|
Covenants. ‘Tis the season! And next week is our long-awaited annual Covenant Sunday. Around here, the word “covenant” itself engenders immediate response, reaction, dialogue, debate, and opinion…and that is wonderful! Such engagement keeps us learning, growing, hearing and listening to one another…exactly what we need to be doing always.
A few years ago, I was emailed a joke about a woman who goes to the post office to buy stamps for her Christmas cards. She asks the clerk, “May I please have 50 Christmas stamps?” The clerk replies, “What denomination would you like?” To which the woman responds, exasperated, “God help us. Has it come to this?” Looking quickly over her address list, the woman replies, “OK, then, give me 6 Catholics, 12 Presbyterians, 10 Lutherans, and 22 Baptists!”
Like the experience of this poor woman trying to purchase her holiday stamps, covenant-writing can suggest a particular loyalty, but covenanting is not primarily about joining a denominational club. Covenant writing by itself does not make us more holy, more consecrated, or more devout. Covenant writing does invite us to reflect on our spiritual journeys, it does encourage us to think about our relationship with God, and it does nudge us to be intentional about the ways that each of our unique relationships with God is played out in our church community.
I have often shared the story and I believe it bears repeating, that the second page I saw from this congregation (while we were in the search process six years ago) was a single sheet that summarized the rationale and process of covenant-writing. I read that page at home, turned to John and said, “This is very cool!” Now, that certainly is not my most profound theological statement about covenants (!), yet my initial enthusiasm for covenant has never wavered. I know that through the years of RUCC’s history there have been those who have wanted us to abolish the covenant system, believing that it is off-putting to new people. There are those who have done their tinkering to the original blank-page-write-your-covenant format that was the foundation of this church’s beginnings. There are even those who really look forward to the act of writing a covenant each year, because they see it as a spiritual opportunity, a gift from God, a gift that invites them to take the time to reflect on where they are on the journey. I am—unashamedly—in that latter category. Yes, I write a covenant, too. I don’t spend nearly as much time reading my covenant as I do yours, of course! But I follow the discipline of writing an annual covenant because it causes me to pause, to be intentional, and, in a visible way, to offer to God my gifts for the following year.
One of the reasons I continue to be so enthusiastic about covenants is that, through the years, I have seen where covenants not only make us a more dedicated and involved community of faith—we often hear that we do far more than most congregations our size, and we are known throughout our community as people who respond with faithful vigor in meeting needs far beyond our walls—but in addition to these qualities of dedication and helpful involvement, covenants keep us connected—one to another and each to God—as we move through any given year together. Compared to other congregations, Redlands UCC is unique, rare even, in asking each person to share annually something about their spiritual journey and what they both expect from and are willing to give to the church in the coming year. These covenant statements, as you know, are read only by me, and are kept confidential—between you and God and between you and your pastor. Each year, as I read these sacred documents, fueled as they are by the Spirit’s own breath, there emerges a picture of where you are, individually, on the journey of faith, and also where we are, collectively, as a community of faith on a journey together. Some years, the enthusiasm spills over in the covenants…other years, covenants are filled with questions…in still other years, an event or two or a concern or two—in the global community or within our local community—provides impetus for your collective spiritual reflection. I am always amazed, by the ways that the Spirit moves through this covenant process, year in and year out. Even those who, for a variety of reasons, choose not to covenant in a given year, offer their spiritual wisdom by sharing with me the reasons they choose not to keep covenant that year. All of these sacred statements—the verbal ones and the written ones—help us move forward as a community seeking to be faithful to God, in tune with the Spirit, and reflective of the love of Christ for all people.
Covenant-writing as a method of joining a church is a relatively recent phenomenon, within the last sixty years or so, begun by The Church of the Savior in Washington, DC and picked up here at RUCC at our birth in 1975. However, covenants themselves date back thousands of years. Our three scriptures this morning shine a bright light on these ancient covenants, and my hope is that they will also have something important to say to us this morning. Something we most need to hear as a community…words of hope and of peace…images of comfort and of assurance.
In the first passage we heard that Jacob was between a rock and a hard place…literally. When we meet him in today’s scripture, his head is propped up on a rock as he attempts to rest, and his body is lying out on the hard ground. It is there…between that rock and that hard place…that Jacob hears the assuring words of God, “I AM…I AM Yahweh, the Lord…I AM the God of your ancestors…I AM the God of your descendants…KNOW that I AM with you and will keep you wherever you go…for I will not leave you…” Good words that we rarely hear, and more rarely believe, except when we join Jacob between the rock and the hard place.
