This weekend will be a busy one for us at St. John’s. On Saturday, we will be hosting Revolution RVA’s Mozart Festival, then on Sunday during church, we will be welcoming Bishop Susan Goff for the rites of Baptism, Confirmation, and Reaffirmation, and then on Monday, we will be serving as the interfaith host of Richmond’s Inaugural Indigenous Peoples’ Day celebration to be held at Powhatan Hill Park.

At the heart of each of these events is a deep-seated sense of commitment. Commitment to our neighborhood and the Richmond arts community, commitment to our congregation and the Baptismal Covenant that shapes our shared life, and commitment to the indigenous peoples who first inhabited these lands. Each one of these commitments involves time, energy, and multiple decisions, some of which are not easy to make. Truth be told, this entire fall will be a season of commitment and recommitment…just wait to see what we have on board for the rest of October!

Commitment isn’t a popular word in our consumer culture. To many, commitment is limiting, narrowing, even binding or inhibiting. We prefer to keep our options open, our choices many. This is what lies behind much of the dis-ease, disagreement, and discomfort surrounding the “big problems” we face as a society, such as climate change, political impasse, and social inequity, to name a few. 

This week’s gospel reading suggests the value of intentional preparation and commitment. In Jesus’ pointed story, a wealthy owner has prepared a vineyard carefully: planted the crop, dug a winepress and erected a tower for surveillance. He obviously expects a good harvest. So do the managers, who plot to keep the profits, killing first his servants, and then the son of the owner.

The obvious point is that his listeners are guilty of keeping the “profits” of commitment instead of honoring God, the implied owner. The less obvious point is the vineyard’s careful preparation which precedes an abundant harvest: tilling the soil, adding nutrients where needed, pruning the vines, tying them up to catch the sun. All of that work takes commitment and care which the owner has invested. It’s an intriguing image of God as the owner who is expecting a good harvest.

Which brings me back to the commitments that you and I make – not only in our personal lives, but to our communities. Commitment to our journey of spiritual growth and service to others is surely a lifelong path that will have seasons of plenty and seasons of scarcity, perhaps in different vineyards. Having a regular season of commitment is one way of saying we trust the cycle of seasons, the wisdom of human experience, and the importance of a particular community to guide us into an unknown future. Preparing the vineyard is simply part of that process.

In the coming weeks, I invite you to your own season of commitment. What is the main vineyard in your life? How do you invest in a good harvest there? What will you do with the profits?