THE C-WORD

Sermon delivered by the Rev. Dr. Maureen Killoran

Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Vero Beach, Florida

September 27, 2009

 

 

            When I was finishing my training as a ministerial intern in Vancouver, British Columbia, a man I’ll call  Jeff sat in the second pew from the front every single Sunday.  And every single Sunday, Jeff waited, sitting on the edge of his seat – waiting for the preacher to say the word, “God,” upon which Jeff stood up and, with great fanfare, stormed from the room.   Now, Vancouver’s is a fairly humanistic congregation, but, you know, it’s amazing how many times we clergy (with broad smiles) just couldn’t resist working that 3-letter word into our sermons.  

 

            We are a people of words – and sometimes we let ourselves get tangled up in their power.

 

            Unitarian Universalist believe, for example, in the efficacy of mission statements . . . policy manuals . . . bylaws.    We are democratic in process . . . congregational in polity.  We meet ad infinitum. . . we discuss ad nauseum . . .sometimes one feels like Eliza Doolittle, “Words, words, words, I’m so sick of words!”– for they can and do have  enormous power over our days.

 

            I couldn’t help wondering this week, how many of you might have read the announcement for this service, and asked yourself, “Which word is she going to talk about?”  “I sure don’t want to hear any more about . . .”   This sermon today is brought to you by the letter C, and I had quite a few choices . . . Committee . . . Communication . . . Christianity . . . Church . . .  Each of those could make a good sermon.   And each has from time to time raised hackles among UUs. 

 

            This is the point where, if this were Sesame Street, my chosen word would be flashing above my head . . . C-O-V-E-N-A-N-T.  Covenant.   A written document, found in many Unitarian Universalist congregations, saying how members agree they want to be in community.   Not everybody thinks they’re a good idea.  Covenants, some folks say, means rules – and that’s not why I became a UU.  Covenant means THEY will tell ME how to behave.  THEY will trample all over MY rights as an individual.  In fact, an attorney friend tells me that, in its legal sense, a “covenant” is indistinguishable from a contract.  He reminds me that the lease on my duplex, for example, contains “restrictive covenants” that forbid me from holding rowdy parties or raising chickens in the lanai.  We’re back to that business of rules again. 

 

            Depending on your faith background, “covenant” may smack of convoluted theologizing, rules of order, legislated ways of being.  

 

            If you studied the Bible or took catechism as a kid, you may have been taught that covenant is an agreement between God and his people in which God makes certain promises and requires specific behavior from them in return.

 

            Or you may have seen the advertising of the long-distance hauling firm called “Covenant Trucking,” whose vehicles bear the word “Covenant” writ large across the front of a cross – an in-your-face proclamation of their faith.               On the other hand, maybe covenant reminds you of the Biblical Ark of the Covenant, which Jewish tradition says preceded the people of Israel in their desert wanderings and wars.

 

            On the weird side, you may think of Indiana Jones chasing after the Ark of the  Covenant, or  Xena the Warrior Princess rescuing that it from an evil warlord.   Some of you recall novelist Stephen Donaldson’s fantasy character,  Thomas Covenant, Unbeliever . . . Then, of course, I can’t leave out the recent B-grade horror movie called – yes, “The  Covenant.” 

 

            And then, there’s us . . . the Unitarian Universalist tradition, and our UU principles – they’re written on the wall right outside this sanctuary.   And they begin “We, the member congregations of the Unitarian Universalist Association, covenant to affirm and promote . . .”  Our principles are a statement of covenant, a relationship connected with how we intend to behave.    As Rev. Thom Belote said in today’s reading, “We are a covenantal church.  We share a covenant of how we’ll try to be together, not what we are expected to believe together."

 

            At its root, you see, the word “covenant” isn’t about rules at all.  It’s not about contracts   The Latin root of “covenant” is CONVENIRE, to agree or to come together.   When you go to the root, covenant means making a CHOICE to be in relationship. 

 

            And so we have those UU principles.  “We covenant to affirm and promote . . .”  We agree to be in relationship.  A relationship of affirming and promoting  (to take our first principle) the inherent worth and dignity of every individual.  

 

            In the covenant of our UU principles I commit to behaving as if the inherent worth and dignity of every person is a fact.  And because of this core relationship, I can expect every other UU to do the same.   It’s a working hypothesis, and let me be frank – we do not always succeed. 

 

            This next story is not something of which I’m proud.   

 

            It happened oh, maybe  35 years ago . . . With a group of friends from our very small, very humanist Unitarian fellowship,  I attended Canadian Unitarian Council’s  annual meeting.   Because our services were mainly lay-led, we were excited to learn that main conference worship service would be led by the minister of one of Canada’s largest congregations. 

We were listening to the Centering Music when I  read the Order of Service -- and I was shocked to discover that the minister planned to serve communion. 

 

            Communion!  Me !  I’d abandoned the Roman Catholic church for various reasons I had not yet resolved – and I very self righteously proclaimed that, not only was there no way I would take communion, but I was offended that any form of communion was offered at all.  

 

            I don’t remember what I said,  but I know I was loud. 

            And I know that when I stormed out of the room, I took a dozen people with me.   

 

I have since apologized to the minister and done much psychological penance for my rudeness . . . But fact remains that in those moments of reactivity, I behaved as though that worship service was all about Me.  I ignored every other layer of what was going on that day:  the inherent worth and dignity of every other person in that room;  the principle of the free pulpit, whereby  Unitarian Universalist ministers are accorded the right to conduct any kind of worship that they choose;  the reality that, if I’d kept my mouth shut, I might have learned something about the diversity of our free faith. 

