OUR UNITED CHURCH OF CHRIST: FREEDOM AND COVENANT (First in a series Who Are We in the UCC and What Do We Believe? ) Sermon by the Rev. Richard G. Leavitt. On: March 1, 2015. At: The Congregational Church of Amherst, NH (UCC). Texts: Gen. 17:1-9; Mark 14:22-25. I ll bet some of you who have attended this church for years still think we re a Congregational Church. I ll bet some of you who joined this church 15-20 years ago have no idea what the Evangelical and Reformed Churches have to do with our congregation. I imagine some of you, if asked by your neighbor what your church stands for and what we believe as members of the United Church of Christ, would have no idea what to say or where to begin. I ll bet some of you even think it doesn t really matter what the UCC is all about; you just care about your own local church right here in Amherst. And that s why I believe this three part sermon series I m beginning today is just what we need right now in our life together. You see not only is it important to know our identity and appreciate our past, but they help shape our future as well. When we know who we are and what cherished principles and beliefs we hold in common, it informs how we worship, what we value, how we treat one another, and how we engage the wider world. Whenever I facilitate a new member session, I give an overview of these hallmarks of our faith and practice in the UCC, and usually people appreciate that. When we re living faithfully as a community, what I tell them is congruent with what they ve already experienced or observed. It gives them a context for who we are and why we do things the way we do. First, let me give a brief overview of how we came to be the United Church of Christ. You can read about it in more detail if you re interested, but if I give our history too much time around 90% of you will be fast asleep by the second hymn. Our denomination is young it was founded in 1957, as the merger of four different denominations the Congregational and Christian Churches and the Evangelical and Reformed Churches (sometimes abbreviated as E & R). The Congregational Church will be the most familiar to many of you because that s our particular branch. It was gathered from the Puritans and Pilgrims who first settled in the northeast and came together as a wider community for support and shared witness in the early 17 th century. The Salem Covenant on the front of your bulletin is one of the first covenants to be drawn up by those early settlers in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. (No, Andrea didn t make typing errors on the bulletin cover, that s the way they wrote and spoke back then.) For those of you who know your colonial history and many of you know it far better than I you will remember that in order for a town to be incorporated it first had to have an officially gathered church. That s why our church was founded in 1741 and our town not until 1760. That s why there is often a prominent Congregational or UCC church near the center of many historic New England towns. In some communities that church may now be a Unitarian Church or a Town Hall or Library, but that s a different story for another day. The Congregational Churches affirmed Jesus as the sole head of the church; there was no Pope and there were no Cardinals or Bishops. In keeping with the religious freedom so cherished by the Pilgrims, there was a strong belief in congregational autonomy and the right of the individual believer to develop and interpret his or her own theology and personal relationship with God. Adherence to rigid doctrine was not demanded by the congregation although there were some expectations of the 1
faithful just the same. Overseas and wider church missions were always central to Congregationalists. So, too, was education. The resident minister was often one of the few formally educated people in the whole community. And many of the institutions of higher learning in this country were founded by Congregationalists including Harvard, Yale and Dartmouth. The Christian Church, the other denomination emerging from English settlers, had complementary beliefs. They were based initially in the North Carolina area, and they began as a denomination in reaction to the organizational rigidity of the Methodist, Presbyterian, and Baptist churches of the day. Members of the Christian Church favored a loosely knit institutional structure with no hierarchy, and they believed that strong Christian character and witness were the only requirements to be a faithful disciple of Jesus. The architecture of their church buildings was very plain, similar to the traditional meeting house architecture of New England s first religious structures. The Christian Church did not favor the playing of any musical instruments in worship not even an organ. (Sorry, Michael, I m afraid you would have been out of a job in that tradition!) The members believed congregational singing alone was sufficient to praise God. In the first half of the 20 th century, these two English denominations merged to form the Congregational Christian Churches. Now the Evangelical Synod in North America of our UCC ancestors is not to be confused with the evangelical churches in today s religious landscape. They do not have a history of fundamentalism or strict moral righteousness. They basically followed Lutheran and Reformed church practices, which emphasized personal piety, good works, and compassion for the sick, the lonely, the mentally and physically handicapped, and others rejected or neglected by society. The greatest concentration of these churches was in the greater St. Louis area. Many of our UCC homes for the disabled or the elderly in the mid-west were founded by the Evangelical Synod, dating back to the late 19 th century. The fourth strand of our United Church of Christ came also through German immigrants. The German Reformed Church of the U.S. followed Calvinist beliefs and traditions. These churches stressed liberty of conscience and authority of the scriptures, along with their shared liberal German Protestant heritage. Their catechisms and religious education resources were strong and well respected. (Interesting fact: While the Congregationalists, Baptists and Methodists were fully ensconced in the Christian Temperance