A Reflection on re-commitment

A Homily for III Epiphany All Saints’ Church, Southern Shores, NC January 27, 2013 Thomas E. Wilson, Rector

Nehemiah 8:1-3, 5-6, 8-10 Psalm 19 1 Corinthians 12:12-31a Luke 4:14-21

First of all I want to thank you for all your prayers for me while I was in the hospital. It was a lousy time for me, and I was heartened by your care. Each day for that week I was aware of my own need for a power greater than myself and the love and care which flowed over me. On Wednesday, January 23, as I was being driven home from the hospital and we were crossing the bridge back to Southern Shores, I saw our church through the trees and realized that, I was so thankful, I was needing to make a recommitment to my ministry here.

I have made many commitments to my Baptismal ministry in my life. In the last week of January in 1985, seven months after I made a re-commitment and was ordained a Deacon in my home church in Boone, North Carolina, I was in Christ Church in Blacksburg where I was working, and I re-committed myself to that new life when I was ordained a Priest. The next day, on the 3^rd Sunday of the Epiphany, I presided at my first celebration of the Eucharist and preached on the Gospel, as it is today, about Jesus beginning his ministry after his recommitment to God in his baptism.

In the Hebrew Testament lesson for today from the 8^th Chapter of Nehemiah, the people who have come back from exile in Babylon are gathered together at the Water Gate in the ruined city of Jerusalem for a recommitment ceremony of the people to God. Ezra and the scribes read and explain the nature and expectations of that relationship, and the people undergo a cathartic experience, so overwhelmed with emotion, that they cry. Eventually the people are told to stop weeping and get ready for a celebration, the Feast of Booths. So what is happening here?

Well, there are several interpretations depending on how you view the event. Three widely separate groups use this event as a model: (1) the Jesuit Spiritual retreat, modeled by Ignatius of Loyola, (2) the old time revival preachers, and (3) the confrontational therapists in the 28 day recovery programs. And they would all join in saying, “Yes, that is the way to begin!”

Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuit order in the Roman Catholic Church, put together a model for a retreat for spiritual healing. The exercises would have three parts - purgative, illuminative, and unitive. The “purgative” is to get rid of all the stuff that holds us back from commitment to God; the “illuminative” is to show how a new way of living might be; and the “unitive” is the coming to union with God. I first encountered the Ignatian model in 1978 in a program called Cursillo, a renewal movement in the Episcopal church which begins with a three day retreat, in which the recommitment is called the 4^th Day, the rest of our lives. In essence, the program was like was an expansion of the different parts of the Mass. In the Mass, or our Holy Communion service, there are three parts: (1) we stop what we are doing, running around like chickens, and just slow down and gather together, (2) we listen to what strengthening words might be given to us, and (3) we are invited to reconnect with God by symbolically taking God into our very being with the bread and wine, the body and blood of the one who loves us, which then gives us the motivation to lead a God-filled life in the “real” world when we leave the service - or as the Quakers used to say, “The meeting is over, now let the service begin.”

The Revival preachers have a formula for their sermons which usually is a kind of rerun of the “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” theme. Part one of the sermon is to tell the people how loathsome to God is their behavior, which would then lead into letting the people know that there is a way out and that is repentance, as they are “beaten down to their knees” by their shame. Then, and only then, when they are down on their knees in repentance, are they given the message that God loves them. And then, as the choir sings “Just As I Am” for however many verses it takes, the weeping sinners are invited to join and be baptized as a sign that they could recommit to God. I remember when I gave a sermon at an ecumenical gathering, one of my very evangelical brethren came up to me with tears in his eyes and said, “Oh Brother Tom, you really stepped on my feet tonight!” I replied that I was sorry that I was not aware that I had done so. He laughed and told me that it was a compliment, for I had reminded him of how he needed to repent and return to the Lord. The reality was that was the Holy Spirit acting and not me.

Years ago I did some volunteer work in a 28 day treatment facility for the diseases of alcohol and drug addiction based on the 12 step model. The first three steps are:

(1) We admit that we are powerless over alcohol ( or whatever it is to which we are addicted) - that our lives have become unmanageable.

(2) Come to believe that a Power Greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

(3) Make a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understand God.

I would come in and co-lead groups on steps two and three. Many of the people had led tough lives, and part of the 28 day program was attempting to call them to a new way of thinking and feeling. Addicts tend to become psychological, emotional, physical, and spiritual strangers to themselves. They tend to stuff down their feelings, and part of the task is to get them back in touch with their selves. In response to the question, “How are you feeling?”, they tended to say one of two things - “Not bad” or “Fine”. The more experienced of the group members would chime in with the response to “Not bad” with “The rev asked you what you were feeling, not what you weren't feeling! Happy, mad, sad, glad- what!” The response “Fine” would usually bring a retort like, “Oh yeah, FINE! F- I- N- E: F for all effed up (I am paraphrasing here), I for insecure, N for narcissistic, and E for egotistical. FINE is what got you into this place!” The groups were rough confrontations with reality so that they might rediscover themselves and begin the commitment to recovery. Tears were a regular part of group work, but the point was not the tears but the movement toward recovery.
Another interpretation of the weeping people in the lesson is that some people weep when they are overwhelmed when something wonderful is happening. I remember when Pat and I were getting married, one of those commitment moments, she cried all the way through our wedding vows. I mean to tell you, the tears really scared me. I leaned forward and asked her if she was all right, and she said she was so happy! Maybe the people gathered at the Water Gate in Jerusalem were weeping with joy and the scribes told them to continue with their joy.
What do we do when we are struck with the inescapable fact that God loves us more than we can ever realize or deserve and calls us all into a new relationship with God and our neighbor? We are free to weep or not weep, it doesn't matter, as long as we move to a deeper relationship. We can make re-commitments for lots of reasons, and sometimes we are aware that each day is a re-commitment. Each time the sun rises, we can remember that the Son rises for us and invites us into a new and deeper relationship with God, neighbor, and ourselves.
Today let us remember the promises and invitations that God makes and the promises that we made in response when we made our baptismal vows by turning to page 304 in the Book of Common Prayer.