Luke are not a sign of doubt, faithlessness, or even ignorance. Rather, it represents a…participation and interest in the current moment of God’s revelation and action.” As eager as these folks are to commit to new and meaningful patterns of living, as excited as they are about what John is doing out in the wilderness, they still ask discerning questions. They want to know if the person and things they are re-committing to are truly worthy of their sacrifice, their gifts, their devotion.
And it’s a good thing they asked these questions. Because John sets them straight. He’s not the one they should be re-committing to. If they are looking for the Messiah, if they are expectantly awaiting the Anointed One of God, he is not their guy.
But! They are right to be looking for him. They are on the right path. And he is going to start gathering them together to be used for good purposes.
We often hear this image of the winnowing fork and the wheat and chaff as a warning of coming judgment for all those chaff-life people. But the way this image is being used in this passage, it’s clear that the focus is not the disposal of chaff. The goal of the whole winnowing project is gathering wheat into the granary so it can feed people. Yes, that chaff is going to burn, because we don’t need it to feed people. We don’t need it for anything. Nobody loses sleep over burning chaff. It’s supposed to burn, so that the wheat can do what it is meant to do.
John is telling these people who have left behind all the chaff in their lives – those meaningless commitments and bankrupt ideals – that they are being gathered together to fulfill a greater purpose. They are going to do what they were meant to do, they are committing to something life-giving. And they chaff can burn because they just don’t need it.
The lectionary leaves out the verses in this passage that talk about John’s arrest. But I think we need this reminder that committing to something that is meaningful and worthy and fulfilling doesn’t mean that life will be easy or that there won’t be consequences for those commitments. If the people wanted a life that was secure, safe, and comfortable, they should have kept their day jobs. Then again, for many of them, security, safety, and comfort were already in scarce supply. So the inherent dangers of their Great Resignation and Re-Commitment were normalized by the threats and challenges of their everyday lives. If they had to take risks and even suffer, better that it was for something that gave their lives meaning and purpose instead of for the peace of Rome.
Today we are experiencing another Great Resignation. Like the Great Resignation of the 1st century, the Great Resignation of the 21st century is characterized by people resigning from their jobs to seek out a life of meaning and fulfillment. Record numbers of people quitting their jobs or changing jobs, retiring, declining to volunteer in ways they did before the pandemic, resigning from serving on boards and committees. People of all ages, genders, races, and classes are resigning. They are rejecting the status quo and refusing to do things they no longer find meaningful or fulfilling.
It might seem that these resignations are the results of the pandemic, of people facing their mortality and taking stock of their lives. And perhaps it is, to some degree. But many of the same forces that shaped the 1st century resignation are also at work today. The pandemic that continues to upend our world has also intensified conflicts of culture, class, and religion that pre-date the arrival of COVID-19. The rural/urban divide has driven us to examine our values, our way of life, and our hopes for the future. Our politicians often seem to be instruments of the empires of multi-national corporations or well-funded special interests or enormously wealthy families. These powers exercise so much influence in our government that we’ve become disillusioned and dissatisfied with our entire democratic system. And our religious leaders are so divided about theology and practice that, within Christianity anyway, it’s hard to believe they follow the same religion at all. So that forces you all to choose sides or sort things out for yourselves.
And so it seems only reasonable that folks are questioning the value of their commitments and the purpose of their lives and work. Many people have discovered that the things they are committed to now are not fulfilling and meaningful. And so they are resigning from those things and seeking something new. They are filled with hopeful expectation, that a life of meaning and purpose is possible. They are asking questions about who and what is worthy of their re-commitment, worthy of their passion, their talents, their loyalty and devotion.
This may look like selfishness or even narcissism. Resignation may sound like giving up, like laziness even. But, in fact, what is occurring is a re-evaluation of our deepest values, a reconnection to meaning and purpose. This Great Resignation is an expression of expectation and longing, an expectation that life does hold something of value, an expectation that we have a purpose and meaningful work to do. It is a search for something worthy of our commitments.