Movement of the early 20 th century, our German forebears felt no such need to abstain from alcohol in moderation. Some of our sister churches from that original denomination still hold Oktoberfest each fall, with lots of good German beer, great conviviality and much celebration!) The heaviest concentration of those early German Reformed Churches was in the Philadelphia area not surprising given the predominance of the Pennsylvania Dutch actually the Pennsylvania Deutsch. Now while those four original denominations helped shape the roots of our United Church of Christ beginning in 1957, many more diverse congregations have been attracted ever since, because of our openness, welcome, theological freedom and ongoing sense of God s reforming spirit. We now have Korean congregations, Hispanic and other Asian churches, Pacific Islander and Lakota Indian churches, and Haitian churches, to name a few. Although you might not know this from living and attending church in New Hampshire, our UCC is one of the most ethnically diverse and racially integrated denominations in the mainline Protestant tradition. Many of you here in these pews today feel comfortable with our flavor of church, even though 2
you have come from other denominations before arriving here. It s because of that same welcoming and inclusive spirt which is no accident; it s an intentional part of what we believe and how we live out our faith. God welcomes all and so do we. So now a couple of the hallmarks that make up our faith tradition. One of the most cherished and core principles of our denomination is personal religious freedom. We resist like crazy any hierarchical authority telling us what we need to believe, who will serve as our pastor, how we will worship, what officers and committees we need to organize our congregational life, and how much money we need to give to support our church. There s a reason for that. When the Pilgrims left England and came to this country, it was largely in response to a heavy-handed Anglican Church that was imposing all kinds of restrictions on how these simple folk could worship and practice their faith. Holland was only a little bit better. They preferred to come to a new land and settle in the undeveloped wilderness than to be oppressed by religious authorities anywhere. They would brave harsh New England weather and the threat of Indian attacks before they would succumb to religious oppression. In our UCC everyone has the right to develop his or her own faith and religious practice. We understand theological concepts in our own way. And we re expected to live according to our own moral understanding of the Gospel. Now that all sounds pretty good, doesn t it? Freedom is encouraged for the individual believer and for each local congregation. Freedom is something we cherish not only in this church tradition but also in our nation. In fact, the principles of our democracy and the premium we place on the rights of the individual which are part of the U. S. Constitution are a gift from our Congregational forebears. Now freedom in faith and among churches is all well and good. It enables and ennobles many wonderful ideas and much creative enterprise. But freedom with nothing to hold people together is chaos and can easily lead to anarchy. What keeps the members of our churches from trampling each other spiritually or bludgeoning one another theologically when we disagree? It is something called covenant. That s not a word we use very often in any other context than the church, but it s a huge part of our life together. In the secular world we have contracts and laws. But in the community of faith we have covenant. Covenant very simply means promise. It s a morally binding self-limitation on our freedom which we agree to because we value the community and honor the beliefs of others as we do our own. So instead of personal freedom and self-entitlement as the final word, it is freedom in covenant, with compassion and respect for the other in order to honor the whole community. We promise to walk together in faith, to listen to each other, and to love one another as Jesus taught us. And when we disagree, we promise to respect our differences even as we seek a path of unity and reconciliation in our life together whenever and wherever possible. In the Old Testament you remember, God makes a covenant with Abraham and Sarah to be their God for all generations. They will have descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky. That was a pretty audacious promise God made to a childless couple with the wife way past child-bearing age. In return, Abraham and Sarah and their descendants had to promise to be God s people. No other deities were permitted, and they needed to live morally, promoting righteousness and justice in obedience to God. In the New Testament, Jesus re-interpreted the old ways into a new covenant for God s people. It s a covenant not written on stone tablets or on scrolls but kept in our hearts. And the promise is sealed every time we share communion together, eating the bread which is symbolic 3
of his broken body, and drinking the cup which is symbolic of his blood poured out for us and for the whole world. When we share communion, we acknowledge Jesus as the Savior of the world, and we reaffirm our commitment to live as God s people. Covenant is a promise made before God. It s how we organize our life together at every level of the church. We the members of this congregation covenant together to support the church with our time, talent and treasure when we join as members. We promise to worship regularly, and to honor others with whom we may disagree. A spiritual motto about covenant comes from one of our German theologian ancestors: In essentials unity, in non-essentials liberty, in all things charity. There is a covenant between pastors and people as well. Maureen and I promise to treat all the members of the congregation with equal dignity and respect, to preach from the conviction of our heart, but responsibly, and not to abuse our power or position. You, the lay members of this congregation, in turn promise to listen to the Word we preach and teach from faith and conscience even when you disagree with us, to assist us in leadership and service, and to support us with equitable compensation that