“We covenant with God and with one another:”

John 15: 5-12

Sermon by Rev. Caela Simmons Wood

Sunday, April 14, 2024

Last Friday night, 15 youth in grades 6 through 9 gathered for an all-night lock-in here at the church. We baked brownies. We crafted. We played video games and card games. We made music. We prayed and read scripture. We watched movies. We burned off a LOT of energy at City Park.

We did not sleep much.

The youth in our congregation have been begging to have an all-night event like this. But staying up all night is not something I can do. Literally. At all. And so I knew this could only happen in partnership with other adults. In addition to the wonderful adults from our congregation who volunteered to make the event a success, my primary partner in joy was the Rev. Jacob Poindexter from Wichita UCC. It turns out Jacob CAN stay up all night. It also turns out that he’s great at many things like making music and helping the youth craft a vespers service. We made a great team with Jacob taking lead on programming while I handled behind-the-scenes stuff like registration, background checks for chaperones, and meals (have you ever seen a $350 curbside pick up?).

Jacob also led some excellent get-to-know-you activities. One featured a lot of toilet paper; I’ll let you ask the youth about that. I was a little worried that the group might have a hard time gelling in such a short period of time but by the end of our first hour together, that worry flew out of my mind. Youth from all three churches, who had never met each other before, were mixing and mingling like they’d known each other a long time. 

Towards the end of our large group time, Jacob invited the youth to create a covenant together. We were a little hyper and punchy, eager to get into the more active parts of the evening, so the adults carried some skepticism. Would a bunch of 11 to 14 year olds be able to have a conversation about COVENANT at this moment? Turns out, again, we didn’t need to worry. When asked to share how they wanted everyone to treat each other during the lock in, they had no problem coming up with a group covenant. Jacob wrote it all down on a whiteboard, the youth signed it, and away we went. 

I suppose it’s only natural that a group of UCC youth would be fluent in the language of covenant. Even if it’s not something we explicitly talk about every week, it’s something they’ve grown up with. If you’ve been UCC for a long time, you might not know this, but not all churches have covenants. I grew up outside the UCC and we didn’t recite a church covenant in worship, we recited creeds. The creeds were about what we believed together as a group and, in my tradition at least, were a litmus test for entry into the church. 

In the UCC we sometimes stay creeds, but we think of these as “testimonies, not tests.” They are expressions of what some of us find meaningful or true. But they are not a test for whether you can join the group. 

Our congregation has a rotation of affirmations of faith that we say together in worship: the UCC Statement of Faith, A New Creed from the United Church of Canada, our church’s mission statement, our open and affirming statement, and our church covenant. While some of these might not seem like true affirmations of faith to those from more creedal backgrounds, these statements about who we are as a community and how we covenant to be in relationship to God, each other, and the world are at the very heart of our faith as Congregationalists. 

New folks often have questions about what it means to be a part of our congregation. I am often asked “what do you believe about X, Y, and Z?” And I typically answer, “Well, I can tell you what my thoughts are but I can’t speak for every other person in our congregation. If you hang around a while and get to know people you’ll start to learn what’s important to them and you can ask them for yourself.”

For many, this is mind-blowing. In many parts of Christianity, the glue that holds a congregation or denomination together is their theology - what they believe. A lot of churches even have 7 or 10 or 12-point lists on their websites that tell you precisely what everyone is supposed to believe about the Bible, God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, sin, forgiveness, the afterlife, and more. 

But in the UCC, that’s not our glue. The thing that binds us together is covenant. We are together because we choose, over and over, to be together on this journey. 

UCC Biblical scholar Walter Brueggeman says “The word [covenant] means many things. But as a beginning it means this much: a way of being committed to each other as God is committed to us, a way of being defined by, accountable to and responsible for each other. God has made that deep and abiding commitment to us. And we affirm that our pilgrimage together is marked by such a costly, disciplined and abiding commitment.” [1] 

It’s a bit like that passage from John that Harper read a few minutes ago. Christ is the vine and we are the branches. God is the source of love and covenants with us. We, in turn, covenant to be in relationship with one another. We aren’t together because we all look alike or have a common hobby. We don’t all come from the same backgrounds. We don’t even have the same beliefs about God, the Bible, or precisely what it means to follow Jesus. What binds us together is not a set of common beliefs but a belief that we want to share life in common. We covenant to be on this journey together because we believe the way of Jesus isn’t a solo flight but a communal journey. 

This is why we show up week after week, even when we might rather stay in bed. It’s why we drag ourselves back to church on Sunday evening to prepare a meal at Second Helping. It’s why we share our resources of time and money so we can continue our shared ministry. It’s why we send cards, pray for one another, and drop off meals when one of us is struggling. It’s why grin from ear to ear and cheer during the prayers when something goes right. It’s why we take time to talk to toddlers and teens at coffee hour. It’s why we listen with open hearts and minds when a fellow-traveler shares a different perspective. It’s why we eagerly show up for book studies and small groups: because we know we are likely to learn from another’s faith journey. I could go on and on but I don’t need to. Because if you stick around a UCC congregation long enough, you’ll see it lived out.

Covenant: “A way of being committed to each other as God is committed to us, a way of being defined by, accountable to and responsible for each other.”

We don’t do it perfectly. That’s for sure. But we keep showing up. And we keep looking to Jesus who made his vision clear: “love one another as I have loved you.” 

May it be so. 

NOTES:

[1] Hoffman, Jane Fisler. Covenant:: A Study for the United Church of Christ (p. 52). United Church Press. Kindle Edition. 

Also consulted: 

https://www.newstimes.com/religion/article/Forum-on-Faith-UCC-is-based-on-covenants-not-1042917.php