SERMON

Covenants: How We Keep Our Promises

Every year, I promise to present a worship service on a theme chosen by the highest bidder at the UUFC Services Auction. The purchaser or purchasers may either offer their own sermon (with my help) or ask me to speak on an issue near and dear to their hearts. Last May, David and Eileen Maxfield bought the sermon offered at the UUFC Auction and delighted me by asking me to address how we keep our promises and our covenants. In resonance with this request, today our children explore how we keep our promises while studying the Jewish understanding of covenant.

Our UU Purposes and Principles offer the “what” of our covenant together as freely associated congregations. Our Vision/Mission/Covenant statement on the back of the order of service and our Covenant of Right Relations are promises we make to one another.

The Ten Commandments are core laws in God’s covenant with the Jews. Some neighborhoods draw up covenants of expectations of how neighbors will keep their homes in good condition in order to maintain property values. We may promise our children certain gifts for the holidays.

These are examples of promises and covenants. At first glimpse, this is an easy subject. We could simply tell ourselves and our children it is important to keep our promises. We can say God expects us to follow his laws, or we will be punished. But we find the actual “how” of doing it is complex.

The world is riven by broken promises - and broken covenants. Numerous peace accords in the Near East are in shambles, thanks to those who despise those promises and covenants and have other agendas for the people there. Native American Indians on this continent can tell us much about how our government made worthless covenants and promises. Marriage vows are broken far too frequently. Dysfunctional people and families make – and break - promises over and over again, especially those promises to stop destructive behavior.

Jewish scripture is clear about covenant between God and the Jewish people. As Karen Armstrong states:

. . . the Israelites had promised to make Yahweh their only god after the Exodus, and the prophets would remind them of this agreement in later years. They had promised to worship Yahweh alone as their elohim, and, in return, he had promised that they would be his special people and enjoy his uniquely efficacious protection. Yahweh had warned them that if they broke this agreement, he would destroy them mercilessly. (Armstrong, A History of God, p. 23.)

Armstrong goes on to explicate the notion of covenant of that era in the Ancient Near East:

The covenant was a formal treaty that was frequently used in Middle Eastern politics to bind two parties together. It followed a set form. The text of the agreement would begin by introducing the king who was the more powerful partner and would then trace the history of the relations between the two parties to the present time. Finally, it stated the terms, conditions and penalties that would accrue if the covenant were neglected. Essential to the whole covenant idea was the demand for absolute loyalty. (Ibid, pp. 23-24.)

Jewish scripture is rife with examples of Jews breaking the covenant. Consider any of the prophet’s railings against this: Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Ezra, etc. But God’s treatment of Job, the innocent man, allowing Satan to abuse him mercilessly certainly seems to constitute a broken covenant as well. Jack Miles notes that after Job’s final protestation that he is an innocent man, God is silenced and distant for the rest of Jewish scripture. The covenant has come to naught. It is up to humanity to struggle to answer the great questions of life without intervention from God. God is silent and absent from Jewish scripture from that time on. The covenant is moot. Do we become absent from our human covenants as well?

So, I offer contemporary suggestions for a “how” of keeping promises and/or covenants. These involve recognizing that all partners in the covenant need to have power, that covenants need to be explicit and realistic, and a sense of community is essential to the process.

Unitarian Universalists may be unique in believing that parties must share power in a true covenant. There is no a “king” or sovereign who wields “power-over.” Each party must have power to choose in the process of making a covenant. Power, of course, includes awareness and necessary information. Each person needs to tell the truth about his or her needs and expectations and needs to hear the truth of others in the covenant. Certainly, my spouse was very clear with me about what she expects from me. That makes our covenant much easier to fulfill – and makes it a useful guide for each of us as we make important choices about how we relate.

