October, 2004
COVENANT LIFE

Our life together, in Jesus Christ and His Church, involves living in covenant.  To be more exact, our life together involves the covenant we entered and made at our baptism, the baptismal covenant.

Our life in the covenant begins when we are washed -- with a little water (or a lot of water) and with the Holy Spirit.  Our life in the covenant is strengthened when we are fed the bread and the wine from the table, and the real presence of Jesus Christ they carry.  Our life in the covenant requires truthfulness from us: discerning good from evil, confessing Christ as Savior and Lord, and declaring the basics of the Church’s faith.  And our life in the covenant asks obedience of us: in opposing evil and advancing good, in serving Jesus Christ, in remaining faithful to the Church catholic and loyal to The United Methodist Church, and in participating in the life of St. Peter’s United Methodist Church.

Our life in the covenant, in the church, is like living in a small town.  In a small town, we are challenged to know, get along with, and work with everyone -- no exceptions.  After all, in a small town people cannot be avoided.  In a large city, we could choose to be around only those people who are just like us -- with the same interests, the same hobbies, the same politics, the same education from the same schools.  But in a small town, and in a congregation, we are part of a community that has different kinds of people who live different kinds of lives.  Therefore, in a small town, as in a congregation, more is socially demanded of us.  There we cannot retreat into our self-chosen group.

Nearly thirty years ago Richard John Neuhaus and Peter Berger wrote a book entitled To Empower People.  This little book describes the importance of “mediating institutions” that lie between, that mediate between, the person and the state.  The family, the congregation, the labor union, the scouts, and the civic organizations -- all of which have moral purpose and advance virtue -- are mediating institutions.  According to Neuhaus and Berger, these institutions, in recent decades, have been severely undercut by the increasingly powerful idea of the sovereign self (see recent United States Supreme Court decisions) and by government (federal, state, county, and local) trying to do all things for all citizens.  Since the individual person and government have become the major players in society, mediating institutions have had their job descriptions shortened and their mission statements abbreviated.  Furthermore, mediating institutions have lost much of the authority that was once theirs.  That is, in today’s world, the individual and the government have authority -- not mediating institutions.  Lacking authority, mediating institutions become subject to choice: people can take them or leave them, can drift into them and out of them.  Why?  Because people do what they themselves want to do (the self is sovereign), and because people believe only government has real authority to place demands on them.

This situation has weakened all mediating institutions, but especially the congregation.  Choice has done a job on the American church.

However, all is not lost.  God has provided, provides, and will provide for His Church.  His most important gift, for our time, is covenant.  This divine gift of covenant needs to be rediscovered and renewed in our time.

Covenant solidifies our life in the congregation.  When disagreements arise in the church, covenant means we strive to work things out in truth and in love.  When our expectations are unmet in the church, covenant means we get to work to make things better.  When our happiness knows no bounds, covenant means we encourage others through their sadness.  When our burdens are heavy, covenant means that our burdens can be shared, if we will but express them.

Covenant does not leave us as we are.  Covenant places demands on us.  Covenant teaches us the meaning of faithfulness and responsibility.  Covenant insists that we participate and contribute, even when we do not feel like it.  Covenant makes us grow beyond ourselves.  Covenant makes us grow up.  Covenant trains us out of our busy self-concern, to be interested in others, to be in service to others, to increase in love, to increase in godliness, to be ready for heaven.

To live in Christ is to live in the Church.  And to live in the Church is to live in covenant.

Welcome to the adventure of covenant life!

From October 2004 St. Peter's Post