will enable us to minister effectively and free of burden or hardship. Pastors are not employees of the congregation; we are partners with you in our shared ministry. Covenant doesn t work well when pastors become dictatorial and authoritarian, and covenant doesn t work well when church leaders resist collaboration or undermine the authority of their pastors. Covenant is also the guiding operational understanding between churches and our wider denomination. While we don t have bishops or cardinals with authority over us, we are wise enough to realize that we re more effective and stronger in our witness when we share what we have and learn from one another. We can reach much farther than our front door and our immediate neighborhood, because we re part of the Hillsborough Association, the New Hampshire Conference, and the national setting of the UCC in Cleveland. Our overseas mission work, our advocacy for social justice, our standards and ethics for ministry; our Christian Education resources, our training for leaders and pastors; are all made stronger by sharing in those various settings of the church. Unlike the Methodists or the Roman Catholics, however, there is no binding authority over us as a congregation, because of local church autonomy. One of the most misunderstood aspects of covenant is the tension between freedom and authority. Folks coming from other denominations often want to know what the church believes about this or that. Is this a tradition where anything goes? How do you understand the Bible in your church? What do you believe about the resurrection or the virgin birth? What is sin? What is heaven? What is hell? (I tell them hell is when the choir repeatedly sings a half step below the pitch they re supposed to but fortunately that rarely happens here!) The point is, your heaven is very likely different from my heaven or from the person sitting next to you in the pew and that s fine. What one person believes about the resurrection of Jesus is going to be different than what someone else believes and that s fine. The point is that we study and share and learn together, we listen to one another, we respect our differences and avoid shoving our own theology down another person s throat. I said earlier that our covenant means you re supposed to listen to me as your pastor, but it doesn t promise that you ll agree with me on every issue or belief. Wouldn t that be boring! There s a joke among leaders in the UCC that when we re called to serve a church we must learn to use only soft verbs to call people to accountability and faith. We urge, encourage, request, and implore we don t demand, insist, or require. That makes me smile, but it s based 4
on something very important. We don t have church laws, we don t regularly excommunicate people who disagree with us, and we don t have a rigid set of beliefs, church doctrines, or a formal creed. The only thing we have is an appeal to the covenant we have made with one another in the sight of God when we joined this congregation. Whenever a solemn agreement or covenant between people is one that is also made with God, the depths of relationships are qualitatively different than those agreed to in a legal contract. While it s somewhat oversimplifying to state it this way, there are some important differences between covenants and contracts. Contracts are based on law and built on fear; covenants are based on grace and built on love. Covenants invite the parties to nourish and grow in their relationship together; contracts tend to limit and hold the parties to a minimum standard. It s qualitatively different to be God s people as sisters and brothers in Christ than to be members of a club, or bound together through legal obligation. Freedom and covenant. Either alone would be very shallow and unsatisfying. In tension, they form the foundation of our life together as disciples of Jesus and members of his church. And for that, we can thank God. Amen. 5
Genesis 17:1-9 - The Sign of the Covenant INTRO: In the Old Testament, Yahweh made a covenant with Abraham and his wife Sarah and promised to be their God and give them blessings for many generations. They in turn would be faithful only to Yahweh. They promised to live obediently, to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with God all their days. Listen for the Word of God 17When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the LORD appeared to Abram, and said to him, I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless. 2 And I will make my covenant between me and you, and will make you exceedingly numerous. 3 Then Abram fell on his face; and God said to him, 4 As for me, this is my covenant with you: You shall be the ancestor of a multitude of nations. 5 No longer shall your name be Abram, but your name shall be Abraham; for I have made you the ancestor of a multitude of nations. 6 I will make you exceedingly fruitful; and I will make nations of you, and kings shall come from you. 7 I will establish my covenant between me and you, and your offspring after you throughout their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you. 8 And I will give to you, and to your offspring after you, the land where you are now an alien, all the land of Canaan, for a perpetual holding; and I will be their God. 9 God said to Abraham, As for you, you shall keep my covenant, you and your offspring after you throughout their generations. Mark 14:22-25 -- The Institution of the Lord s Supper INTRO: In the New Testament, Jesus renegotiated the original covenant between God and God s chosen people, expanding the invitation for relationship to everyone, not just to the Jewish people. Those who follow Jesus and share communion in his name are affirming that new covenant and the loving promises of God which are symbolically written upon their hearts. Listen for the Word of God 22 While they were eating, he took a loaf of bread, and after blessing it he broke it, gave it to them, and said, Take; this is my body. 23 Then he took a cup, and after giving thanks he gave it to them, and all of them drank from it. 24 He said to them, This is my blood of the (new) covenant, which is poured out for many. 25 Truly I tell you, I will never again drink of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God. 6