This leads to the question: What does it mean to be explicit when making a promise? I am not always the best example of this. I make some vague sort of promise: “I will get that done,” without giving the other person or persons the basic materials which will help us both fulfill the promise. This is where Paul Axtell’s “X by Y by Z” formula is helpful. Paul reminds us that we need to know precisely, WHO will do WHAT by WHEN. A vague statement lets us off the hook, because we can always, “still get to it.” So, rather than leaving things implicit and unclear, let’s say it out loud. “I will make these calls to these folks by next Tuesday.” That helps bring us further on the road to keeping our promises and fulfilling our covenants.

Integrity lies at the heart of this: Say what you mean and do what you say. This is really hard in dysfunctional families where we are supposed to say what the other person wants to hear, not what we can truly can or want to do. But making our meaning clear is a spiritual practice in that it co-creates deeper connections among us. I have to say that I don’t care so much what details people choose for their covenant. I don’t care if they follow societal conventions. I do care that they all are honest in expectations and willingness to fulfill the promises in the covenant.

So let’s be realistic about our promises. Don’t make promises which are truly counter to who we are and what we old most dear. A simple example is telling someone you love that you can live with their cat, even though you are deathly allergic to cats. That is not realistic, unless Zyrtec works for you.

Being realistic includes the recognition that two people or groups will always have particular issues over which they will never agree. One is fussy and clean, the other messy (How do we find each other?!). One loves to read in bed, the other thinks bed is only for sleeping. One thinks “one night stands” are no threat to a marriage; the other wants and needs exclusivity to feel safe in the relationship.

Here is where both being explicit and being realistic are essential for keeping our covenants. We, most of us, are not effective mind-readers, even if we think we are. So negotiation is essential to making the covenant that can be kept.

And negotiation does not mean stating my needs and expecting that to be the end of it. We need to be able to listen to the needs of the other, to truly hear them, then to determine what accommodations we can make and if the relationship is important enough to make them. Essentially, making a decent covenant is at the heart of being able to keep it.

Why do we lump promises and covenants together? What distinguishes a covenant from a promise? From my perspective, a promise comes from an individual in most cases and carries the power of personal integrity. This in itself is highly important. But a covenant. . . Ah, that is another matter.

A covenant is the deepest kind of promise and involves more than two people. It involves the community or communities that these people represent, and it invokes “the holy:” that which is of greatest import to both the individuals and the community. I may promise to pick up a prescription for a family member, that affects me and my family. But if I make a marriage covenant in front of a community and whatever is most important to me, that is a deeper commitment. It transcends the day-to-day and takes in larger periods of time, like a lifetime. It asks of us that we pay attention deeply, not just for a few minutes, but for all of our time – and that is a spiritual matter: paying attention.

Paying attention will take into account that covenants are living agreements that are in process. Covenants may change through time and need constantly to be updated and renegotiated. We may find various parts of the covenant lose their power and may be dropped, while other parts or new concerns may become more important and need to be added. This has already happened with our UU Purposes and Principles, when we added the sixth Source: earth-based spirituality

Ultimately, though, the heart of covenant is to say what we mean and do what we say. As Arne Landsberg said one day when I was preaching about our covenant with our planet and our limited resources, “Your actions speak louder than your words.” Then he turned off unnecessary lights in this hall. Arne was being a prophet, reminding us that we must live and act on our covenants. Thank you, Arne!

We may not enjoy hearing from prophets who remind us that we are breaking our own covenants, but we need their voices in our ears to live lives of meaning and worth. This is another great value of our religious communities: to provide the setting that reminds us of our highest ideals, our deepest covenants with ourselves, each other, and what is most holy to each of us. May this community ever serve that purpose for us all.

I close with the summary of our UUFC Covenant of Right relations:

As a member of this Fellowship, I strive to create a welcoming, respectful, and vibrant religious community where each person can search for truth and meaning in an environment that builds connections, renews spirit, and inspires action. I further commit to thoughtful, active participation in the life of this religious community; caring and respectful relationships with one another and with visitors; cooperative support for the minister, staff, and volunteers; and individual and collective contributions to the wider community.

May we continue to pay attention to these ideals and the UU Purposes and Principles, to keep them in our minds and hearts as we continue to build this beloved religious community.

So Be It! Blessed Be!