Covenant Renewal Sunday

A sermon offered

At the Unitarian Universalist Church of Lafayette, Indiana

On October 2, 2005

by the Reverend Hilary Landau Krivchenia

Reading

Words of Margaret Wheatley 

Life takes form as individuals reach out to create systems of relationships. These systems arise from two seemingly conflicting forces: the absolute need for individual freedom, and the unequivocal need for relationships.  Rather than being a self-protective wall, boundaries become the place of meeting and exchange. We usually think of these edges as the means to define separateness, defining what's inside and what's outside. But in living systems, boundaries are something quite different. They are the place where new relationships take form, an important place of exchange and growth as an individual chooses to respond to another.

In modern society, we have difficulty embracing the inherent paradox of these needs. We reach to satisfy one at the expense of the other.  Particularly in the West, and in response to this too-demanding price of belonging, we move toward isolationism in order to defend our individual freedom. We choose a life lived alone in order for it to be our life. We give up the meaningful life that can only be discovered in relationship with others for a meaningless life that at least we think is ours. An African proverb says "Alone, I have seen many marvelous things, none of which are true." What we can see from our pursuit of loneliness is the terrible price exacted for such independence.

We human beings have a great need for each other. Like all forms of life, from microbes to ecosystems, we need to be together. We cannot exist in isolation. Nothing living lives alone. And we see this need for each other even in the West where we've revered independence and individualism. How many of us today are longing for community, wanting to belong? It's important to remember that every time we join an organization, community or group effort that we do so in order to accomplish more. People never join together to accomplish less. We reach out farther and welcome in more diverse voices because we learn that they are helpful contributors to what we are trying to birth. We want to create, to find more meaning, to contribute, to belong, and we know we can only achieve this by joining with others. So every act of joining, every organizing effort, has powerful and positive energies present at the inception. 

As we create communities from a center of shared significance, from a mutual belief in why we belong together, we will discover what is already visible everywhere around us in living systems.

Sermon

May the windows of our eyes be open

to bear witness to our world and to one another’s lives.

May the windows of our minds be open

to the breadth of thought, discovery and the awesome freedom of our creativity.

May the windows of our souls be open

to all the cosmos –

that we may know that our walls are illusions and our deepest connection is real

May the doors of our hearts be open

to love one another and to love this great and generous world.

This is Covenant Renewal Sunday – it is time to rededicate ourselves to this place, our world, this faith and one another.  We are here together, each in his or her house of the body, carefully trimmed, closed and shuttered – neatly arranged in rows like suburban neighborhoods.  But we don’t really come here to stay locked away while neatly arrayed together – at least – I don’t believe so. I believe that we’re here with some yearning to open our windows or even to go so far as to fling open our doors and to emerge into the light of one another.

            In that spirit we are together – you brave souls – for this Covenant Renewal Sunday.  The Stewardship Committee and much of the leadership of this church have chosen this theme of Covenant Renewal because it seems truest to what we’re really about at this time of year.  Each year, as we enter our Autumn season of pledging, what we’re really doing is renewing our covenant together.

Covenant – we have one on the wall.  Janice Thiel came to this place years ago, saw the covenant on the wall and yesterday she said: “I saw it and it felt like home.”

            Covenant is a word of power, freighted with meanings historical and religious.  Some of our first associations with the word “covenant” take us back to the emergence of Noah and his wife Na’amah from the ark. In Genesis 8 and 9

…it came to pass at the end of forty days that Noah opened the window of the ark … And sent forth the dove out of the ark. And the dove came in to him at eventide; and lo in her mouth an olive-leaf freshly plucked; so Noah knew that the waters were abated from off the earth. And G-d spoke unto Noah, saying: 'Go forth from the ark, thou, and thy wife, and thy sons, and thy sons' wives with thee. Bring forth with thee every living thing that is with thee… that they may swarm in the earth, and be fruitful, and multiply upon the earth.' And Noah went forth, and builded an altar unto HaShem; and offered burnt-offerings on the altar. And HaShem smelled the sweet savour; and spoke unto Noah saying: 'behold, I establish My covenant with you and with every living creature that is with you. This is the token of the covenant which I make for perpetual generations: I have set My bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between Me and the earth. And it shall come to pass, when I bring clouds over the earth, and the bow shall be in the cloud; and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant.

