Conrad Wright. Early church covenants not creeds (emphasis JEA)

The Pilgrims were among many in Britain who struggled with an emerging paradox in their religious lives. Among their families and friends they found support and encouragement, but the church priests, bishops, and theologians ignored them, when they did not brutally punish them. As folks began to develop their religious ideas in light of the dramatically changing circumstances of early modern life, they needed a certain flexibility. The old words and even the old categories of thought were proving inadequate, and in the vacuum, people advanced many tentative notions. Some were good, some not so good, others terrible, but they had to see the light of day to be tested.

In this situation folks faced a choice: remain in the established church and deny one’s own ideas and questions, or gather in groups outside the church. Those who chose the latter path, called Dissenters, found a new sense of religious identity, inspiration, and basis for morality in these relatively small gatherings of friends and neighbors. They did not always agree details, but discussions of important issues were part of the attraction

What these Dissenters created was an alternative way of being religious, one that did not require blind obedience to church hierarchy nor the refusal to listen to ideas trying to advance religious truth and understanding. The paradox: they discovered that more freedom encouraged greater faith, stronger moral commitments, and made it easier to integrate their religion into their daily lives. So, they withdrew from the established church and its controls and set out to craft a loose structure of local congregations, independent but related, where people would gather to share their lives.

1. Amos

Second, there is a positive note here, the clue that we are to walk together in a covenant with God, not to be little more than slaves to the authorities, whether in Jerusalem’s temple or London’s cathedral. The great notion of a covenant between God and the people that is at the heart of Jewish identity inspired our religious ancestors, in an age of increasing social and political freedom, to the notion that it was in our common gatherings, our communion, that we find religion, not in priests or kings. We are not so much to obey as to search, to journey, to learn, to love.

Imagine the Pilgrims sailing around Cape Cod, landing in a strange land, committed to working together ? not just for survival but as a way of being, a way of life. They were not cowboys, riding off alone into the sunset, but a community, investing themselves in their common happiness. They did not build farms miles apart, although the land was certainly there. They built compact little villages and "commuted" to distant fields.

They worshipped in the same building where they held all important village events and meetings, the Meetinghouse. This reinforced their sense of common values and identity, even in the midst of heated political discussions. They did not shy away from controversy, but acknowledged that even through controversy they remained a community with important ties to one another.

As a teenager, I was very active in my Methodist Church youth group. For me, those other teens were "church" in a more meaningful way than everything I learned in Sunday School. In my daily life I seldom found a use for church doctrines like the Virgin birth, the laws of Leviticus, or even most of the Ten Commandments, which were too general to be useful. I knew the Beatitudes (we had to memorize them several times) and wanted to be a peacemaker, but I also knew that I would use violence to defend my country under certain conditions, and my family and friends even more quickly. I learned about my beliefs and formed them in conversations with my friends, tested them in our activities, criticized them, and developed my identity.

Imagine an Outward Bound group, moving from hostile wariness to tremendous empathy and mutual respect and love as they trek through the mountains, their physical journey echoed in their spiritual journey. You may have spent a weekend or a week in some equivalent situation, a camp or special vacation, a retreat from work or even church, where you meet with others you barely know, if you know them at all, and by the event’s end you are exchanging data and promising to stay in touch forever.
 

2. Covenant and Community

This intense community was what the Pilgrims expected, even demanded -- not of authoritarian control and absolute agreement, but of a shared identity so strong that one wanted, desired, committed to a life with others the equal of oneself. The goal was not agreement on details; in fact they often did not agree. The goal was to live together and, in overcoming their differences, create a better world for the future. After living in the hierarchical society of England they knew the way to build that better world was through a cooperative life shared by free individuals, not a life of subservience and humiliation.

The Pilgrims used the Jewish concept of "covenant" to describe this unique relationship between (1) them and their God and (2) among themselves. The idea develops from the initial outline in Exodus into a notion of social justice developed by the prophets. I cannot imagine the Jewish identity continuing to exist after the Roman destruction of Jerusalem and the first Holocaust without the centuries-old tradition of the prophets. They transformed a variant of the desert religion of a loose confederation of peoples into religious community with a moral basis to their identity.

