As I write this, I’m getting ready to spend the night at Saint Nicholas so that I can be sure to be here for worship services tomorrow (Feb. 12.) I know this is probably silly – if the weather is so bad that I can’t get to church, we’d probably cancel church services anyway. My reflections on this silliness form the basis for this column.

In life, once in a great while we make an extravagant commitment. It might be to get married or have a child, or to really commit to a church or a job or an education. This is a commitment so large and so important that you can’t really see the end of it. You can’t know, in advance, how it is going to turn out. You only know that it is a commitment you make of your whole self, a commitment so consuming that you will honor its terms extravagantly, beyond what is reasonable or judicious. You do it, in part, to expand the acreage of your soul, to experience the breadth of your spirit. Maybe God helps you to make that commitment or to keep it. Anyway, it is how I’m going to wind up sleeping on a couch somewhere in the church building tonight.

We know that we need to be careful making commitments like these. They can become obsessive – for example, a commitment to keeping your house spotless can become so obsessive that it becomes impossible to live in this house you value so highly. A commitment to keeping your children safe may ruin their appreciation of life. An excessive commitment to planning may make it impossible to live in the moment, while an excessive commitment to spontaneity may make it impossible for people to depend on you. Extravagant commitments can even become idolatrous. Luther says the thing for which your heart yearns, that is your God. In another place he says, that to which you would give your children, that is your God. So, this thing that you’ve made an extravagant commitment to had better be close to the God you want to worship.

All this said, there is something wonderful about an extravagant commitment. Our members who have gone or who are going down to Mississippi or Louisiana to help out with hurricane relief are expressing such a commitment. When Kim Berche takes on Cupid’s Café for the second time (already knowing what it will entail!), that’s an extravagant commitment. I know that John Hofmann will be here tomorrow morning to help shovel and plow so we’ll be ready for worship, and that’s an extravagant commitment. The list goes on, not just at Saint Nicholas.

In our Lenten Soup and Study, we’ll be focusing on the history, context, theology and life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. The unity of his thought and action, the extent to which he lived out his faith, expresses an extravagant commitment to Jesus Christ. More than his contributions to 20th century theology, he is remembered for his life of unbending integrity in the face of a world gone mad. His faith inspired opposition to Adolf Hitler led to his execution just weeks before the end of World War II.

Lent is a good time for reflection, a good time to decide what you want to commit yourself to, maybe even commit extravagantly to. What in your life do you want to be really important, so important that you want to make it central to how you live? What in your life do you want to make your legacy, your bedrock?

May your Lenten journey be a rich and reflective one.

Pastor Greg

* Services for the next day, February 12, were eventually cancelled because of the snow fall.