Considering Covenants
We continue this year our practice of asking ourselves each month a question as a way of shaping our faith exploration. That question is, “What does it mean to be a community of … ?” Each month we’ll look at a different way we could describe what it means to be a Unitarian Universalists (either the world-wide community of UUs or our local manifestation of it). This year we’ll be looking at what it means to be a community of:
Covenant (September)
Healing (October)
Story (November)
Presence (December)
Prophecy (January)
Identity (February)
Risk (March)
Transformation (April)
Embodiment (May)
Zest (June)
Most of these are words we use in everyday conversation. The first one, though, the one for this month, most definitely is not. It’s true that we have a small group ministry that we call Covenant Groups, and maybe you’ve been part of a committee, task force, or adult faith development program that began by creating a “covenant.” But mostly it’s a word that has a stuffy, old-fashioned sound to it, a dustiness. It’s one of those words that sounds archaically religious.
The word itself comes from the Latin – con venire – which means to come together. It was, originally, a legal term used to describe a coming together for the purpose of making a binding contract. In fact, its use in the Hebrew Scriptures is striking for this very reason. The stories of the Hebrew people show the character of God making binding contracts with humanity and all of creation. And like all legal contracts, these covenants are mutually binding; God is bound by them as much as we are expected to be. That was something of a new concept. Think, for instance, of how capricious were the Gods and Goddesses of the Greek and Roman pantheons. The God of the Hebrew Scriptures was one willing to be bound by the same moral and ethical constraints as God’s own creations. (Let’s acknowledge, of course, that neither the character of God nor humanity always lived up to their end of the bargain in these stories, but the commitment was there nonetheless.)
The word is meaningful for us, as Unitarian Universalists today, because our religious tradition is based on the idea of covenant. We are not bound to one another by shared belief but, rather, by promises made. The often quoted “seven principles” are not, as is often assumed, a statement of what UUs believe. It is not, in technical terms, a “creed.” Instead, it’s actually a part of the Unitarian Universalist Association’s Bylaws describing the promises that Unitarian Universalist congregations make with one another. They are a covenant to affirm and promote certain principles, and it’s these commitments which bind our individual congregations into a unified association. (You can find a link to them on our website – uucharlottesville.org – on the page about Unitarian Universalism in the “About Us” section. They’re also listed on the inside of the grey hymnal, Singing the Living Tradition.)
We don’t often talk about this explicitly, but we also make promises to one another – a covenant which binds us together as a single community, which make us more than just a bunch of individuals who happen to enjoy one another’s company. Our Covenant is this:
In order to create the beloved community we all desire for ourselves, we, the Congregation of Thomas Jefferson Memorial Church Unitarian Universalist covenant to:
Communicate with compassion and respect, especially when we disagree,
Celebrate diversity and nurture our inclusivity,
Embrace one another spiritually and emotionally,
Promote social justice within our congregation and the larger community,
Generously support the ministries of the church with time, money and enthusiasm, and
When we have fallen short, lovingly call each other back into covenant.
I’ve always said that it should be, “… we, the members of Thomas Jefferson Memorial Church …” because this is really the promise we make to one another. In joining this merry band – or “motley crew” if you prefer – we do not promise to agree with one another in all things (or any thing, for that matter), but we do promise that we will behave toward and with one another in some specific ways. We should, of course, note, that we’re no better at consistently living up to our promises than the God of the Hebrew Scriptures is described as being. Still, the promises, the commitment, is there.
This is a month of coming together – our Ingathering Water Communion, our one-of-a-kind Balloon Sunday celebration, the start of a new year of religious education programming for and with our children and youth. Perhaps this can be a time for each of us to reflect on our congregation’s Covenant, to ask ourselves in what ways we have honored these promises … as well as in what ways we have not. Perhaps we can use this month as a time to “lovingly call each other (and ourselves) back into covenant,” where it is necessary, and to recommitment ourselves to these commitments that underlie all that we are as a community.
Pax Tecum,