Sermon given by Rev. Frank Clarkson, September 19, 2021.

For me, one of the joys of being a minister is getting to stand with a couple when they get married. I love getting to say “I now pronounce that you are married.” giving voice to the fact that these who were two, are now joined together as one. But you know what? I don’t see the pronouncement as the key moment, or the most precious moment, in the ceremony. 

Maybe you’re thinking it’s the kiss, but I wouldn’t say that’s the key moment either. When I meet with couples, I tell them there is unexpected power in standing before your family and friends, standing before God, if that is your theology, and making promises to  one another. No wonder so many people get teary, or their voice cracks, or their knees start knocking as they say their vows. Because it’s a big deal—making promises that you are intending to keep, that you are expected to keep. Promises that are meant to last a lifetime! 

I remember talking to my best friend a few days before I got married. I said to him, “I expect this is going to change me, I just don’t know how yet.” And yes, I was a little green as I walked into the church with my brother at my side, I was quaking a bit. And I should have been, because that moment was the start of a long process of growth and change that I never could have imagined, a process I hope will continue until the day I die. What about you? What promises have you made that have changed you for the better?

We humans are promise-making creatures. And promise-breaking creatures too. We make mistakes, we let ourselves and others down—we’re human. We mess up! Which is why we need promises—because they remind us of how we want to be, of how we intend to act, of what we owe one another.

We’re at the start of a new church year, and so it’s a good time to talk about how we intend to be in relationship with one another. Every Sunday we say some words together that we call our unison affirmation. Will you say them with me now? Let’s go a bit slowly, and really listen to these words, as we say them?

Love is the doctrine of this church
The quest for truth is its sacrament
And service is its prayer.
This is our great covenant
To dwell together in peace,
To seek the truth in love,
And to help one another
To the end that all souls shall grow
In harmony with the divine.

“This is our great covenant,” we just said. Some version of this covenant is said in lots of UU congregations. If you look in the back of the gray hymnal, at #473, you’ll find a shorter version of this covenant that’s attributed to Rev. James Vila Blake. And if you went to the back of our sanctuary, and looked on the plaque there, that our former minister Rev. Janet Bowering rescued from the former Unitarian church before it was demolished a few years ago, you see the name James Vila Blake, and that he served here in Haverhill, from 1867 to 1869. A little less than a hundred years later, in 1950, the Unitarians decided to come over here and join the Universalists, and here we are! 

Covenant is a religious word for a promise. Our understanding of covenant comes from the Jewish tradition, and there are numerous places in the Hebrew Bible where God enters into covenant with the people of Israel. There’s one, in the book of the prophet Ezekiel, that I particularly like. God says,

“A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will remove from your body the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. I will put my spirit within you… and you shall be my people, and I will be your God” (Ezekiel 36:26, 27a, 28b).

Covenant is central to our congregational tradition. Way back in 1648, Puritan leaders here in Massachusetts wrote a document called the Cambridge Platform, which describes the way churches were to be organized. The Platform describes a congregational church as “a company of saints by calling, united into one body by a holy covenant, for the public worship of God, and the mutual edification one of another, in the fellowship of the Lord Jesus.”

Their vision was that you belong to a church because you feel called to join it. That we agree to come together for worship, fellowship, and service. The Cambridge Platform also says that congregations are responsible for and to one another. We have siblings in faith across the nation and around the world.

Other churches have different ways of organizing themselves, some with bishops, priests, or elders, who have more authority to say “this is how it’s going to go,” than clergy in the congregation tradition do. I certainly have enough authority and responsibility, but the power here really rests with you. You the congregation called me as your minister, and you could send me packing. You set the budget and elect your leaders and you feel free to let your leaders know how they are doing, right?

And it’s good. We had a board retreat a week ago, and there was good energy and ideas in our conversation about how to move into this new church year in this uncertain and hopeful time. This is one of the strengths of our tradition; we want everyone to have a voice; we don’t think a top-down church, with a few people making all the decisions, is the best way. 

Our church is both covenantal—we come here freely and what holds us together is the promises we make to one another; and we’re congregational—you, the people of the church, get to make the biggest decisions. We could make a bumper sticker:

Covenantal—in this together
Congregational—the people have the power!

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks says that covenant “gets us to think about the common good, the good of all-of-us-together.” Every year here, our Board of Trustees and staff enter into a covenant of how we intend to be in relationship together. We each affirm the covenant and sign our names to the document, and this act shapes how we do our work together. 

About ten years ago, a group of leaders here realized we would benefit from a more through and current articulation of how we intend to be in relationship with one another. It took a number of meetings, with lots of conversation, editing, and reworking. Then it was adopted by our annual meeting in June of 2012—congregational polity in action!

It’s a beautiful covenant, a bit longer than our unison affirmation, but we should say it together more often than we do. And we should keep it before us, in our work and in our reflecting on how we want to be in this community. There’s a copy in the order of service today. It might look good on your refrigerator, or could make a good bookmark!

After so much separation over that last 18 months, this is a good time to remember that we are in this together, that we have chosen this freely, that we have commitments and responsibilities to one another. And isn’t that good?

And you know, part of being in relationship is that we will mess up, make mistakes, we will disappoint one another, maybe even hurt one another. And when this happens, what do we do? Our covenant tells us that we take the risk of being truthful; we deal directly and openly with with one another, using compassion and kindness. We listen to another’s truth, even when it’s hard to hear. We accept responsibility for our actions. If we mess up, we apologize and take steps to make things right.

Will you join in saying our congregational covenant right now? Will you stand as you are able, and join in saying how we intend to be in community together? The parts you’ll say in italics, and I’ll say the part in plain text. 

We strive to be a beloved spiritual community which affirms that Love is the Doctrine of this church;
therefore, we enter into this covenant:

We honor our Diversity, 
so I vow to speak my own truth and encourage others to voice their truths.

 We cherish Compassion and Kindness, 
so I pledge to use love and forgiveness as a guide
in my relationships with others
and seek assistance when in need.

We value Respect, 
so I promise to deal directly with others, to reflect patience, listening with an open mind and heart,
and mindful of the good intentions of others.

 We value Accountability, 
so I will reflect carefully before taking action
and accept responsibility for what I say and do.

As we seek to understand our interconnections,
we celebrate the strength we hold as individuals
and collectively as a beloved community
to build the common good.

Take a minute and look around at your church family. We have more strength and more power and more influence than we know. In our closely connected world, we will impact others, for good and for ill. And the stakes are high. As the poet says, “it is important that awake people be awake… the darkness around us is deep.”

You people are awake! I love that about you! And we are here, in this together! Isn’t it wonderful? Let’s keep on being this welcoming and caring church! Let’s keep on moving forward, making our way home, toward that land of freedom and justice, where we’re bound!        

Amen.