Sermon

Nothing happens quickly in a church that is democratically organized. On the positive side, we get outcomes that are well thought through and as inclusive as possible. On the negative side, we might forget what we planned a year ago! However, it is all worthwhile, for nowhere else in society will the ideas of all members of a community be sought after, highly valued, and even enshrined, if only for a few years.

It is exactly one year ago today, March 5, 2005 that members of this congregation met in a workshop to begin the process of creating a vision, mission, and covenant to guide our congregation in the coming years. We followed that process with focus groups for the benefit of those who couldn’t attend the workshop. Then, wordsmiths Paige Roth, Tracy Carreiro, and Cam Marean refined the brainstormed fragments into the framed statements that you see today. This week, we will hang these statements in the hallway.

The Bible says, “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” [Proverbs 29:18 ] This does not mean that the people die. It means that they do not flourish or reach their potential and progress without a vision. Have we created a challenging enough vision? Let us read it together and decide:

The people of the Unitarian Universalist Society of Fairhaven envision an energetic, compassionate community committed to living with deep respect and caring for each other and the world. Therefore,

· We strive for deeper fellowship and spirituality within the church and we see our membership growing

· We endeavor to have abundant financial resources, so that we can achieve our mission and program goals

· We challenge each other to the lifelong pursuit of spiritual, intellectual, and personal growth

· We call young adult UU’s to make this church community their spiritual home where all can thrive in the freedom of our religious principles

· We seek the spirit in the natural rhythms of the earth and promote the conservation of its precious resources and beauty

· We respectfully preserve the architectural gifts of our benefactor, Henry Huttleston Rogers, for these gifts are a physical reminder of the generosity we desire to emulate

· We aspire to improve communication to expand and spread the message of Unitarian Universalism within and beyond our community, as evangelists for justice, peace and compassion in the world.

It’s lofty, isn’t it? Let’s look at our Mission Statement, or how we will endeavor to bring our vision into reality:

The people of the Unitarian Universalist Society of Fairhaven form a vibrant, compassionate and safe spiritual community that:

· Welcomes and affirms diversity among people, beliefs, and backgrounds

· Encourages free religious expression and lifelong learning

· Nurtures and supports individuals and families

· Lives out our values and principles

· Promotes peace and social justice in the world

· Celebrates our lives together through worship and music, with reverence and connectedness to the universe

The idea of having statements of vision and mission are fairly new traditions. Ancient people did of course have a vision, otherwise how could the great cathedrals of Europe have been built? But such endeavors were reserved for the rich and powerful. People of modest means had to content themselves with the implicit or explicit covenant that governed their conduct together.

We, Unitarian Universalists are a covenanted people, as were our Puritan ancestors before us. It was the Reformation that allowed us the power to claim our inheritance of covenant with God from the Jewish tradition and also to have a direct line to God of our own without going through priests and bishops (or ministers).

Abraham’s individual covenant and Moses’ collective covenant with God inspired confident Protestants to claim their own power. These covenants, or sacred promises, were explicit first in the Ten Commandments. But it would take libraries to hold all the implicit rules needed to live together in a civilized and caring world.

Many rules of decent behavior are implicit. But as we like to sometimes say, “Rules are made to be broken.” As we saw in the reading of King David and Bath-Sheba, King David, the greatest king of ancient Israel, broke some of the explicit rules spectacularly! He first broke the explicit covenant of marital faithfulness (or rather, thou shalt not covet they neighbors goods) and the implicit rule of setting an example of behavior for his subjects. Not only did David take another man’s wife, but he tried to cover up the pregnancy by having Bath-Sheba’s husband, Uriah, come home to hopefully sleep with Bath-Sheba so that he would think that the child was his. But Uriah did not even go home to see his wife for he would be the faithful soldier who would not sleep with her while his men were away at war. Uriah was the faithful servant of the King.

The story continues with the prophet, Nathan, going to David and accusing him of the crimes. Nathan tells David that his son born of Bath-Sheba would die. When the child did die, David lay in grief for days and was deeply sorry for what he had done. God forgave him and blessed him with another son, Solomon.