            And it was a sign of a bond, a promise between the God of that story and the people – more than a promise, the covenant was the sign of a profound connection, a connection of soul among the people and all living things.  A religion, which binds the people together, draws them into a covenant – a connection of soul.

            Our lives are richer when there are covenants in them.  As Margaret Wheatley said: “We human beings have a great need for each other. We cannot exist in isolation.”  She’s right and we tend toward connection – this place is, in part, evidence of that.  And our lives are more secure because a covenant is, at base, a promise, pledge, a heartfelt, committed connection.

The bow in the sky, a ring on a finger, the banner on our wall, are outward signs of an inward covenant, written on the heart.  It’s the daily work of two people that is the true marriage, the making and remaking of their covenant – a daily renewal of their soul-deep bond.

            In the book The Education of Little Tree, there’s a passage in which Little Tree is playing and absorbed in his play when he becomes aware of a rattlesnake.  He faces the rattlesnake, unmoving, scared, and certain that the snake is ready to strike, it’s tail rattling, faster and faster.  Out of seeming nowhere the young boy’s grandfather appears and tells Little Tree not to move and then the grandfather smoothly places his hand between the boy and the snake.  In a flash the snake strikes, sinking its venomous fangs into the grandfather’s hand.  They wrestle the snake off and the grandfather, cutting open the wound, does all he can to drain the venom – but he is – even to the eyes of a boy, dying quickly. Little Tree runs to get his Granma who, with swiftness, skill, and love drains the poison out and heals the grandfather back to the land of the living.  In retelling the story, Little Tree says: “I reckon, except for Granma, Granpa kinned me more than anyone else in the world back then.”

            I really liked that expression – turning the word “kin” from a noun to a verb.  To be kinned is to be bound in kindship by the act of another person.

            To have such kin is a blessing.  All humanity and even all life are kin of a sort.  We are, as Martin Luther King, Jr, said so eloquently “caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly.” “Before you’ve finished breakfast ... you’re dependent on more than half the world.” Simple and true – this is a world of interdependence -- when a storm hits one coast, its reverberations are experienced widely– sometimes around the world.

            Yet in this place, we gather in a special center of mutual dependence –a place that each person here claims and that has some claim upon us because you or I allow it to.

            Many dedicated members of the congregation met together yesterday, with Jerry King, the UUA fund-raising consultant, to explore ideas of congregational fiscal health.  One repeated theme was that people come here for one another – for the people they find here.  Once here people do begin to kin one another – bringing meals to people in a neighborhood group or beyond it, taking someone to a doctor’s appointment, helping with a quilt or three, sitting with someone in court, or in hospital, or showing up to watch a concert, or sitting together at a funeral.  We kin one another in these ways and many others.  You do this – as you become more involved and committed here.

            This could be done anywhere – people can make great connections at school, at the Y, in other local organizations – but THIS place is different.

            Another note I heard repeated yesterday was that people find a spiritual home here that allows them to share a common faith in religious freedom, a common faith that the truth is no the property of one person, book, or creed, a faith that each person has the capacity for goodness, wisdom, and strength and that there must be a place to honor, expand, and deepen that faith.  This is a home of spirit

            This place is treasured and cared for, hoped for, belonged to because of what it is now – made up of relationships built upon a bedrock of a common faith.

            This place is treasured and cared for, hoped for, belonged to because of what it is now and what is can become. Thus it is a place of both roots and wings.

            Our wings make possible the hanging of a banner for equality, a conference on issues of justice, help for survivors of the storm, funds for Pride Lafayette, help through LUM, support for the women’s shelter.  Our wings foment a local voice of freedom, diversity, and dissent and will make possible more and more as each person here chooses to give her or himself to it. Our wings make possible our Forum, Bible Study, discussions, movie group, book group… and so much more.

            I’ve seen the people here throw themselves wholeheartedly into making someone else’s idea possible – for this is a place where, over time, you make one another’s visions become clearer and become real.  This is done under the banner of this covenant – work that is done is the spirit of covenant day by day.

            I remembered this week the words of a song from Godspell – though I think they meant something different to me than the song writer likely intended.
Day by day
Three things I pray
To see thee more clearly
Love thee more dearly
Follow thee more nearly

Day by Day

For me these words spoke of my own covenant – which is with the web of life, the wellbeing of this world, and the spirit of the people. So for me – thee is – well – thee.  This place, these people, this congregation, and above all, this faith and this time.

