October 12, 2025
The Eighteenth Sunday After Pentecost
I am one of the “old Seekers” who were in the congregation of the Church of the Saviour – the CofS — from which Seekers was formed. Our Seekers tradition of individual reflection during recommitment season, which ends next Sunday, came from the CofS. Along with membership in a mission group, and accountability through regular spiritual reports, annual recommitment is a key practice to maintain the integrity of membership.
I love this insistence on the “integrity of membership” and the annual opportunity to commit to the challenge of Christian beliefs and practices I want to live by. It is with a mixture of joy and fear that I annually commit to meet the challenge following Jesus poses for my life, knowing after my silent hour of reflection that once again I failed to fully meet that challenge faithfully in the past year and knowing that it will be hard to live up to that challenge this next year. As the manager played by Tom Hanks said about baseball in the movie, A League of Their Own, “It’s supposed to be hard. If it wasn’t hard, everyone would do it. The hard… is what makes it great.”
As Marjory Bankson describes so well in Stalking the Spirit, as we formed Seekers Church from that CofS tradition, we wrestled with challenge of implementing the values of inclusion and being a place for spiritual belonging along with the value of the integrity of membership. We resolved this by creating three commitment statements: (1) a child’s, (2) a member’s, which doesn’t require membership in a mission group or spiritual reports, and (3) a Steward’s, which does require membership in a mission group and accountability through regular spiritual reports, and a willingness to take responsibility for this local expression of the Body of Christ, including its organizational health and the nurture of the spiritual growth of its people of all ages.
Belonging and commitment aren’t necessarily opposing or competing values but rather are interconnected. John Baldoni notes that
The reason for [people’s] connection to work and the workplace is due to a sense of belonging. Dr. Abraham Maslow, a pioneering social psychologist, ranks “belonging” as third in his Hierarchy of Needs for human satisfaction and fulfillment. Individuals feel that they fit in. On one level they fit because the work is interesting. On another level they feel connected to their co-workers. And ultimately, and ideally, they feel part of the workplace because their work has meaning…. There is something else about belonging that was pointed out to me by an executive with whom I was working. He noted that belonging connotes ownership. You belong therefore you own. Not property but something more meaningful. You own responsibility. You have a sense of autonomy that enables you to act for the good of the organization. Not because you have to, but because you want to.[i]
I’m not an enthusiastic fan of artificial intelligence, but AI has summed up true commitment well:
Let me repeat that:
True commitment involves steadfast, unwavering dedication rooted in deep emotional connection and consistent action, going beyond mere convenience or intellectual agreement to a sustained, purposeful involvement in a goal, relationship, or belief.
Further,
[True commitment] requires passion, a willingness to sacrifice, and demonstrates loyalty through actions rather than words, especially when faced with challenges.
Key Characteristics of True Commitment:
- Emotional Depth: It stems from a genuine, internal feeling and passion, not just an obligation or convenience.
- Unwavering Loyalty: It means staying true to a person, goal, or belief, even when difficulties arise.
- Consistent Action: True commitment isn’t just a declaration; it’s demonstrated through sustained effort, obedience, and faithfulness over time.
- Sacrifice and Effort: It involves the willingness to put in the work, make sacrifices, and persevere through obstacles.
- Discipline: It requires actively choosing to stay engaged, putting in the effort, and fulfilling obligations, rather than avoiding them or “phoning it in”.
What True Commitment Is Not:
- Ambition with a “But”: If you can easily add a “but” to your goal, that indicates a lack of true commitment, as it shows a hidden exit strategy or a conditional intention.
- Convenience-Driven: True commitment is distinct from agreeing to something out of convenience, which doesn’t require genuine emotional investment or action.[ii]
From John Baldoni and the AI summary I see that belonging involves commitment and commitment involves belonging. This became even clearer to me as I watched a gaggle of Canada Geese. (ICE should deport them: they fly here without passports or visas, they trespass on our property to eat, and they pollute our ponds.) While some of the geese were eating, others were standing guard, and at some signal known only to them they all took flight in that familiar V-shape in which they took turns being the leader and being a follower. Each belonged to the gaggle, and each contributed by guarding it for a while, by flying together, and by taking its turn as the leader. Belonging and commitment.
Part of the good news of Jesus in the synoptic Gospels – Mark, Matthew, and Luke – is that Jesus didn’t ask people to believe in his divinity, or to make a commitment statement, but only to take actions of obedience to two commandments in the Torah: first, to love God with all one’s heart, and with all one’s soul, and with all one’s mind, and with all one’s strength, and second, to love one’s neighbor as oneself (Mark 12:28-31, citing Deuteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus 19:18). We call this combination the Great Commandment; obedience to it requires actions, not statements.
Loving God with all my heart, and with all my soul, and with all my mind, and with all my strength isn’t easy. A common confession asks God for forgiveness for the things we have done that we ought not to have done, and for forgiveness for the things we haven’t done that we ought to have done. As for the second part of the commandment, Jesus meant that we must be inclusive, not restrictive, in identifying our neighbor, and that loving them means taking action for their benefit. In his words and even more so in his actions Jesus taught that loving my neighbor means to have compassion on them by acting with justice and mercy, freeing them from oppression, sharing food with them, giving them shelter, and clothing them, even if I don’t like them, or even if I dislike them to the point of hating them. That is why we pray for our enemies.
We’ve come to the end of our School for Christian Growth class on hearing what the Hebrew prophets had to say that might be applicable to the world today. The prophets we studied believed that God wants all humanity to be connected to one another by something greater than group membership, politics and ideology: by love and neighborliness, and especially by creating social justice. As the prophet Amos said in chapter 5, verse 24:
But let justice roll on like a river,
righteousness like a never-failing stream!
