Covenant

Reading

Many of our congregations are not prepared to have [the] "vibrant embodied argument" that will keep the faith alive and reshape it in order to pass it on to the next generation of seekers and practitioners. [These] "arguments" are the skills of dialogue, of listening, and of learning. They mold our practices of the faith and keep them vital. Instead, too many of our congregations experience the form of argument that results in winners and losers. The conversations in our congregations too often seek to differentiate between those who see themselves as morally right and those who are seen to be morally bankrupt; between those who are wedded to traditionalism and those who don't even want to get "engaged" if it would mean submitting to any form of faith discipline; and between those who agree with the priest or rabbi and those who disagree with her or him. And all too often these win/lose arguments are accompanied by behaviors and attitudes that clearly do not reflect the values and practices of the faith[I]n many of our arguments in congregations we have defaulted to community tactics of trying to win instead of listening, andit is all too difficult to distinguish between an argument in a congregation and an argument at a zoning board hearing or a public school board meeting where participants are interested in winning at any cost. This is a problem that we can understand if we look at the bigger picture of our culture. It is also a problem that we can, and should, do something about as communities that are meant to reflect our faith traditions and our relationship with God.

from Behavioral Covenants in Congregations
an Alban Institute publication
by Gilbert R. Rendle

Sermon

I never heard the word "polity" until I became a Unitarian Universalist back in the early sixties. Our religious faith is based on "congregational polity". This means that we are not a top down organization. We ­ meaning the Unitarian Universalist Association ­ are an alliance of congregations which govern themselves without any direction from any entity outside themselves. Our congregational polity reveals itself in a number of ways. For instance, within our faith tradition only a congregation has the right to ordain a minister. The association has a process by which prospective ministers are evaluated and deemed worthy of ordination, however a congregation may choose to ordain someone who has not received the Ministerial Fellowship Committee seal of approval.

Another way in which our congregational polity reveals itself is in the relationships we have with other congregations and with district and continental bodies. For instance, there is no formal relationship between this congregation and the Unitarian Universalist Society in Ormond Beach or the Unitarian Universalist Church in DeLand. When you read the Saturday newspaper, you discover that congregations in some faith traditions advertise as a block, among them the United Methodists, the Catholics, and the Episcopalians. The polity of these faith traditions is more top down. Each congregation has a bishop, and quite possibly the bishop has something to say about how these congregations will advertise. However, if the UU Society in Ormond Beach and the UU Church in DeLand and Community Church wanted to create a block advertisement, one of us would have to initiate a conversation to address the possibility. And it could take a long time to make a decision. Our tradition of autonomy often works against any kind of cooperative venture like this.

Another way in which our congregational polity is evident is the way in which other entities can help when a congregation is in trouble. In Methodism, for instance, there are many small, rural congregations, particularly in the mid-West. One might wonder how they can afford a minister. However, ministers are paid by the district, not by the individual congregation. Therefore, the Bishop decides which congregation gets which minister and which congregation gets which share of a single minister. It is not unusual these days for one minister to serve more than one congregation. In fact, in some areas of the country a team of two-to-three Methodist ministers may serve a handful of congregations. So if a congregation shrinks, the district decides what kind and how much professional leadership that congregation will have.

In our association, our District Executive informs us of and controls resources available to us from the district and informs us about those available from the association, however she would never impose her judgement on us about whether we needed them or not. Instead, our elected officials must ask, on the congregation's behalf for these resources. Sometimes a district will provide leadership training or congregational assessment to a particular congregation. Sometimes a district cluster of congregations will invite someone to offer training of a particular kind ­ like the "Make a Joyful Noise" workshop the Northeast District provided this last September here at our congregation. Attendance at the workshop, however, was voluntary. No one called up Congregation X or Y or Z and ordered folks to attend the workshop based on their pitiful use of music in worship! Because of the voluntary nature of attendance at these events, it is often the congregation with a flourishing religious education program which sends representatives to a religious education training event or with a robust social justice program which sends members to a social justice conference.

One problem with our congregational polity is that struggling congregations often grapple with their issues all by themselves, not knowing that resources are available at the district or continental level or from independent consultants, like the Alban Institute.