Contemporary poet, Jack Gilbert has wisely observed, “God does not live among the church bells, but is briefly resident there. We [also] are occasional like that. A lifetime of easy happiness mixed with pain and loss, trying always to name and hold on to the enterprise under way in our chest. Reality,” Mr. Gilbert writes, “is not what we marry as a feeling. It is what walks up the dirt path, through the excessive heat and giant sky…” Jacob’s reality was not excessive heat, but the cold of the desert late at night. And in our reality, as in Jacob’s, God speaks not only in the sunlight, but also within the shadows of our lives. “I AM with you…” As we open ourselves to hear these simple words of assurance, we join a host of believers through the ages who have found that we follow a God whose magnificence is all the more extraordinary by becoming known to us in unproven places…in the shadows of uncertainty, in the realm of questions and concerns, and including in a backwater village named Bethlehem, the unlikely birthplace of Jesus the Christ. “I AM with you…” Like Jacob, may we also awaken to affirm in each of the hard places of our lives, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I, I did not know…”
In the second reading we encounter Joshua who has recently taken the reins after the death of Moses who had faithfully led the wandering Hebrews for a generation or more. Joshua faces an uncertain future—not knowing if the people will trust him, not sure if God will continue to guide them into that Land of Promise. And again, as in Exodus, God says most directly, “As I was with Moses, so I WILL be with you; I WILL not fail you or forsake you. Be strong and courageous…do not be frightened or dismayed, for I WILL be with you wherever you go.”
The I AM God of Jacob on the rock has become the I WILL God of Joshua before the people. UCC Minister Tina Villa has written of this story about Joshua that “God’s reassurances, God’s ‘I will not fail you or forsake you,’ are paired with the words, ‘I hereby command you.’ …Before the reassurance, God gives instructions to Joshua on what the people must do together in order to be strong and courageous in the certainty of God’s presence…” Rev. Villa goes on to interpret the passage by saying that God reminds Joshua of the law and of the communal aspects of living by that law. “This book of the law shall not depart out of your mouth; you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to act in accordance with all that is written in it…” The pronoun “you” in this passage is repeatedly plural…meaning, you the community. Rev. Villa concludes, “God is still speaking—but don’t expect a personalized message that you can get without leaving home. You take the message home from church. The message is in Scripture: heard and learned in church, where it’s publicly acknowledged as authority by all present. In church, no matter who you are or where you are on life’s journey, you hear the same Word.” She concludes, “It’s an equal opportunity, always available…” I would add to Rev. Villa’s words, that here at Redlands UCC, we hear that word of scripture, each in our own way, and through the holy and annual covenant process, through the Spirit’s ongoing work in each of our lives, that Word becomes refined, focused, directing us individually and as a community together on the journey of faith. “I WILL be with you.” This promise of God, delivered first to a fearful Joshua, is also God’s message to us today. “I WILL be with you, this holy community of imperfect humans…I WILL be with you today and tomorrow and forever…”
In the final reading for today, the early Christian community is struggling with the age-old question of who is more favored by God. Who is in God’s family? Who is outside of it? For centuries, faithful Hebrew people had heard and had taught to their children and grandchildren that they, alone, were in covenant with God. They alone were the chosen ones to whom were promised both land and a messiah. When we meet these early Christians in the reading from Acts, they are in the throes of making the difficult transition from their presuppositions about entitlement and privilege to understanding that all humans are welcomed in God’s holy and beloved family.