There are many lessons in this story. For us today, the lesson is two-fold: first, covenants are broken—it happens because human beings are not perfect. The second lesson is that we can forgive or let go what was done. God forgave David and Bath-Sheba. We should forgive as well or at least not let the betrayal dominate our lives. (I tried to find a joke around all this but all I could find was one by a boy: Why is Bath-Sheba called Bath-Sheba? Because David first saw her when she was taking a bath!)

People will let us down. It has happened to me and I’m sure that in your life, it has happened to you, too. We cannot carry the hurt of broken covenant with us for it will make us ill and prevent spiritual growth. Psychologically, we have to let it go. In our modern life, a husband and wife, or married same sex couple, usually choose the vow (or covenant) of faithfulness. It is devastating when one partner goes astray. But many couples who do not marry have an implicit covenant operating between them and it is just as devastating when one goes astray. Can we recover from unfaithfulness? I think we can but it would certainly be hard. The lesson from the Bible advises us to forgive or let go so that we can be restored to righteousness. Covenants are broken. They are ideals to work towards, fall back, and reach towards again and again.

These Bible stories are the explicit lessons that life deals us. And oftentimes the solution is there as well. The Talmud, which comprises Jewish commentaries on the Bible, interprets the stories in this way and rabbi scholars extend the stories through the process called “midrash” to make the lessons clear.

The concept of covenant is far more important than we can imagine. We live our lives by implicit covenant. Covenant requires trust. We trust that the sun will rise each day and that we will awaken each day. Covenant is the stuff of faith. We trust that people will treat us well. For good mental health, it is essential that we can trust our parents, our significant others, our friends, our employers, and our fellow Unitarian Universalists.

The rich must covenant with the poor to share their wealth. The healthy must covenant with the ailing to care for them. Corporations must covenant to treat their employees with respect and to pay them fair wages. We must hold one another and government mutually responsible for as Martin Luther King, Jr. says, “We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality.” Our nation’s Constitution (especially the Bill of Rights) calls us to mutuality. Our UU Seventh Principle, the interdependent web, calls us to mutuality. But when we fall short, we must be given and give ourselves a chance to restore ourselves to righteousness, or “right relations” is the term used nowadays.

Do you remember when the Olympics was in Sydney, Australia some years ago. The theme in the opening ceremonies was to “Do Sorry” before the world for the mistreatment of the Aboriginal people. At least Australians tried to make amends for what they have done. I suppose our Civil Rights movement and Affirmative Action programs were “official” attempts to be sorry for what was done to African Americans. I wonder whether some ritual to “Do Sorry” as a nation would be healing for black Americans.

The Puritan Richard Mather wrote in 1644: “[Covenant] may be implied by … constant and frequent acts of communion performed by a company of Saints joined together by cohabitation in towns and villages…the falling in of their spirits into communion in things spiritual…” How lovely, “the falling in of their spirits into communion.” (Parker, Rebecca, p.9)

So what does our covenant say that we have created to guide us in the way we say we will walk with one another? Let us read it together:

“The people of the Unitarian Universalist Society of Fairhaven covenant together to be guided by love in all our words and actions. Therefore, within the congregation we endeavor to: ~speak the truth with love, ~listen deeply without interruption, ~trust in good faith and intention, and speak well of one another, ~take responsibility to create a community of encouragement, compassion and hospitality, ~respect differences in belief, age, race, gender, sexual orientation, and personality, ~support the congregation, its activities, and the care-taking of the church with our time, talent and treasure, ~make decisions democratically, ~include spiritual practices in all church meetings.”

Notice that these Statements are printed on nice paper. I hope that you will keep this in a place that you can refer to it from time to time—frame it if you like, put it on the refrigerator door, or put it in a favorite book—perhaps your family Bible. As time goes by, I think you will be glad that you have kept it. I plan on framing mine. Meanwhile, you will be able to see the wonderfully framed versions in our hallway every time you come here.

It is a wonderful set of covenants to live by! Will we succeed always? No. But we will keep on trying; this is what our living tradition is all about—co-creating our lives together to the best of our ability, and to do it with faith, hope, love, and especially joy!

References

The following has inspired and informed this sermon:

Parker, Rebecca, Rev. Dr. Prof., Starr King School for the Ministry. Sermon: “What They Dreamed Be Ours to Do: Lessons from the History of Covenant, delivered at the General Assembly of the Unitarian, Universalist Association, June 29, 1998.