The Victoria, British Columbia congregation had a long history of fighting among themselves. After many years of battling within and wearing out several ministers, the congregation decided to invite in someone from the Unitarian Universalist Pacific Northwest District to help them sort out their issues. The result of this intervention was a covenant, an agreement between members of the congregation about how they would treat each other. Their work together to create this document has become legendary, and "covenant" is now a buzz word, not only in our association, but throughout liberal religion, where congregational polity is a major factor. In fact, there is now more than one book one can buy to read about the process of creating a covenant. I consulted one of these in preparing my remarks to you today. My reading came from this book, Behavioral Covenants in Congregations by Gilbert R. Rendle.
Rendle says that congregations reflect the contexts in which they exist. He cites work by William Strauss, Neil Howe, and Daniel Yankelovich to describe the current cultural context of congregations in the United States today. Strauss and Howe talk about generational cycles, described as High, Awakening, and Unraveling. They say that we humans have experienced an "almost uninterrupted repetition" of this cycle since the end of the 15th century. Rendle goes further and says that these generational cycles show up in biblical literature and early Greek mythology.

Highs come when a culture perceives that the basic issue of the previous crisis has been resolved. As a culture, between 1946 and 1964 Americans were on a high celebrating their consolidation following World War II.

Awakenings come when a culture feels something is missing in the high and trigger revolutions to compensate or correct for the lack. The period of 1964 to 1984 has been identified by Strauss and Howe as our most recent awakening ­ also known as the "Consciousness Revolution."

Unravelings stand in contrast to highs, when new directions uncovered during awakenings are consolidated and formalized, creating new directions. We live in a time of unraveling, which began in 1984. This time is also known as the "Culture Wars."
Our of curiosity I want to conduct a brief survey here this morning.

Number of people born 1984-present ­ Unraveling ­ 0 (Church School)
Number of people born 1964-1983 ­ Awakening ­ 3
Number of people born 1945-1963 ­ High ­ 29
Number of people born before 1945 ­ 19

John Yankelovich cites our transition from the Protestant work ethic to the era of instant credit as the most revealing indicator of this global shift. Here are Yankelovich's words, first describing the culture at the time of the high, then how this ethic was undermined by capitalism itself:

I give hard work, loyalty, and steadfastness. I swallow my frustrations and suppress my impulses to do what I would enjoy, and do what is expected instead. I do not put myself first; I put the needs of others ahead of my own. I give a lot, but what I get in return is worth it. I receive an ever growing standard of living and a family life with a devoted spouse and decent kids. Our children will take care of us in our old age if we really need it, which thank goodness we will not. I have a nice home, a good job, the respect of my friends and neighbors; a sense of accomplishment at having made something of my life. Last, but not least, as an American I am proud to be a citizen of the finest country of the world.

The single greatest engine in the destruction of the Protestant work ethic was the invention of the installment plan, or instant credit. Previously one had to save in order to buy. But with credit cards one could indulge in instant gratification.

Having lived through the High, and the Awakening, and, now, the Unraveling, I'm not surprised to read a headline on page one of last Saturday's News-Journal describing a conflict between Big John, a Volusia County Commissioner and Bud Asher, Daytona Beach Mayor. In case you didn't see the headline, it was a beaut: "Big, Bud unleash barrage of barbs." (The context in which the headline appeared also describes our time of Unraveling. Here are others from yesterday's page one: "Monopoly, Judge: Microsoft stifles competition, harms consumers;" "Sudden drop in state funding for child care stymies parents;" and "Florida inmates may get to choose lethal injection." The largest picture on the page showed an Embry Riddle Lambda Chi Alpha man standing atop an automobile waving his fraternity's flag under the banner "Embry-Riddle celebrates.")

In a culture where it is possible for the rich to be so rich their annual incomes are larger than many countries' GNP's; where fathers and mothers must work to support their families; where not the death penalty itself but the method of killing inmates is debated; where public drunkenness is celebrated and pictured in full color on page one ­ in an Unraveling culture ­ Gil Rendle suggests that a congregation's default method of handling disputes within the congregation will mirror the larger culture unless the congregation intentionally decides to change the default. "Living in the midst of an unraveling is not a problem to be solved. It is a condition about which we need to learn new things in order to be people of authentic faith."

For instance, how do we structure our religious education programs, he asks, when children are

most often sporadic in their attendance. Recalling an earlier time in New England history when families would rent a pew in which they had exclusive rights to sit Sunday after Sunday, one rector jokes that his people no longer rent their pews; they invest in timeshares. They pay to use the pew only on selected Sundays and leave the pew to be used by others on other Sundays. How then does a congregation approach religious teaching with any coherence or consistency when both teacher and student come in and out of "time share" class sessions? While the problem is relatively clear, there is no clear solution. The leaders have to learn more about the lifestyles of their families in order to know how and when to engage the children and families in religious education. They have to learn more about the purpose and function of religious training, and how to share the stories, beliefs, and disciplines of their faith using other methods than the standard classroom models based on a standardized curriculum.

I might add, that the problem is made even more complex when a congregation is trying to teach basic values of not only its own religion, but also other religions as well. Last Friday night and this morning we have had demonstrations of how our gifted and creative Religious Education staff ­ paid and volunteer ­ helps our children learn, using techniques which appeal to many different learning styles.

