BLESSING OF COVENANT

"Even if you have broken your vows a thousand times." A thousand times! Rumi speaks of an ideal welcoming community in this poem. Even if you have broken your vow a thousand times, he says, you are welcome here.

In churches in our movement we can find our vows in our covenant, if we have one, and in our mission and vision statements. We have inherited the covenantal form of congregational life from our Puritan ancestors. In her essay "What They Dreamed Be Ours to Do" theologian Rebecca Parker traces the source of our covenant to Anglican Robert Browne. Mr. Browne formulated the concept in 1582. He envisioned a church where members entered into covenant freely with one another and called their ministers. We are fulfilling the dream of Robert Browne.

Alban Institute consultant Gil Rendle calls covenant "holy manners." A church covenant guides us to treat each other in better ways than required by the larger community in which we live. Churches are meant to be counter-cultural. If aggressiveness, gossip and other types of meanness are acceptable behavior in the larger culture, then it is counter-cultural to decide that we will forgo those behaviors and instead treat each other with holy manners.

In his book with Rebecca Parker, A House for Hope, John Buehrens writes that, along with being about holy manners, a covenant is about "a community's commitment to a vision." He writes that the Puritans' view of covenant was too narcissistic. The Puritans did not consider the people who were here before them and believed that they alone could turn the wilderness into paradise. They did not think critically about this assumption. Buehrens writes that the role of religion is to hold up critical standards. In this same book, Rebecca Parker writes about the importance of a covenantal community to be accountable to something or someone beyond the community. She suggests accountability sources such as interpretations of scripture, those most at risk of harm, and revelations of science and reason.

Even if we have broken our vows a thousand times, we are welcome in Rumi's community. What about in this church? What does Mission Peak's covenant say about vow-breaking? What does it say about accountability?

Maybe you are thinking to yourselves, "we don't have a covenant." And you may be right that you do not have a document called "covenant." According to Rebecca Parker, a written covenant is just "icing on the cake" of the real covenant. As members of the Unitarian Universalist movement, we have an inherited covenant. That covenant that we have inherited is visible in our actions. The act of going to worship services, the acts of taking care of people who need our care, the acts of serving our congregation with our gifts - those are all covenantal acts. These are acts that we have inherited from our Puritan ancestors, our Christian ancestors, and our Jewish ancestors. And in my opinion you have both the cake and the icing. It may be true that you don't have a document called "Congregational Covenant" and I think we could also consider your Mission Statement to be a covenant. I will read it now.

"The foundation of Mission Peak is love. We are a spiritual community of open minds, nurturing growth and healing in ourselves and all people. Together we strive to live compassionately and courageously as we work for a nonviolent, just and sustainable world."

You then provide details about how you live out your mission statement.

We embrace and give life to this mission statement by:
  . Offering each other love, trust, respect, and support in time of joy and need.
  . Creating worship services and encourage spiritual exploration and personal growth.
  . Providing educational experiences for all ages that encouraging a free and responsible search for truth and meaning, and an acceptance of religious and social diversity.
  . And serving the community in accordance with our social conscience and our Unitarian Universalist principles.
We welcome to membership every person who shares these values.

This last statement, "We welcome to membership every person who shares these values," in my mind at least, elevates the Mission statement to the level of covenant. Mission Peak's covenant does not explain what happens when the covenant is broken and it does not explain how Mission Peak members are accountable to community beyond Mission Peak. To be fair, one would not expect those explanations in a Mission Statement. But, just pretend with me that your Mission Statement has a second title, called "Congregational Covenant." The fact that your covenant does not explain how members come back into covenant or to whom the members are accountable places it in good company with most covenants in our movement.

Recently, a few people in my home church brought to my attention that I had breached the covenant with them. I apologized for my breaches and wondered if there was more that I should do in order to come back into right relationship with them. One person told me that he thought an apology was enough. I am not convinced. In the most recent issue of our movement's quarterly magazine, UU World, Reverend Victoria Safford wrote that to come back into covenant, an apology and a request for forgiveness was necessary. Reverend Safford did not mention whether the act of forgiveness was necessary - only that it be requested.

In Jewish tradition, if a person wrongs another, the person in the wrong must apologize, ask forgiveness, and receive forgiveness before the two people are in right relationship again. If the person asks for forgiveness three times, and the other does not forgive, then the tables are turned, and the person who refuses to forgive is considered to be in the wrong.

Breaches of covenant between two people are one thing, but what about when the majority of the church is in breach of covenant? Or what if a few people have breached covenant with the entire church? How do members of Mission Peak get back into covenant if you find that you have not been nurturing growth and healing in yourselves? How do members get back into covenant if you find you have not been encouraging spiritual growth? Does the community hold its members accountable? How does the community hold its members accountable?

For the Puritans, the answer was easy. If a church member was found to have broken covenant, they were kicked out of the church. That's how members were held accountable. In current times, we are loathe to kick anybody out of the church. Many churches wait until there is a problem before adopting a disruptive persons policy.

But in most cases, it is not disruptive people who are breaching covenant - it is all of us. We are continuously coming into and out of covenant with each other. My guess is that most breaches are unintentional or happen despite the good intentions of the person who breaks covenant.

Five years ago my home church, the First Unitarian Church of Oakland, was embroiled in a major conflict that involved numerous breaches of covenant. A few of these breaches were relatively light, like ignoring professional and lay leaders on Sundays. Other breaches were more serious, like spreading conspiracy theories. My home church did not provide a way in which to hold accountable members who breached covenant in these ways. It did not provide a way for members who broke covenant to come back into covenant. Several members who breached covenant five years ago left the church voluntarily. The Oakland church did not go so far as to kick people out of the church for breaking covenant.

One of the natural consequences of being part of a community is conflict. How we deal with conflict and how we come back into covenant are part of our holy manners. How do you hold each other accountable? How would you repair breaches of covenant that involve the whole community? These are questions for which a clear way in which to come back into covenant would be helpful. Dr. Parker writes, "The path to deeper spirituality begins in the experience of promises failed, covenant broken, hope suppressed. It begins with disillusionment, impasse, and grief. And it passes through the fire to a new revelation. This is the path we need to follow to find a new heart."

Come, come, whoever you are. Wanderer, worshiper, lover of leaving. It doesn't matter. Ours is not a caravan of despair. Come, even if you have broken your vows a thousand times. Come, yet again, come, come. In service of our holy manners, may we learn from the mistakes of our Puritan ancestors. May we hold up a critical mirror to ourselves. May we find ways to hold ourselves accountable and to transform ourselves and our communities. Amen.