Or as Micah said in chapter 6, verse 8:
He has shown you, O mortal, what is good.
And what does the LORD require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.
and as Isaiah said in chapter 58, verses 6 and 7:
Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free
and break every yoke?
Is it not to share your food with hungry
and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter –
when you see the naked, to clothe them,
and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?
These acts of social justice Isaiah identified, which Matthew paraphrased in his gospel as the key questions God asks in the Last Judgment, fulfill both parts of the Great Commandment. When we act in ways that help others feel that they belong to us and we to them, that we are neighbors, we are worshipping God with all our heart, and soul, and mind, and strength
The Great Commandment guides us in today’s lectionary. Jesus and the disciples were on their way to Jerusalem. Their path went back and forth between Samaria and Galilee. A little history – when Joshua led the people into Palestine after the Exodus and their forty years in the wilderness the ten northern tribes worshipped at Shechem, near Mount Gerizim, and they continued to do so even after Solomon built the Temple in Jerusalem, just slightly south of the border between the ten northern tribes and the tribes of Judah and Benjamin. After Solomon’s death, the north rebelled and formed the Kingdom of Israel, the political and religious rival of the Kingdom of Judah in the south.
North of the Kingdom of Israel was Syria, a longtime rival and occasional enemy. In 722 B.C.E., the Assyrian empire defeated Israel and took most of the ten tribes into exile, from which they never returned and are now lost to history. Those Israelites who were not exiled were joined by Assyrian and Babylonian settlers who intermarried with them. About 150 years later the Babylonian empire defeated Judah and destroyed the Temple, taking the political and religious leaders from Jerusalem and other Jews into exile for 70 years. When the Jews returned from Babylon the newly named “Samaritans” were among those opposed to the Jews’ rebuilding of Jerusalem and the Temple.
Five hundred years later in Jesus’ time, Jews still wanted nothing to do with Samaritans and vice versa. No Jew would have expected a Samaritan to act neighborly toward them nor would he have considered a Samaritan as his neighbor.
In our gospel today, Jesus and the disciples encountered a group of ten lepers, nine of them Jewish, one of them Samaritan. Leprosy in those days didn’t mean Hansen’s disease but rather it meant any of several skin diseases—eczema, psoriasis, acne—so feared by their communities that they were temporarily expelled from them until the disease was cured. Their expulsion from their communities temporarily forced them into forming an inclusive community of fellow lepers.
They called out to Jesus, “Master,” which is surprising because in Luke’s gospel only Jesus’ disciples called him that. This is a signal from Luke that these lepers already knew about Jesus and had faith in him. Jesus told them to go to their priests for the rituals of verification that the disease was gone. They departed, discovering as they went that they were indeed healed. Imagine their joy after they saw their priests and realized they could once again participate in their communities. Once again, they belonged!
But the Samaritan, and only the Samaritan, turned back to praise God and thank Jesus. Jesus served as his priest and pronounced him clean. Now he had a choice: he could return to his Samaritan community and participate in it fully once again, or he could stay with Jesus and become one of the many disciples. Did he go home or did he stay with Jesus? Where did he think he belonged? I wish we knew.
There are nuances in the story of Naaman, the Syrian general, whose leprosy was cured by the prophet Elisha in the alternate lectionary for this week from 2 Kings 5:1-3, 7-15c. First, Israelites hearing the story would have sympathized with the king of Israel’s fearful reaction – Naaman was not only not an Israelite; he was the enemy! The Syrian king’s act of sending his general to be cured in Israel was provocative; if the treatment failed the Syrian king could use that as a pretext for invading Israel. Second, Naaman had no faith in the God of Israel until after his miraculous healing. He now belonged (sort of) to the community of Israel and so he promised to worship God only. (That was a big step for him.) Finally, when Naaman asked Elisha’s forgiveness if he accompanied the king into a pagan temple and bowed when the king leaned on his arm, Elisha gave him a benediction, not condemnation. Elisha may not have liked or trusted Naaman, but he treated him as his neighbor. Elisha knew that Naaman committed to doing as much as he was able to show that he now belonged to the community of faith.
Belonging to Seekers is about claiming that I have been healed by faith in Jesus. Because of that healing, salvation, I choose to be part of this local expression of Christ’s body. Because I belong to this community, I own it and fully participate in our living out the Great Commandment together. I make my commitment to Seekers Church, not because I have to, or ought to, but because I want to. I make my commitment out of gratitude, out of joy, out of knowing I belong. I hope you will commit to it too.
Let me close with the words of Mary Oliver, whose poem “Wild Geese” seems to me to be appropriate for our reflection during our last week of recommitment season:
You do not have to be good.
you do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.[iii]
May we know we belong to Christ. May we commit to this community. May we love God with all our hearts, and with all our souls, and with all our minds, and with all our strength, and may we love our neighbor as we do ourselves. May it be so.
[i] Fostering The Sense Of Belonging Promotes Success, By John Baldoni, Contributor. Published in Forbes, Jan. 22, 2017, 03:24pm EST, updated Jan 22, 2017, 05:33pm EST. https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnbaldoni/2017/01/22/fostering-the-sense-of-belonging-promotes-success/#3846d15510f2
[ii] AI Overview. Based on https://michaelmogill.com/blog/the-true-meaning-of-commitment/#:~:text=Commitment%20is%20unwavering%20dedication%20to,the%20desire%20to%20achieve%20something.
[iii] Dream Work, ©1986 Mary Oliver, published by Atlantic Monthly Press.