Rendle shifts from defining the problem of living at a time of Unraveling to offering solutions by telling a story from the Sufi tradition:

Two men came to the Sufi judge's court with a complaint. The first man spoke to the judge, describing the event that brought them to court. He explained what his neighbor had done in offense, how the consequences had damaged him, and what compensation he expected to receive from his neighbor. The judge listened and when the man was through he exclaimed, "You're right!" Whereupon the second man cried out, "Wait! You can't just lisen to his side of the story and pronounce judgement." The judge agreed and so invited the second man to speak. The second man then told of the event from his perspective, what his neighbor had done to him in offense, how the consequences had damaged him, and what compensation he expected to receive from his neighbor. When this man was finished, the judge was convinced again and he exclaimed, "You're right!" "Wait!" cried a third listener in the courtroom. Speaking to the judge he said, "You can't listen to one man and say that he was right and then listen to another who tells the opposite story and also say that he is right." The judge though for a moment and answered, "You're right!"

Rendle says that in our culture we have a tendency to go to extremes ­ on the one hand depending on the domain of law and on the other on the domain of free choice. He cites the issues of abortion and euthanasia as two which are often debated from these two extremes. Those who argue from the domain of law want to outlaw abortion and euthanasia, or at least severely limit the situations in which one or the other would be legal. Those who argue from the domain of free choice want to keep secure the right to abortion and win the right to euthanasia for individuals based on their private, free choice. Rendle suggests that in the middle is a third position he calls holy manners and obedience to the unenforceable. A commitment to the third option requires a covenant. He describes the difference this way, "When a legal rule is broken, we seek compensation. We want a wrist to be slapped, a price to be paid. When a covenant is broken we seek understanding and recommitment. We want to know what went wrong. What are we having trouble with? How do we try again?[Covenants seek] to identify and negotiate changes in our behavior, not in our personalities or our values."

To illustrate the power of covenant, Rendle tells a story about an incident at Haverford College in Pennsylvania. Haverford has a code of conduct which all of its students learn and agree to follow. The code is not cast in concrete. It is reviewed, amended and ratified annually in a college-wide process that involves staff, faculty and students. One of its unique features is that it encourages direct communication. If a student has a conflict with another student, for instance, that student is to work out that conflict with the student directly, without involving outside authorities. Here is how Rendle describes the covenant and what happened on an occasion when the covenant was broken:

If the person was playing music too loudly in the dorm, you were expected to go to the person and talk about the situation, not go to some authority about the noise or not harbor anger at your neighbor for disturbing your study. If you saw someone cheating, you were to go to the person and talk about what you saw and what the student was to do about it. You did not go to authorities to report the cheating, and you did not remain silent since that would make you equally responsible for the cheating. I recall the surprise of a number of parents following an incident in the college's off-campus apartment housing in which one of the students called the local police to complain about a noisy party in a neighboring apartment. The police investigated, broke up the party, but also issued a number of citations for underage drinking. When the dust settled, there were a number of persons held responsible by the college code. The parents were not surprised by the college sanctions given to the people who held the party and to the students involved in the underage drinking. That was expected. What surprised the parents were the sanctions brought against the student who called the police. He had broken the code because he had not directly addressed the other students-members of his own community-about their behavior, but had instead gone first to authorities to solve his problem for him.

The point that Rendle makes is that covenants "are different from the default position of our culture which allows for accusations against others without speaking to them and which allows for seeking one's own solutions and preferences without listening to the needs and preferences of others."
Our congregation is in a time of transition. It is an optimal time for intervention, an ideal time to ask for help from the outside. Today the resignations of your present board take effect, and you will have an opportunity to elect a new board. All of the twenty-one people involved in this transition have made sacrifices to serve this congregation ­ the nine board members who have served in the best way they knew how, the three members of the nominating committee who have risen to the challenge of creating a viable slate in just three weeks, and the nine members of this congregation who have agreed to serve from this day forward in the best way they know how. All of these people deserve your support and your appreciation.
That we might not have to go through a process like this again, we need to consult with others and take action to create agreements among us of how we shall behave with one another when disagreements threaten to unravel our congregation ­ just as culture wars threaten to unravel the larger culture in which we exist.
As our children were leaving for their classes this morning we sang "Where Is Our Holy Church?" The words were written in another time, during another time of Unraveling, between World War I and World War II. It is a humanist response to an ultimate religious question, "How is the church governed?" The answer, by the people. You are the church. You are the congregation. You must make the covenant which states our holy manners and keeps us obedient to the unenforceable. May it be so. Blessed be.