Day by day is how this covenant is made.  How every covenant is made – waking in the morning and living the day in light of that covenant.  Day by day -- although we plan for it in five year bits.  I found a book a while back called Strategic Planning as Spiritual Discipline which highlighted the idea that the long range plan is the embodiment of the vision and covenant of a congregation.  It is putting spirit onto paper so that it can be translated into practice.

            Catching a dream, turning vision into practice, takes not only the long view and broad vision it takes the daily-ness of work and generosity and hearing what the congregation hopes for, what the congregation needs, and what each person is willing to offer to make that happen.

            Covenant Renewal is not simply renewing the thought that this place is a good and fine place – it is asking myself – what am I willing to give to this place, what’s my part of this creative covenant?  What do I give?  Well, any of you who’ve ever come to my office to speak with me about this or have heard me at UU and You classes will know that I say that you might think about giving until you can really feel it and it feels good.  I like to pledge so that I have truly chosen and given.   Consultants say, “Give what’s right, not what’s left.”  That’s what I do – though it takes work to get there.

I know this is the Bailiwick of the Stewardship committee – to get down to numbers -- but I was really intrigued with and wanted to emphasize one thing that we learned together yesterday.  To make this place tick with all the staff, programs, printing, outreach, music, social action, religious education, gas, electric, water, and the mortgage that we hold for future options there is a cost per day – of 511.72.  That’s to keep things rolling here as we would modestly like them to be rolling and to keep an eye toward the future. It’s an actual number: 511.72.  I’m repeating it because Jerry King suggested that each person here at the very least, consider raising their pledge – not making their pledge but raising it – as finances really allow – raising the pledge to cover one more full day of our program and operations.  So if your pledge is 2000 consider raising your pledge to 2511.72 …so on.  If you have questions about this please talk with any of the members of Stewardship.  You, likely have this information. Now I’m here to remind every one of us to soul search and to be an offering, to give a pledge that means something more. 

I’m also keenly aware that each person has different means and that means that each person here gives according to their means – and not to an absolute standard.  The real standard is in your heart and it stands for your commitment, your daily work, your part of the covenant.  The real standard, according to your means, stands for what this congregation is and brings you now and for the most that you hope that this congregation can become as you build it together in the future.

Now that is way more specific than I like to get.  I want you to wrestle with your own conscience about this.

Another thing Jerry King said yesterday that I really liked was this: that for him and his family, the church was at the center of his commitment – at the center of what he hopes for his family, his faith, and the world.  Therefore, he said, he gives first to the church as he budgets.   He said that he gives to the church “come hell or high water.” Well, beloved community, these are indeed, times of hell and high water and at no time is there a greater need to pledge – and to be involved so that we play a role in working a way out of hell: the human made challenges that face our world. And so we help each other survive the inevitable high water that also challenges us.  Come hell or high water. 

Here’s what I know for certain – each person is here because there’s something for which you hope – and those things are possible if you make them possible.  Amazing things are possible if you make them possible.  That this is a place of dreams that can be caught and even more of dreams and vision that can be set free – given wings.

Margaret Wheatley also said: “How many of us today are longing for community, wanting to belong? It's important to remember that every time we join an organization, community or group effort that we do so in order to accomplish more. People never join together to accomplish less. We want to create, to find more meaning, to contribute, to belong, and we know we can only achieve this by joining with others.”  I know that’s true in this place.  In the successes we’ve experienced and the disappointments we’ve shared I can still feel that strong pulse of hope and intention.  We are together to accomplish more – we keep this chalice lit in that intention – we pass the offering with that intention – we are the offering – that which we give to draw near, draw near to bring to pass those hopes which are dearest, which are shared, and so needed by this world and our time.

These are our wings.  The Unitarian Universalist Reverend Elizabeth Tarbox said: Hollow bones, streamlined feathers, wings shaped to push aside the viscosity of air are not what make birds fly.  Birds let go of their grasp on safe perches at the tops of trees because something calls to them.  They unfold their untried wings and soar out and up. 

            I cannot imagine the wild freedom of birds – when there is no cage-- what they might feel as they set forth – from the hold of an ark or the branch of a tree – but they do let go because they feel some call.  It is my hope that when you recite our covenant you can feel within it the possibilities as limitless as the sky and re-covenant with a heart of generosity that expands.  Let your covenant be the wind beneath your wings -- throw open the windows and the doors and catch your dreams by letting your commitment soar.