First Parish Unitarian UniversalistDoctrine, Sacrament, Prayer
A sermon preached by the Reverend Diane Teichert
First Parish Unitarian Universalist - Canton, MA
December 14, 2003
I would like to begin this sermon about the Covenant we recite each Sunday morning by setting out the context in which these reflections are taking place.
For over a year now, we here at First Parish have been exploring what it means to be us, what it means to us to be together, what being together means to us. In one sense, this is a perennial and necessary thing in congregations, to periodically reassess and recommit to a larger purpose, vision, mission.
But, in another sense it all began in September of 2002 at the leadership retreat, an annual event attended by members of the Parish Committee, chairs of all the committees, the minister and DRE. We were discussing membership growth and the question was raised, “What does the surrounding community know about us?” and someone retorted, “all they know is that we’re the church with the yellow doors!” Everyone laughed, but I think most of us felt it wasn’t funny.
As the retort sunk in, others said that they think the community, if it has any idea at all, has the wrong idea about us,. I believe there was a consensus that this was not good. We want to be known as we believe ourselves to be, for who and what we are to ourselves.
This led to an exploration of the question “What’s inside the yellow doors?” which was the theme for a worship service last January. The president, Laurie, and Don, a member of the Parish Committee who grew up in this congregation (one of the few still around!) shared their reflections on this question and I added mine. It struck us that being clear about what is inside the yellow doors is key to being able to welcome more people through them and into all that First Parish has to offer.
Then, last June, at two workshops we dubbed “Planning for Growth,” attended by many of the current leaders of the congregation, we looked at what we felt was needed in order to be ready to grow. Three needs emerged: to improve the tone and quality of discussion at First Parish meetings, to be less frenetic or in others words “more being, less doing,” and to clarify our “shared identity.” By the latter we meant, What is it that the disparate collection of individuals participating here at First Parish has in common? What brings us together? How deeply do we feel that connection? Deeply enough?
So, this past September at the 2003 leadership retreat, we paid close attention to the first need, how to improve the tone and quality of conversation. From there, we began a congregation-wide practice of beginning all meetings with a chalice lighting, brief time of sharing about our personal lives, and a review of the conversation guidelines discussed at the retreat and adopted by the Parish Committee.
Since then, we have attended to the second need, for “more being, less doing,” by trying not to over-schedule programs and events. I think last week’s snowstorm punctuated that effort by forcing us all to stay home! But, it also had the unfortunate consequence of causing us to cancel the Circle Suppers planned for Saturday night, to be attended by 32 people in four different First Parish homes. Not to mention canceling worship on Sunday, not for the first time ever, but for the first time in a decade at least. Also, you may have noticed that my sermons this fall have been more reflective, far fewer than usual on public affairs, hoping to suggest “more being, less doing.”
So, now today, with this sermon about our Covenant and the one to follow in January, we are considering the third need, for a “shared identity.” In February, an exciting Adult Religious Education seminar will begin, using a very well-received curriculum called “Articulating Your UU Faith.” It will meet for six alternating Tuesday evenings starting February 13th. There will be more information and an opportunity to sign up to participate after the first of the year. At the seminar’s conclusion, a way will be found to present the experience, and possibly a statement that conveys our shared identity, to the full congregation, most likely in worship.
As this introduction I hope has made clear, the context for our topic today is a weighty one, one that has evolved in meaningful ways in the past few years. The Covenant is a good place to begin the quest for a shared identity because we recite it every week. Many of you and many of the children recite it from memory. Many of you reflect on its meaning, I know. Why, I remember that early in my first year here, one of you approached me in the greeting line after the service to say, “I hope you will preach one day on the meaning of that word Truth. It’s in our Covenant and we say it every week, but I don’t know what it means.”
I’m not sure what it means, either, but I suspect I’ll be thinking hard on the question between now and the second installment of this sermon in January! It’s been five years already that I’ve been avoiding it!
We like to say ours is a “covenantal” religion, as opposed to a creedal religion. This means we don’t have a test of belief that one must pass in order to join. Instead, we have a set of agreements into which we knowingly enter and periodically revisit.
We make covenants at every level of our life together. At the beginning of the year, our children’s Religious Education classes discuss and agree upon the rules for their time together. If you visit the classrooms upstairs over the kitchen, you will likely see a handwritten poster enumerating what they agreed upon; this is their covenant with each other. Each of our small groups that meet regularly for sharing and meaningful conversation, which are called (not accidentally) Covenant Groups, created a covenant for its time together in which they committed to a certain quality of listening, holding confidences, and so on. When we prepared for my installation as your minister in May of 1999, we wrote a covenant between minister and congregation, articulating how we would act one with another. UU congregations are even in a covenantal relationship with one another, the text of which you may read on the back of your order of worship this morning.
