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Some of my favorite holiday memories involve going places–to family, meals, and friends. All that came together on Christmas Eve. It was my family’s tradition to conclude Christmas Eve by going to the 11:00 p.m. service at our church, we lit our candles and sang silent night at around midnight. We would go home, go to bed, and wait on Santa.
There were many years I don’t think I made it to midnight on New Year’s Eve, but on Christmas Eve… Once dinner was over and presents were opened, we would put on our best nicest, winter church clothes, that might have been in boxes a few hours ago, and pile into the minivan to dive a whole mile to church. It was a perfectly walkable distance, that we rarely walked. It wasn’t an unusual ritual, we went to church just about every Sunday, even those when we were on vacation away from home.
Those commitments: to Christmas Eve, to Easter morning, to Sunday church, to learning and growing, were important. It sent ripples in the day and years to come, ripples in my life.
Several millennia earlier, when there was no family minivan to pile into. We meet a young family with all their kids 12 and under who once a year, every year, travel to Jerusalem for Passover. Passover was a pilgrimage festival, one of three in which folks were expected to travel to the temple. Folks really only means men, men were expected to go. But not everyone could travel, and not everyone would travel.
This annual event was completely unlike my family driving for a mile Christmas Eve service on paved roads, in a well-heated minivan. No, from Nazareth to Jerusalem was 100 miles which they would have traveled on foot. If they walked 20 miles a day and it would take them upwards of a week to get home.
It would not have been just Mary and Joseph and their children. They were traveling in a crowd with extended family and neighbors. There would have been very young and very old and everyone in between. They were probably then traveling siblings, cousins, and neighbors. So many so that as they left Jerusalem they would have just assumed any children they hadn’t seen were with their auntie, or cousins, or neighbor. They knew they were with someone they knew and loved and would care for their children. This isn’t neglect these things happen.
When I was little, everyone in my family had decided they were going to go to the Big Boy restaurant. There were enough people at my grandma’s house that two cars drove. When everyone sat down, looked around, and asked “What do the little girls want?” The little girls were me and a family friend who were still playing in the attic. They assumed we were in the other car. We were fine.
In ancient days, 13 being an age of accountability and of responsibility. A 12-year-old was close to being an adult, more like a 16 year old than an tween on the cusp of… teenagerness.
Over the centuries, smart folks have spent a lot of time reflecting on what this story means about who Jesus is, what Jesus knew about who Jesus is, about his relationship with God and his relationship with his family, and how this story is a pivot point from his parents being the primary movers of the story to Jesus make decisions about how he would live with his family. It hinges on the commitments of Mary and Joseph.
A commitment that had them walking 100 miles each way, every year, with all of their family and their children. The commitment that they had made ripples that they could see in the life of their 12-year-old, on the cusp of adulthood, when Jesus sat with the religious leaders, asked them questions, engaged in discussion, and they found him reflective and insightful.
It’s a new year and you might be excited about moving into the next 12 months or not. We are 5 days into this new year, which means maybe you have successfully kept every goal or resolution you have spoken into the world. Maybe you already have… not… That’s okay.
We made some hopes last week, hopes of what we want to see into the world, what we are hoping to be part of, to bring into the world.
Today I want us to think about commitments, not resolutions. I think a New Year’s resolution is trying to make us into someone different. A convenient or commitment of faith is one that we make out of who we already are.
As I thought about faithful commitments this week, it was also a week that was filled with stories of President Carter. Jimmy Carter had a faithful commitment to church on Sundays, teaching Sunday school, building houses, and eradicating the guinea worm. I mean, Jimmy Carter was a rare person, but also, it was his faithful commitments that sent ripples into the world, changed lives, and cared for people.
We are people of Faith so we show up on Sunday or Tuesday or some other day and during the week and we learn and grow and be curious together like Jesus did sitting with the leaders of his community. We are people of a communal faith and so we show up for each other. We commit to each other, we understand that covenant is not one that we do alone. And leave and commit that our covenants, who we are and the commitments we make because of who we are going to send ripples into the days and weeks and months. The year ahead they make commitments into generations to come. They make ripple effects in our lives and our families’ lives, in our communities’ lives, and all of our neighbors near and far lives.
It’s our commitment to be open to where God is moving in our lives and in the world around us and show up and participate in doing an unexpected thing. It’s our commitment to participate in the call that Jesus has for all of his disciples to care for the sick and the lonely and those in need the oppressed the prisoner.
And it sends ripples through all that is to come.
I wonder at this start of a new another new year, whether you are looking forward to every day that is to come or looking with fear. What is your commitment today? What is the thing you’re going to do today that sends ripples into your future into the future of the community around you, The lives of those around you.
What if we make a reminder? Something that we can see and visualize and tell others about. What if we could say, those are the ripples of our commitment going into the world, into the future? This is a reminder of our challenge to fully into our commitment.
We’re going to make a painting, a pour painting. Here’s how they work: you commit to your colors, pour them into a single cup and pour the mix of colors onto the canvas, sometimes just on color onto the canvas. You can’t control the outcome. It moves in waves and ripples as you move the canvas. It kinda just does what the paint and the canvas are going to do.
We can’t control the ripples, but we can commit to our faith, to Christ’s mission, to the care and love of ourselves and our neighbors. Let’s see what we can create together.
I am not my own self-made, self-reliant human being.
In truth, O God, I am Yours.
Make me into what You will.
Make me a neighbor with those whom You will.
Guide me on the easy path for You.
Guide me on the rocky road for You.
Whether I am to step up for You or step aside for You;
Whether I am to be lifted high for You or brought low for You;
Whether I become full or empty, with all things or with nothing;
I give all that I have and all that I am for You.
So be it.
And may I always remember that you, O God, and I belong to each other. Amen.