 

            I missed all that.  By insisting on the primacy of what sociologist Robert Bellah called “my ontological individualism,”  I placed myself outside the covenant of relationship.    You see, a covenant means that I commit to staying in relationship.    It means that I won’t threaten to leave, or withhold my energy or my money when somebody says or does something with which I disagree.  I won’t take my toys and go home when I don’t like the sermon, or the color of the paint, or a decision made by a committee. 

 

            And if I do these things, I have – by my own choice – placed myself outside the covenant, outside the relationship.  I cannot expect others to go along or to agree.

 

            This, my friends, is the essence of covenant.  Thom Belote again -   “We are a covenantal church.  We share a covenant of how we’ll try to be together, not what we are expected to believe together.”

 

            Can we do it?  

 

            North Carolina UU Dr. Linda Topp says no. “We are dissension addicts and radical individualists,” she argues, “and the chances of our setting aside our individual priorities for the wellbeing of the community are pretty slim.” 

            I wouldn’t go that far – but in every congregation I’ve served – including this Fellowship – I meet people who are tentative about commitment . . . suspicious of statements of covenant . . . wary of anything that could set boundaries on how they will behave.  

 

            Yet do we not say with pride the words of our 16^th century forebear, Francis David, who set east European Protestantism on its ear by proclaiming “We need not believe alike to love alike?”

 

            How about the words from today’s chalice lighting -- “Love is the doctrine of this church . . .”  We are a people of words – and yet we get so caught up in what we do not want that we gloss over, we take for granted, the transforming power of the words we have right here . . . the words that shape and define our free faith. 

 

            Okay --  I know -- you can’t love everybody.    After a year of living in the spiritually and ethically intense Quaker community of Pendle Hill, educational theorist Parker Palmer noted,  “Community is that place where the person you least want to live with always lives. . .   (Then after a second year, Palmer added a corollary:)  When that person moves away, someone else arises immediately to take his or her place."  With rather less elegance, theologian Robert McAfee Brown put it this way:   “The church is something like Noah’s Ark – if it were not for the storm outside, we would not be able to stand the smell inside.”  

 

            I admit it -- we are humans being and becoming – you can’t love everybody.   I’m not even sure it’s realistic to try to LIKE everybody  . . . but we can create a community norm – a covenant -- of mutual respect.    As my New Hampshire colleague the Rev. Steve Edington put it:  "Love is the doctrine of this church . . . means that together we form a whole that is greater than the sum of our individual parts.  It [means] that we seek ways to be together with and for one another; and that we will work and strive  together to advance the  principles and values    that define our liberal religious faith.

 

And I add – to say “love is the doctrine of this church” is a covenantal phrase.  It calls each and every one of us to set the goal of BEHAVING AS IF each person has inherent worth and value, and behaving this way every day. 
           

            Am I talking about rules?

            Am I talking about regulations that THEY impose on ME?

 

            No, we have choices.  It’s the same as the choices I have about how I treat my husband, Peter . . . how I speak to the people I work with, especially when we disagree.   I can choose to respect their inherent worth and dignity.  I can honor the relationship between us.

 

            Or  I can act out  . . . I can let my anger bubble over . . .  violate their confidence . . . disrespect their choices . . . The world is littered with the wreckage of relationships that have been treated in exactly that way. 

 

            But here we are, here you are, a UU congregation in transition, in a time of decision-making, a time of deciding how and with whom you want to be.  As individuals and as a congregation, you will soon need to make some very serious decisions.     Next month you’ll be  asked to vote on a major revision to this congregation’s bylaws – the document that codifies both this organization’s operating structure and the amount of trust you are willing to place in one another, in those volunteers you elect to lead and the minister you call to provide spiritual and intellectual direction as you go forward.    And that, of course, is the biggie, because next spring you will vote to call the minister who will walk with you in shared ministry for the next chapter of your lives.

            You can do it!  This Fellowship has been here for nearly 40 years . . . grown from conversations at Shirley St. John’s kitchen table,  moved through various locations, various transitions, engaged in many struggles.  As a congregation and as individuals you have withstood both physical and metaphorical winds of change always, ultimately, you have come through.  To paraphrase the late U.S. Poet Laureate, Stanley Kunitz:

 

You have walked through many lives,

some of them your own,

and you are not who you were,

though some principle of being

abides, from which you struggle

not to stray. . . . 

            And so it is that this Fellowship received this well-deserved praise given by Florida District Executive the Rev. Kenn Hurto in his current letter to prospective ministerial candidates:  "The Unitarian Universalist Fellowship at Vero Beach is the most accomplished and accomplishing congregation in the Florida District.  It is amazing what they have done. The courageous move a few years ago into absolutely marvelous quarters has opened  up the possibility for a significant present on  Florida’s east coast. The future of the congregation’s ministry is bright."

 

            Believe it:  You are on a roll!  In the survey conducted by your Ministerial Search Committee, the most frequent hope expressed for this Fellowship was that over the next few years, you will reach out into the wider community and that from this you will welcome increasing numbers of people who will choose to make this Fellowship their spiritual home.   

 

Step Number  One toward this vision, my friends:     Embrace the C-Word

 

            BE what your UU principles proclaim – a covenanted community committed to essential respect for each person’s inherent worth and dignity.