But the most familiar Covenant of all is the one that begins, “Love is the doctrine of this church, the quest for truth is its sacrament and service is its prayer.” Doctrine, sacrament, prayer… our Covenant begins with these traditional religious words but uses them in a very unorthodox way. I like that. It gets your attention. And, the analogies are hard to argue with!
Let’s unpack that opening sentence for a moment. Let me first say, though, it is a statement of aspiration, not fact. It’s intended to be a living covenant, not a historic document. These are the things we commit ourselves to, not that we always fulfill our commitment perfectly.
The first phrase is easy to understand, though not easy to live by: Love is our dogma. Love is our only dogma, it implies.
The quest for truth is its sacrament, we say. Here we turn that word inside out. If “sacrament” is a rite believed to be a means of receiving grace and if grace is divine love and protection, then our Covenant expresses a theologically radical notion. It says that our individual and collective searches for truth and meaning in life are the means by which we know the divine, grow our souls or become more whole, more holy. We don’t need a priest or a ritual.
The third phrase, “service is our prayer,” makes it clear that ours is a religion of the here and now, and that we pray by serving, by doing the work of love and justice in the world. This doesn’t mean that we can’t also pray, but it says that prayer without action, faith without works, is not anywhere near enough.
I’ve asked a couple members of the Parish Committee to share their reflections on what the Covenant means to them. In asking them, I suggested that meaning may come from the repetition of the same words each and every week, and meaning may come from the words themselves and our associations with those words as we live our daily lives.
First, Ruth will speak. She joined First Parish 1980 and is Clerk of the Parish Committee, and also is the all-around handy-person around here when it comes to renovations and repairs.
(Ruth)
Thank-you, Ruth. Now, I introduce Jan, who began attending in the mid-1990’s and signed the Membership Book in 1998. She is one of two Members-at-Large on the Parish Committee.
(Jan)
Thank you, Jan.
In addition to asking Jan and Ruth to share their reflections in person, I also solicited input from some other First Parish folks via email, to possibly include in my remarks this morning. I got more input, more thoughtful responses, than we have time for just now. But, there will be a Sermon Circle today (where?)—listen for the chime at about 11:45 or so—during which anyone who attends may share their responses to these questions.
“What does the Covenant mean to you? One way to think about the question is what does it mean to you, how does it effect you, that we recite this same Covenant week after week? Do you ever find yourself "waking up" during the recitation and hearing part of it in a new way? Or has the rote repetition become boring?
Another way to think about it is what have the words come to mean to you over the time you have attended? Are some phrases more important to you than others, or more annoying? Do you ever find yourself thinking about the Covenant or some part of it during the week, as things come up in your life--if so, is there a story there?”
Of course, there were a few stories, and I want to end with a couple of them that further illustrate the power the Covenant has in our lives.
One of our musicians, Kelley, told me that in 1988, she was planning her wedding. Neither of them had a church affiliation, so they went minister shopping. She told a friend about their quest and he said, "you have to meet my minister, Anita Farber-Robertson." So, Kelley said, “I asked about what kind of church she was minister of, and he responded by reciting the covenant. I loved it, as did my fiancé, and I have been attending First Parish ever since.”
And, one of our college students, Michelle, wrote, “I have a lot to say about the covenant because it is so important to me and represents what I love about being a Unitarian…. Often when other college students ask me what it is to be a Unitarian, I… tell them that in my church it is about the people, about love, about trust, and coming together from all different backgrounds and ideas with the commonality that we want to make an act of faith to a God together, encouraging and accepting each other as we do so. Then I find myself telling them our covenant…
that love is the doctrine of our church, and one of the most important beliefs we have is that God (by whatsoever name we worship) wants us to be kind to each other and love each other. The quest of truth is our church's sacrament- that is important to me too, as someone who has done a lot of soul and religious searching to figure out what I believe. I tell my intrigued non-Unitarian friends about my years of Sunday school where I learned about Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Buddhist and other traditions so that I for myself could understand theology from many different angles. My church gave me the knowledge of many different facets of religion so that I could take that knowledge and partner it with my own experiences of God and life to form my own special concept of religious truth.
I won't go through the whole covenant, but the parts about serving our fellows in human kind- to not only promise to be part of a service every Sunday, but to…try and actively make this world a better place to live makes me proud that my religion is not just a dogma or a service to attend- in many ways, it is a lifestyle.
Finally, thus do we covenant with each other and with our God.… I remember the first time I came to church without my family and I sat [in the pew] nervous- who would talk to me at coffee hour, would anyone care that I was back from school? Would I be seen as an adult or would I be alone, and uncomfortable- but then we recited our covenant and I was so happy because I realized that by reciting these important words we aren't just making a promise to our God or to our individual truths about God, or to ourselves, but also to each other. I heard everyone promising this to me, accepting me as part of their act of God and their belief system and I smiled because I was no longer afraid or nervous, but proud of this congregation I am a part of.”
Amen!