COVENANT, NOT CREED
March 12, 2023
PUUF, Rev. Kit Ketcham
How many of you grew up in a religious environment where you recited a set of statements that you were expected to believe, things about God and Jesus, salvation, and other weighty expectations, particularly if you were a little kid at the time, growing up in a Christian household.
Do you remember the names of any of the various creeds that you learned or recited in a church service? Creeds are statements of theological belief and they can be pretty demanding.
Take the Apostles Creed, for example, which is often included in traditional church services:
I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth.
I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord,
who was conceived by the Holy Spirit
and born of the virgin Mary.
He suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died, and was buried;
he descended to hell.
The third day he rose again from the dead.
He ascended to heaven
and is seated at the right hand of God the Father almighty.
From there he will come to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy catholic* church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and the life everlasting. Amen.
This fairly typical Protestant creed sets out the beliefs that traditional Christians espouse and commit themselves to. More progressive Christian churches do not recite the Apostles creed in services, but it still stands as representative of many Christians’ core beliefs, whether they are taken literally or not.
As a Baptist preacher’s kid, I didn’t quote any such creed in church. However, it was made abundantly clear that God ruled, Jesus was God’s son and therefore the true Son of God and also God. The Holy Ghost was mainly a mystery to us kids.
Creeds lay out the most important beliefs of a religious faith and they differ somewhat, depending on the faith’s sense of importance for each statement. To state in public a Creed that says the things that the Apostles Creed stands for is quite a commitment to an ancient theology that has given way to science and its denial of the possibility of a physical resurrection, virgin births, and other of the tenets of faith that conservative Christians cling to.
Our Baptist set of beliefs was not set in stone, like the Apostle’s Creed seems to be. But it was pretty clear that there were certain beliefs we HAD to subscribe to or go to hell. And that was pretty scary!
Unitarian Universalists don’t have creeds. Oh, we tend to hold similar values, like democracy, equality, justice, and we state these and other values in our documents of faith. Interestingly, there’s nothing in our values and sources that state that if you want to be a UU, you have to toe the line with everyone else.
It's been said that UU’s can believe anything they want, and I suppose that’s true on a very limited level, but it doesn’t matter. What does matter to us UUs is how we behave toward each other and our fellow beings in the world. In other words, how do we live out our values and honor our sources?
A creed is a hard thing to hold everybody to; everyone who has had a different experience than the typical creed professes, or has different needs from their religious experience, or just plain doesn’t believe in non-provable statements about such things as resurrection and other miracles---they aren’t going to be very happy with a creed that everyone is expected to agree to, at least in public.
My cat and I have been arguing lately, late at night and early in the morning, about our household creed. My statement of faith about nighttime behavior is that I will sleep 6 hours or so uninterrupted by the cat’s needs for food or companionship or whatever it is that a cat needs at 1 a.m.
Her statement of faith about nighttime behavior is that she is a creature who sleeps a lot in the daytime and needs to do a little par-kour exercise at night so that she can have her regular time at the litterbox, which she needs to have cleaned out asap. And if the par-kour court is off limits, she will let off that unreleased energy in a series of loud vocalizations.
You can easily see that our creeds don’t match up. We have different needs, different preferences, different styles of living. We’d have to find different roommates. We don’t need a household creed; we need a covenant so that we can live as compatibly as possible together, because we love each other and we meet each other’s needs in many ways.
When I first came into the ministry, in 1999, serving a small spin-off congregation in Portland, we were pretty much creed-based: that is, many congregations had a certain bent toward humanism only as a creed. If you weren’t a humanist, you couldn’t be a UU. That was unstated, of course, but there was a definite preference for humanism as the one true faith.
This little congregation seemed welcoming to me, and my honeymoon year with them was full of appreciation and enthusiasm. By year two, there were clearly cracks in the veneer though I didn’t know exactly what to do about them.
Early in year three, I was invited to have coffee with the board president, where he presented me with a letter signed by eleven congregants listing all the things I had done wrong (so far), generally centering on my too-Christian, non-intellectual sermons, my failure to provide adequate pastoral care to a non-member whose daughter was one of the signatories, plus assorted other complaints. I was a big mistake, in their opinion, and they wanted me gone.
I learned that this group of eleven had formed a special email list just between them, in which they exchanged their opinions, egged each other on, criticized my presence at board meetings and committee meetings, and were making plans to complain to the UUA about my shortcomings.
I was taken aback. Some of the eleven signers were women and men whom I particularly liked and had considered allies. Yet they were talking behind my back, rather than coming to me directly to work things out.
It almost felt like a junior high school gang of kids bullying a kid they didn’t like. Fortunately, I had taught junior high kids and had counseled them through their own disputes for 25 years. I had herded cats before and I knew a thing or two.
I called upon the services of our district executive, a woman I found supportive and knowledgeable, read her the letter, and asked for her thoughts. She listened, told me of the background of this contentious little group-- which was rather murky--, assured me that she thought I was doing fine, and told me that help was available through the district.
She organized a congregational meeting to hear the complaints from all sides, in a group. Both detractors and supporters AND I had a chance to participate in this round table discussion. It was orderly, honest, revealing of old wounds on both sides, and we came through it.
I had a choice, at that point. I could resign and look elsewhere for a job, or I could face what had happened and work through it. I have been a 12-step aficionada for many years, dealing with alcoholism in my husband, and I knew that some of the things this group was saying I had done were true.
At the time we had no way established of solving conflicts other than to gripe to each other, gossip in the parking lot, criticize others’ behavior while feeling self-righteous, and letting things simmer rather than facing them head on, or even acknowledging the pain we were causing ourselves and each other.
