What a covenant—All Parish Meeting Sunday

Covenant is one of those church-y, biblical words that is probably not a part of most of our active vocabularies. We’re more used to terms like “contract” or “agreement.”

Covenant is what mere mortals in the early books of the Bible made with God. It’s what prophets mediated between God and the people. It’s the relationship with God and humanity that Jesus came to renew, restore and expand with his ministry.

Covenant is more than transactional — it’s about relationship, about promises, beholden-ness, recognizing that we are part of one another, that we belong to one another. It acknowledges that each of our well-being is connected to one another. When we practice the rite of baptism, we make covenant promises to the person getting baptized and their families, that we will be there for them, that we are standing with and for them. Similarly, in the covenant of marriage, we make vows to the ideals we want to uphold in one another.

In church community, we are in covenant with one another. We belong to one another. We help bear one another up, in good times and in bad, through sickness and in health, for better, for worse, when the way is clear and when it’s obscured.

On Sunday, we will re-affirm our covenant with one another, as we share communion, as we welcome new members and as we gather immediately afterwards for our June all-parish meeting, complete with strawberry shortcake. We will celebrate and affirm this collective, joyful ecumenical experiment we call the United Parish in Brookline.

Come and hear, see and affirm.

In faith,

Kent