Showing up in our work and our lives #5…
… and committing to what matters
<to commit> to pledge, devote, dedicate, give, bind.
Dear Friends,
When I lived in the Top End of Australia I visited an indigenous elder who, with everyone else in her community, had been taken away from her country and placed in a ‘mission settlement’ hundreds of kilometres away. When I met her she had been living away from her ancestral homeland for many years. She told me she refused to plant any trees or grow anything in the soil around the house where she now lived. “Because this is not my place ” she said. She was in exile, and her refusal to plant trees was a very visible symbol of her commitment to never forget her true home. It was a persistent protest against what had been done to her and her community. It also expressed her ambivalence about fully inhabiting a place that she felt was not her own.
Her story reminded me of the unsettling parable of the ‘talents’ recorded in the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 25. Three slaves were given different amounts of money to look after while their master was away. Two of them promptly put their master’s money ‘to work.’ When the master returned, the two slaves handed over the vastly increased sums they had amassed. Their master was pleased and gave them both promotions.
But the third slave, who was given the smallest (yet still large) amount of money, buried it in the ground. When the master returned, this slave dug up the money and handed it back saying; “Master I knew that you were a harsh man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not scatter seed; so I was afraid, and I went and hid your money in the ground. Here, have what is yours.” The master was angry and castigated the slave saying that he was wicked and lazy: at least he could have put the money in the bank where it would have earned interest.
So, the master took away the money from the third slave and gave it to the first and had the third slave thrown into the outer darkness saying: “For to all those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away. [Matthew 25]
Many church commentators interpret this story as an appropriate criticism of the third slave. They tell us that this story is about the importance of living our lives creatively and productively — of using our differing gifts and talents, rather than burying them out of sight. When we use the gifts we are given, blessings accrue. When we turn our backs on what we have been given, we may end up in a downward, miserable spiral with even less than we had before.
But the same commentators rarely acknowledge the element of protest in this story: a protest against an overbearing and greedy master intent on accumulating wealth by means of wealth, rather than by producing what is needed by others, like food or useful services. They don’t see that the final summing up might be a scathing social commentary on how the wealthy find ways of amassing more and more wealth even as those who have little grow poorer still. Nor do these commentators take seriously the slave’s genuine fear of what might happen to him if he risked what he’d been given and still loses it all anyway. And what about the courage it takes to refuse to go along with the usual (cultural) expectations of an unethical master?
The tough element in this interpretation of course, is that the slave loses everything any way.
So, how are we to interpret this parable and the loss the slave suffers in the context of our own work and lives? Is it highlighting for us the personal cost of refusing to take creative risks even in the midst of the captivities and fears that bind us? Or is the loss the slave suffers a reminder of the potential (and often real) price attached to a valiant protest against exploitative practices in our workplace or political culture?
Are we being reminded that there may be consequences when we take an ethical stand (for how could the other two slaves have made such large returns without exploiting others?) Or is this a story that invites us to take risks with what we have been given, even in the midst of work and life contexts that are harsh and demanding? Perhaps it can be both and is dependent on our particular context. But whichever way we look at it, if we stand in the shoes of the third slave, we face questions of real vulnerability and risk.
Maybe you’re not confronted with these kinds of dilemmas in your work at this time. You love your job. Showing up at your workplace means inhabiting your house of belonging. You’ve made a clear choice, or perhaps you feel you’ve answered a deep call into a particular kind of work, and now you’re living into your answering commitment with all the energy, discipline and attentiveness you can muster. But even if this is so, there will be times when your enthusiasm will waver in the face of thorny or ethically difficult issues that arise. What then?
Perhaps, however, your work feels more like living in exile or captivity — a context that has as much of the curse about it as blessing. Perhaps you’re turning up today only because you have to. Or because this is a convenient ‘day job’ while you work elsewhere on your bigger dreams. How do you show up when your heart isn’t in it? Or when you feel an internal resistance of protest, or when you are experiencing anxiety or even boredom? How do you show up when you are not sure that you agree with all that is happening in your company or organisation? How do you face the anxiety that if you participate fully you may be denying something of yourself in the process — and yet if you hold back in protest you will be refusing to grow and plant in the ‘city’ in which you find yourself?
I’m alluding here to another confronting biblical text, in which the prophet Jeremiah encouraged the exiled people of Israel to take the risk of committing themselves to the welfare of a city whose people had conquered them. You’ve been taken away from your homeland, he acknowledged. You are far from home and living under the control of your enemies. Nevertheless, in the very face of your grief and anxiety, live and flourish: seek the wellbeing of the city in which you now find yourself, for in its welfare will be your welfare:
Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.
— Jeremiah 29:5
I’m again reminded of the time I sat with the old woman on the ‘mission’ listening to her grief about living in exile and her refusal to plant trees. As I listened I watched her grandchildren playing in the dirt around the house and wondered at the hard choices she’d been forced to face. She’d refused to plant trees because of her deeply felt commitment to her sense of true home. And yet, at the same time, she had raised children and was now an active grandmother to their children. Two different kinds of commitments in the midst of exile. Perhaps both were a form of protest: one a resounding ‘NO’ to what must not be forgotten, the other a resounding ‘YES’ to the will to live and to flourish in a tough new context.
SPIRITUAL PRACTICE: UNDERSTANDING AND PRACTISING OUR COMMITMENTS
to commit> to pledge, devote, dedicate, give, bind.
When we show up in our work, in our communities, and in our family lives we are invited into commitments that, if we take them seriously, will carry us into unexpected and joyful places. And also into places of potential danger and disappointment, even hardship.
There’s no getting around it: the way we live reveals to what and to whom we are truly devoted. And this is especially true when we don’t feel positive about some of the commitments we’ve made in those moments when we’re called to act on them! Nor is it always easy when different commitments collide. All the more reason then, to reflect on what really matters to us and to practise giving expression to them in our day-to-day lives — whether it is in the form of a ‘No’ or ‘Yes’ to potential courses of action.
THIS WEEK’S CHALLENGE
Think about your work and life contexts, personally, locally and at a global level. What really matters to you? To whom and to what are you truly devoted? Jot these down.
What ongoing commitments have you made that are currently challenging for you? Are you willing to renew these commitments or must you reconsider? How will you do this? Make some more notes.
Consider the week ahead: How do you (or might you) act upon one of your renewed commitments to someone or something as you ‘show up’ each day? Perhaps you could choose one value or behaviour to actively practice (or abandon).
Are you willing to look back at the end of the week and reflect on what you have discovered or uncovered about yourself in the process?
Sometimes we start off with good intentions but end up abandoning them. Do we leave them to rust away? Or give them a decent burial? Or do we recommit?