So on Thanksgiving Sunday that year, I made amends, as completely as I could, acknowledging the rookie mistakes I’d made, and asking for their help in bringing us all back together. That was not an easy year, but during that year, several of the signers of the critical letter had come to me asking my forgiveness for their treatment of me. And I apologized directly for ways I learned I had hurt people myself.
As it turned out, I left at the end of my fourth year with them, but we were on better terms, several of the dissidents had quit, and the atmosphere was less strained.
But there was still anger, particularly among the folks who were my supporters. They were angry that I had been hurt, angry that I had (in their opinions) been chased out by the dissidents, angry with themselves for not speaking up sooner.
This little congregation was still in pain and, to judge from reports by those in the know, they are still hurting and have had up and down luck with subsequent ministers.
If I had known then what I know now, what would I do? First of all, even though I was eager to be in Portland, I would have asked the search committee and individual members “how do you resolve disagreements?”
“What do you need most from me?” “Is it okay here for me to be a UU Christian?” and that sort of thing. I would have asked for us to create a covenant, rather than accept people, particularly a new minister, on the basis of how humanistic they were.
I would have asked that the covenant provide pathways for dealing with dissent, with the new minister and with their fellow members, so that all felt welcome in the congregation. And I would have asked that the covenant provide promises of good will and commitment to those promises.
A new minister comes in not knowing much about the congregation. And the congregation knows little about the minister. Maybe the minister comes on too strong, doesn’t seem to listen well, and makes wrong assumptions about the congregation.
A congregation is often set in its own ways, which are unfamiliar to the minister and may seem inappropriate or non-productive to the minister.
To quote my colleague Rev. Paul Langston-Daley: “ In small congregations I’ve served, I have said something like this: We are not centered on a creed. We are centered on covenant and always have been, as a denomination, and we are in covenant with other UU congregations.
“Covenant gives us guardrails, to help us manage conflict and disruptive behavior and sets explicit expectations about how we will be together.”
In our Sunday service, we offer a Gathering Affirmation. We say together “Love is the spirit of this Fellowship and service is its prayer. This is our Great Covenant, to dwell together in peace, to seek truth in love, and to help one another.”
The thing about our Great Covenant, is that it is an action promise, not just pretty words. If Love is the spirit of this Fellowship, how do we show it, not only to our members but also to others. If Service is our prayer, how are we serving? We promise to dwell together in peace; how do we manage disagreements? We promise to seek truth in love; how do we welcome the many diverse threads of truth under our roof? And we promise to help one another; how are we doing that?
I’d like to ask you to give me a parting gift, the assurance that you will do all you can to be in covenant with Rev. Mira. I would like to ask you to develop, with Rev. Mira, a covenant of right relations. It would be a wonderful thing for me to know that this Fellowship, which I love so much and have worked so hard for, had taken steps to create a process that promises that disputes and tough decisions will be worked through in a loving and kindly way, that so that Mira and following ministers will not have to endure without recourse the kind of treatment I had when I was in my first ministry.
As Rev. Paul said: “Covenant gives us guardrails, to help us manage conflict and disruptive behavior and sets explicit expectations about how we will be together.”
I plan to talk with Rev. Mira and encourage her to work with you on a covenant between you and her and between you and your fellowship members. I can guarantee you it will be worth it. New people coming in will know right off the bat how this congregation fulfills its Great Covenant.
Just as a sample, I’d like to share with you the Covenant of Right Relations that the Whidbey Island folks and I created when I was there years ago.
It’s pretty simple and it has worked over and over again to deal with disputes. It came out of a painful situation in the congregation’s past when a former member polarized the group with accusations and misbehavior. Here it is:
Love is the spirit of this congregation and service is its practice. This is our great covenant: to dwell together in peace, to seek truth in love, and to help one another.
• We warmly welcome all.
• We speak with honesty, respect, and kindness.
• We listen compassionately.
• We express gratitude for the service of others.
• We honor and support one another in our life journeys, in times of joy, need and struggle.
• We embrace our diversity and the opportunity to share our different perspectives.
• We address our disagreements directly and openly and see conflict through to an authentic resolution.
• We serve our spiritual community with generosity and joy, honoring our commitments.
• We strive to keep these promises, but when we fall short, we forgive ourselves and others, and begin again in love.
I hope you’ll consider it. I would be very proud to know that you have created such a meaningful document to use in times of dissent or disagreement after I’ve moved away.
You’re probably wanting to know how my cat and I are doing in creating our own covenant of right relations. We’ve been working on it for about a week now, trying to figure out a nighttime process that respects both of our personal needs, my need for sleep and her need to feel loved. And I think we’re making progress. I found myself getting so mad when she’d yowl that I couldn’t sleep. And she felt scared when I got mad.
Cats live by different rules than humans and sometimes the human needs to give more than the cat----because we understand how it feels to be scared of someone else’s behavior. The cat, on the other hand, responds to the kindness the human shows. And both of us are happy.
Let’s pause for a time of silence reflection and prayer.
BENEDICTION
As Laura extinguishes the chalice flame, here is our benediction:
Our worship service, our time of shaping worth together, is ended, but our service to the world begins again as we leave this place. Let us go in peace, remembering that how we are together as a group matters, that when we have disagreements or angry moments, we can solve these problems in a positive way, respecting one another’s differences and loving each other beyond those differences. May we find peace together, find truth in love, and find help for our pain. Amen, Shalom, Salaam, and Blessed Be.
CLOSING CIRCLE