This movement may begin with mass resignations, with an exodus into the wilderness of changing careers, starting new businesses, retiring, resigning from social groups, clubs, and even volunteer work. But as we ask the discerning questions that will clarify the people, activities, work, and way of life that aligns with our values and gives us meaning and purpose, we will be gathered together again, relieved of the chaff of our lives, to become life-giving communities of commitment.
Our re-commitments may come with a cost. A life of meaning and purpose is not always, maybe not even typically, a life of safety, security, and comfort. But since our safety, security, and comfort have been so massively disrupted in the last several years, perhaps the inherent dangers of our Great Resignation and Re-Commitment have also been normalized. If we must take risks and suffer, better it is for something that gives our lives meaning and purpose instead of for the peace of the empire.
Resigning and re-committing may be costly, but it is not without encouragement and blessing. Those things we choose to re-commit to are things we will have discerned are also committed to us. They are things that have given us life, have demonstrated love for us, and have earned our trust.
What we hear from the prophet Isaiah and what we see in the baptism of Jesus is that God is with us in all of life’s challenges; God loves us; and God is trustworthy. What we see in these passages, and throughout all of scripture, is that God is committed to us – always has been and always will be.
At a time when the Israelites were surely questioning God’s commitment to them – as they lived in exile in Babylon – Isaiah reassures them:
Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;
I have called you by name, you are mine.
When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;
and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you;
when you walk through fire you shall not be burned,
and the flame shall not consume you.
Because you are precious in my sight,
and honoured, and I love you.
God is committed to God’s people, through all of life’s challenges. God is committed to loving them, sustaining them, and eventually bringing them back from exile, gathering them together for life-giving purposes.
When Jesus is baptized and is praying to God, preparing himself for the challenging road of ministry ahead of him, the Holy Spirit and a voice from heaven confirm God’s commitment to Jesus and affirm his belovedness. Jesus commissioned his disciples to baptize others so that we might share in all the promises of God in Jesus Christ, so that we, too, might be called beloved children of God, so that we, too, might commit our lives to the God who is committed to us.
Our Presbyterian Book of Order states that “The Reformed tradition understands Baptism to be a sign of God’s covenant,” and that “God’s faithfulness is sure, even when human faithfulness is not.” So baptism is first of all a sign of God’s commitment to us.
But, the Book of Order also says, “Baptism is the foundation for all Christian commitment…The new way of life to which God calls us is one of deep commitment, disciplined discernment, and growth in faith.” If you are still awake after this much quotation from the Book of Order, what this is saying is that, as Christians, all our commitments and re-commitments flow out of our baptism. It is our response to God’s commitment to us. And it equips us for any and all other commitments in our lives.
The New Testament theologian N.T. Wright points out that “We don’t have a different rite [of baptism] for adults and children, or for men and women, or for rich and poor, or for people from different nations, races, and cultures. […] The point is that baptism, by being the same for everyone alike, reminds us at a deep level, informing the heart and mind of every Christian, that we are all brothers and sisters in Christ…Every Christian has a different calling. But all callings are marked with the same water, the same cross.”
In the coming weeks, we will continue to explore our different callings, our re-commitments – to God, to the church, to our neighbors. But today, we I hope we understand that the Great Resignation is potentially a holy and sacred movement away from the chaff in our lives and toward re-commitments that are meaningful and fulfilling. I hope we are filled today with expectation that our lives do have a purpose. I hope we are ready to ask discerning questions about what we are called to re-commit to. And I hope we know the depth and breadth of God’s faithful, loving, trustworthy commitment to us. I hope we remember our baptisms, claiming God’s commitment and re-committing ourselves to a life of “deep commitment, disciplined discernment, and growth in faith.” Welcome, friends, to the Great Re-Commitment.
To God be all glory forever and ever. Amen.
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