PEOPLE OF THE COVENANT: UNITED AND UNITING

(Preached on Sunday, October 21, 2007)

But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.     -Jeremiah 31:33

 

AWe hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness....@  We all recognize and know these words.  They are branded in our national consciousness.  They are the opening words of the Declaration of Independence.

 

We are not so familiar with the closing words of that document.  AAnd for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.@  We often forget, beyond being a Declaration of Independence from England, this document was also a covenant.  We forget our Founding Fathers= appreciation for the role of covenants.  The framers of this Declaration of Independence believed passionately that covenants were the foundation for all facets of their lives C in private and in public, in the home and in the church, in the marketplace, and in the political forum.  Therefore, in signing this watershed document, each signer made a covenant with every other signer.

 

Today we seem to have forgotten in this nation the vital importance of covenant.  Especially in our civic and political arena.  Political debate in this nation seems to have devolved to a new low C into bullying, name-calling, strong-arm tactics, and the politics of division.  Wedge issues replace finding common cause, unilateral action has replaced consensus, polarization has replaced compromise, and acrimony has replaced courtesy.  For a nation whose founders believed passionately in mutuality and covenants, it is a particularly sad time.  The most fundamental covenant C respect for one another as equals before God C seems to be strained if not yet totally broken.

 

Understanding and treasuring covenant is important for us, not just as citizens of the United States, but also as members of the United Church of Christ.  Covenant is what holds people together even in the midst of all kinds of differences.  It is God=s good glue that keeps us together.

 

God covenants.  The Bible speaks of covenants between God and God=s people.  Yet holy covenants are also between people, churches, nations, and with creation itself.  Making covenant is all over the Hebrew scripture, being mentioned about 286 times.  God promises and God makes good on those promises.  At the end of the story of Noah and the flood, God covenants and the rainbow appears.  When God liberates the Hebrews from slavery in Egypt, God covenants.  Moses= sister, Miriam, dances, and Moses delivers commandments.  Covenant is also expressed between people as in the undying friendship and loyalty between the biblical hero, David, and a king=s son, Jonathan.

 

The history of God=s relationship with human beings is a story of covenant.  It is a story of God=s pledging God=s very self, God=s love, acceptance, and care for people and God asking only in return the same: the love, acceptance, and caring for God from human beings.  Though it sounds similar, this covenant is not between equals.  God is God.  God is greater than we.  The way God cares for us is through practical, tangible ways.  The way we care for God, is by honoring God with our devotion and respect for God, God=s will, God=s guidance.

 

To live out this covenant has not been easy for God=s people.  Over and over again God=s people have forgotten the covenant, or lived as though it did not exist.  The covenant was always a covenant of love, intended to be lived more out of our hearts than out of our heads.  The commandments and guidelines for keeping the covenant were intended to be internalized in our hearts so that our actions and our response became all about love.  Unfortunately this seemed too difficult, so well-meaning people began to focus on external expressions of the commandments and external expressions of devotion.  But those actions did not transform the heart and without the heart investment the keeping of the covenant C loving, accepting, and honoring God by loving, accepting and honoring other people, became impossible.

 

Many of God=s people despaired of ever keeping the covenant, but the prophet Jeremiah, writing in one of the bleakest periods of history for the people of God did not.  He held onto the hope that there was a brighter future coming.  When everything had collapsed in his world and the world of God=s people, Jeremiah is given a new promise from God: A new covenant will be established.  Faith in the one, loving God would one day again flourish in the land.  It would not be an external faith of obligation and religious obedience.  It would be an entirely new covenant, beginning in the very soul of humanity, the ways of God will be written in the hearts of people, religion will be internalized.

 

In a nutshell, what all this heart language suggests is that covenant is not like a contract or a commitment.  A contract and a commitment are primarily logical, rational realities.  They involve a quid pro quo, that is, a clear indication of what each party gets out of the contract or commitment.  But a covenant is a reality of the heart: it is based in love and grows out of love.  It is a pledge of devotion without a concern for what I will get in return.  Motivated from a heart of love, a covenant is what can bind together the most diverse and different parties.

 

In the United Church of Christ, we are people of the covenant, united and uniting.  The first word when we utter our name, AUnited Church of Christ,@ expresses the centrality of covenant for us: AUnited!@  In our denomination=s constitution covenant is officially described as the foundation for our way of being the church.  Each congregation has Aautonomy,@ meaning it=s free to discern its own way of being and believing.  Yet, because of covenant, we bind our selves to one another beyond the local church C to conferences, the national setting, and General Synod.  And all those settings are called to covenant with the local church settings as well.  The constitution puts it this way: AEach expression of the church listens, hears, and carefully considers the advice, counsel, and requests of others.  In this covenant, the various expressions of the United Church of Christ walk together in all God=s ways.@

 

And we are a very diverse lot.  Through our covenant with one another, we are bound to one-room new church starts in North Dakota, Texas, Oklahoma, and Arizona.  We are bound to historic urban churches keeping the light of God burning in the cities of New York, Philadelphia, Chicago.  We are bound to a 5,000 member non-denominational largely African-American church in Georgia that voted to join the UCC.  We are bound to small rural churches with frontier roots bringing people together in isolated counties of Nebraska, Iowa, Wyoming.  We are bound to ethnic Hungarian congregations spread throughout the United States.  We are bound to Asian and Pacific Islander churches, to Open and Affirming churches, to churches which read the Bible literally, and those who pray in tongues.  We are bound to those who vote Republican and those who vote Democrat and those who vote Independent.  We are bound to those who work for minimum wage and those who receive six-figure bonuses.  Because we are people of covenant we value diversity and the variety of gifts.  We are bound to all God=s children.

 

At times all this covenanting and uniting isn=t so easy to figure out.  A commitment to one group conflicts with the covenant with another.  We become torn in a way so that the glue grows brittle and the bond is ready to break.  Then with humility, we struggle with God and neighbor about what is faithful.  When it holds, we declare AThanks be to God!@  Covenant is a way of living.