Every group had a local religion, often with parts borrowed from neighboring groups, especially the more powerful ones. What distinguished the Jews was their consolidation of many gods into one god, who was a single voice for ethics. The gods no longer competed with one another, as in Egypt, Greece, Syria, and the other great cultural religions of the day. One god spoke with one voice, increasingly a voice for moral judgment, for social justice, for consideration of the poor, the orphan, and the stranger.

The concept of a covenant gave the people and their one god some of the flexibility inherent in the religion of many gods. Although the earliest visions of Jehovah (Yahweh, as the Jews would have said) were stern and demanding, the prophets gave us a god who also demanded respect and consideration for all people, standing firmly on the side of the poorest and weakest. Prophetic language, even at its most demanding, took on the form of a loving father’s admonitions to his young and often wayward children. The covenant did not demand absolute adherence, but trusted that, over time, the people would walk together in the ways of their God.

The notion of covenant stands alongside the legal relationship called a contract, already in common use. In a contract the parties set out the important details of their relationship. The words describe the relationship in full. In a covenant, on the other hand, the primary emphasis is on "Trust" not "Law." Rather than define details and specific expectations, a covenant sketches out a goal and a way of doing things, a process, and then commits the parties to realizing that goal together in the best way they can. Jesus, to great effect in several of his sermons, characterized the difference as that between focus on the letter of the law and focus on the spirit of the law.
 

3. The new way of being religious

Most Americans find it hard to imagine a religion that is not built on specific beliefs about God and nature and Jesus. Even non-Christians (Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus) are expected to have a belief about Jesus, so myopic is our Western religious vision. People find it equally hard to believe that there is not a "divine" source for these beliefs ? surely they did not come from another person but from God (directly or indirectly), else how could they be important enough to worship or to demand our commitment?

Yet we Unitarian Universalists find ourselves at the beginning of the new millenium in precisely this place. We do not begin with sacred book or sainted prophet. We begin with ourselves and with one another, here in the midst of our daily lives. This is not to say that, once together, we do not search through sacred books and read the great prophets. Nor is it to claim that these great books and persons have not defined the cultural milieu that surrounds us and inevitably influences our decisions. Perhaps it is better to say, not that we begin here, today, but that we continue here, today our quest.

It is, however, most assuredly to say, that we do not begin with specific beliefs about God, Jesus, Nature, Humanity ? nor, indeed, with any specific beliefs at all. Rather, we begin right here, right now: with all our personal baggage and not without fear and trepidation. We have decided that no previous authority or source is adequate to the new day. We shall work out our lives as we live them, not measured alongside some perfect model against which we are to be judged, but with friends who give us support, encouragement, guidance, an occasional criticism, and with whom we can free our imaginations, open our arms in loving embrace, and enjoy our lives.

So, our church is not based on a creed; there is no belief required of new members. Rather, we agree to walk together along lives’ journey, trusting one another, aiding one another, and enjoying one another. We have faith that this method of being religious is both more effective and more honest. We covenant to stay the course, to share good times and bad times. (This coming week I officiate at both a wedding and a memorial service for families in this church.) We know life can be difficult; we know that we cannot enjoy life if we ignore other people. No amount of wealth or material abundance can replace the intimacy of family, the warmth and affection of friends, the fulfillment of meaningful discussion, the enrichment of worship.

If you are new to Unitarian Universalism, you may wonder, why all the emphasis on congregational life? This is our covenant: to come to understand that life is lived with others, that our future is created and determined by how we treat one another, that by the love and trust and forgiveness we actually practice in daily living, not in all the fancy words and complicated creeds we say we believe, we find religious peace and security. All beliefs are finally known to us only by the actions of the believers, how we treat one another, what respect we show one another.

Religion is not only about beliefs, and not only about actions. Religion is the process of integrating our beliefs and actions into one life, one identity, one unique, individual person. We UUs believe this can only be fully accomplished by living a life of social justice, constantly widening our vision of community to include all people, testing our actions against common prejudices and fears, embracing the stranger, tempering our personal desires to a common future lived with other people, all nature and the universe.