UCC Pastor, The Rev. Martin Copenhaver, has written extensively of this passage. I share his insightful words with you,
“Revelation,” he writes, “may occur in a flash but it can take time for the full implications to be understood. In Jesus’ day there was great enmity between Jews and Gentiles. Not only was a Jew forbidden to eat with Gentiles, if a Gentile were to walk into the kitchen of a Jewish household while a meal was being prepared, the entire meal would have to be thrown out because it was believed to have been made unclean by the Gentile’s presence. But Jesus surprised and confounded his contemporaries by sharing meals, sharing his life, with Gentiles. Nevertheless, Jesus’ revelation of God’s radical welcome to all people was not immediately understood by his followers. In the earliest days of the church it was assumed that to be a follower of Jesus one must be a Jew. There was not yet any sense that Jesus’ teachings, his life, his death and resurrection were for anyone but Jews. Then one night Peter had a startling dream featuring a large sheet coming down from heaven, laid out like a table cloth, with every manner of animal that a Jew is forbidden to eat. He heard a voice saying, ‘Get up, Peter; kill and eat.’ Peter probably thought that this voice was posing some kind of spiritual test, and he was sure he had the right answer: ‘By no means, Lord; I have never eaten anything profane or unclean.’ The voice said to him, in a kind of rebuke, ‘What God has made clean, you must not call profane.’ Peter could not conceive of something so inconceivable, nor could he accept anything so clearly unacceptable. While he was still pondering these things, however, there was a knock at his door. There he met three messengers who asked him to visit the home of Cornelius, a Roman army officer who, though he was a Gentile, was known as an ‘upright and God-fearing man.’ It seems that Cornelius had also been having strange dreams and in one he had been told to send for Peter. When Peter was ushered into Cornelius’ house he was startled to see all of Cornelius’ relatives and many of his friends gathered there, a [veritable] sea of Gentile faces, all eyes on Peter, eager to meet this visitor and the God he worships. Peter said to them, ‘You know, of course, that it is unlawful for me, as a Jew, to associate with or to visit a Gentile; but God has shown me that I should not call anyone profane or unclean.’ The meaning of Peter’s [earlier] vision had become clear. It is not merely that there is no food that is to be declared unclean, but—a much more far-reaching revelation—no person should be considered unclean. God’s embrace is wider than our own…Given what Peter believed about the relationship between Jews and Gentiles, it would have been remarkable if he had said [to Cornelius and his family and their Gentile friends], ‘I truly understand that God does not want us to hate one another.’ It would have been startling if [Peter] had said, ‘I truly understand that God wants us to accept one another.’ It would have been revolutionary if [Peter] had said [to them], ‘I truly understand that God wants us to be in relationship with one another.’ But,” Rev. Copenhaver concludes, “Peter says more than any of those things, and more than all of that combined. Peter says, in essence, ‘No one is in and no one is out. We are all the same in God’s sight.’”
And so, in our reading today from the book of Acts, as Peter is speaking with Cornelius and the roomful of Gentile folk God does a little speaking, too! The words God speaks are not just given to the so-called chosen ones. God’s words are given to all in the room, Jews and Gentiles alike. So surprising was this extravagant welcome mat laid out by God for all to see, that we read in the passage that both Peter and all the Jews who had accompanied him that day were astonished, astounded that God would give the gift of the Spirit even to non-Jews. In the world of baseball, this was Peter’s third strike, and he manages to hit it out of the park. Through his incredulity, Peter leads the way to a new and more inclusive vision of God’s heart, by boldly asking those gathered, “Can anyone prevent these Gentiles from being baptized, from being welcomed into our community of faith? For those whom God has invited, those upon whom God has poured the Holy Spirit, they too are part of our family of faith!” Finally, Peter gets it! Finally, Peter understands that all the parties Jesus and he had attended with Gentiles present, and the dream of animals that were pronounced by God as clean, and the visit itself with Cornelius and the room of Gentiles, all lead to a very different vision of God’s community. WE ARE, all of us, God’s beloved sons and daughters. WE ARE, each of us, welcomed and included, with all our imperfections and our amazing gifts. WE ARE a community, as Henri Nouwen once wrote, a community of wounded healers, and WE ARE called by God to be generous and gracious and forgiving and honest and loving and just and compassionate with one another, for WE ARE and will always be God’s beloved.
How fortunate we are to be a part of a congregation that takes covenant so very seriously; a covenant holds the potential for spiritual growth and intentional community beyond our wildest imaginings! With the covenant process, and I believe because of it, this congregation values one another’s gifts and we live out our dedication in far-deeper ways than in traditional membership churches. Covenant, and its subsequent benefits, permeates all of our work together, the easy and the painful. Know that your covenant statements are cherished and read often by me. Of whatever length or breadth, your covenants enable me to be a better pastor, and they invite each of us to be more faithful and intentional about our spiritual journey.
As your pastor and teacher, as one who has been in prayer for many years over the issues that face us today in this community of faith, I cannot think of any words that need to be added to those we’ve heard from scripture this morning. Be of good courage! Do not fear! The I AM, I WILL God is with us now…and has been with us through all the 35 years of our congregation’s covenanting and throughout the centuries of the covenants of our ancestors. This I AM, I WILL God will not forsake us or leave us. And Redlands UCC is a WE ARE community: a place that has been and continues to be a respite of extravagant welcome filled with people of deep compassion. In all my three decades of service in the institutional church, I have never encountered a group of believers who so thoroughly and so professionally and so prayerfully engage in the work of ministry. The people in the pew and those in positions of leadership—each of you take your commitments seriously, precisely because they are commitments that are born in covenant. So, my friends, even as we grieve together, let us embrace covenant for the reality of the journey that it provides. Today, our scriptures invite us to join Jacob and Joshua and Peter as brothers on the faith journey by affirming the presence with us always of the God who is I AM and I WILL. Today, as it has been for over three decades and for centuries before, the covenant invitation is issued by the I AM, I WILL God, who invites us through covenant to continue becoming the community of WE ARE…
|
