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Are Covenants Relevant Anymore?
By Dr. Riley B. Case
One of the discouraging realities The United Methodist Church faces as it considers how it might stay together and find sense and purpose in the midst of disagreement is what appears to be several very different understandings of the idea of covenant. For many of us a covenant, especially a covenant with God, is (at least in theory) unbreakable. The Bible is the story of covenants. There is the Old Covenant between God and Israel and the New Covenant between Christ and the Church. Relationships between persons or between groups are defined by covenants, either written or unwritten. Quite early in my Hebrew class I learned that a key word in the Old Testament was hesod, which was defined as "the treatment one has a right to expect as the result of a blood covenant relationship." In the RSV Bible it is always translated as "steadfast love." It is the basis of the New Testament word agape which almost always is translated love. It is a covenant love as over against the Greek work eros, also translated as love, but a love based on attraction, likes, and feelings. Agape love is based on commitment, promises, steadfastness and faithfulness.
The very word "Methodist" was derived from the "methodical" way the Wesleys and their Holy Club ordered their lives. There were general rules, class meetings and discipline. The Methodist railing against antinominalism was a critique of religion that was weak on rules. From its beginning in America even into the mid-20th century Methodism, or at least pockets of Methodism, was almost legalistic in its emphasis on separating from the appearances of sin: no alcohol, no dancing, no card playing, no cursing, no defying the Lord's Day.
It is very difficult, therefore, to understand how nonchalantly some present-day progressives are willing to break covenant, defy the very vows they took in ordination, and basically operate with an "anything goes" sort of personal morality. Ministers, including bishops, are labeling the very Discipline they promised to uphold (especially in regard to sexual morality) as hateful. In the present climate, it is hard to ascertain what covenant we share or what is the connection behind connectionalism.
I offer a personal testimony as to why this matters to persons like me. I grew up respecting truth-telling and promises. I was about eleven, I believe, when I made my first serious covenant with God. Whoever was planning our church's Every Member Canvass wanted to include the children this particular year, and so they gave us the pitch: 10%, the tithe, belongs to God. True giving is what we offer beyond the tithe. I was ready. When I was six my father set me up in the chicken business. He bought the feed; I cared for the chickens; with the eggs we fed the family but whatever was beyond that I could sell (a dozen at a time at the local creamery) and keep the money. It was my money to do with as I pleased. I could do the 10% tithe thing plus the extra. I pledged 25 cents a week, $3.25 a quarter, $13 a year, all on the red side of the envelope (that was for missions). My father saw my pledge card and looked at it a long time. He finally said: "Son, that's a lot of money; you don't need to do that much." I chose God over my father.
I also agreed (or pledged) to read a chapter a day in the Bible beginning when I was in the second grade. That was probably more an agreement with my mother than a promise to God. All the same I was faithful. Sometimes I got behind and had to read 10 chapters in one day to keep up. I remember looking ahead hoping to get to the Psalms soon because the chapters were short. Until I discovered Psalm 119.
I made other promises to God--again in grade school. From time to time I would throw my tennis ball over the barn and it would get lost in the weeds. I prayed to God that I would find the ball. Then I began to bargain with God, "God if you help me find the ball I will be nice to my sisters this evening." One time I prayed that if God helped me find the ball I would volunteer to dry the dishes in the evening even though it wasn't my turn. My mother was quite astonished when I volunteered. I never told her it was not out of special love for her but because I had made a vow to God.
I spoke the vows when I joined the church. I believe I thought it was no special deal since I was doing all the stuff in the vows anyway. At high school church camp, however, I faced a more serious challenge: to pledge myself to total abstinence from alcohol. I understood that to mean not just for a year or for five years but forever. I remember asking myself, "But what if I wanted to try it sometime?" I took the vow and have kept it.
At a prayer meeting I made a surrender of my life to whatever purpose God had for me. It ended up with a call to ministry. I spoke wedding vows. I promised at a retreat led by Harry Denman that I would not speak ill of another minister. The sins I confess are most often the sins that are related to a failure to live out my covenant promises.
The challenge to my understanding of covenants came in an unexpected way when I was working with our conference camping program in the late 1960s. The high point of our senior high institutes (to which our various district camps in those days were drawing 3,000 senior high youth every summer) was "Commitment Night," almost universally supported by our churches and pastors, whether liberal or evangelical. However, one year a seminary student hired for the summer challenged the idea of Commitment Night. His point was that the idea of "commitment" no longer communicated anything meaningful to the youth of the day. "Commitments" were inhibiting and kept us from being totally free to do whatever seemed appropriate at the moment. The new message was "freedom," "Commitment" and "vows" were restricting and inhibiting. They suggested binding traditions, rules and legalism. To pledge to live the rest of one's life as a Christian as a teenager would keep one from exploring new religious ideas later in life.
I soon saw this playing out. With the 1968 merger and restructuring the emphases in the Methodist youth program flipped. The MYF handbook and structure were abandoned. Mottos, symbols, banners, and benedictions were, to use one phrase I remember, "Micky Mouse." Old sexual taboos were going by the wayside. The denominational youth program disintegrated. When I entered my Methodist seminary, I realized that numbers of seminarians had no intention of keeping the Discipline's prohibition against the use of alcohol and tobacco. Sure enough, in 1964 the standards were eliminated.
And so, we have the situation today where groups demonstrate at General Conference against the very doctrines and moral codes and discipline they (at least the clergy) once vowed to uphold. They have smashed the communion chalice and covered the altar with black. In 2000 at Cleveland after the usual disruptive display, the chair finally asked the demonstrators to clear the floor as they had promised to do after the agreed amount of time. A spokesperson then announced they would not clear the floor and they would not keep the promise because the church had not kept its promise to them (??). When security was then called in several bishops "prophetically" were arrested. They were hailed as heroes because they broke the city's secular ordinance in order to defy the covenants of the church.
And so, we go on and on. Before the church can move toward any kind of agreement about how we order our lives together there needs to be understanding as to whether covenants, vows, promises and agape love have meaning any more to the body called The United Methodist Church.
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