When I was a girl my Sunday School class was challenged to learn a new passage of scripture every year. In fifth grade the assigned passage was the Ten Commandments. From the beginning of the Reformation, Protestants have held these commandments in high regard as something that all Christians should learn. Martin Luther included them in his catechism; John Calvin’s Geneva liturgy has the congregation recite them each Sunday morning. It is rather common for a pastor to choose the Ten Commandments as a sermon series, taking ten weeks to focus on each commandment one at a time.
Of course these Ten Commandments are only a small set of all the commandments in the Bible. The Old Testament alone uses the word commandment 180 times and there are many other laws instructing God’s people how to conduct business, how to cook, what to do in cases of illness and death.
But this morning I want to draw our attention beyond the list of rules, to the context in which they have been given. This is the context of covenant. This is the name we give to the special relationship between God, and God’s people. In a covenant two parties make a promise to one another. God promises to be our God and save us, heal us and bless us; and we, God’s people promise to live according to God’s will. The commandments are simply an attempt to articulate God’s will for our lives – a reminder of what we agree to when we entered into covenant with God.
The English-speaking members of this congregation have been reading through portions of Exodus in worship this fall so that we can remember the story of God’s salvation of the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt. Today as we contemplate the commandments it is very important to remember that they were given in the context of God’s salvation. God’s grace had been at work with the children of God, setting them free from slavery long before God gave them a commandment.
John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, called this kind of grace “prevenient grace” or grace that goes before. This is the assertion that God’s work of salvation begins long before we are aware of it. It’s not that we are to follow a list of rules and then earn God’s love and approval. God loves us dearly and reaches out to save us long before we do anything. This is why Methodists will baptize infants, long before they can profess their faith. We are emphasizing God’s grace that surrounds our children from the time they are conceived. Ironically John Calvin and other Reformers, wishing to lift up the importance of keeping the laws when one enters into covenant with God, obscured God’s prevenient grace by requiring that children be old enough to recite a catechism, including the Ten Commandments, before they could be baptized.
Methodists also see the commandments as an important part of our covenant relationship with God. It’s just that we are willing to recognize that God initiates this covenant as a free gift of grace without merit, and then instructs us in how covenant people are to live. These instructions are known as the law.
When you look carefully at these commandments you can see that the first four deal with the relationship between us and God, while the last six commandments all revolve around how we are to relate to one another – honor our parents, and five “shall nots.” As Jesus summed them up people who are part of the covenant are to love the Lord our God with all our heart, mind, soul and strength, and love our neighbors as ourselves. When we enter this covenant through baptism and reaffirm this covenant with confirmation, or reaffirmation of faith, or by joining a church like Wesley Untied Methodist we become part of God’s covenant people who have a special kind of relationship to God and to one another.
What does it look like when we begin to live our covenant relationship with God? What are our lives like when we truly love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength? When we have no other gods, no idols, we refuse to take the Lord’s name in vain and we honor the Sabbath? It makes me think of an old African American spiritual “I woke up this morning with my mind – stayed on Jesus.” People who are living the covenant make God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, the number one relationship in our lives. We talk to the Lord when we wake up each morning, and before we go to sleep each night. We pray, not only telling God what we need and trusting that the Lord will provide, but also listening to God’s reply and God’s call on our lives. Covenant people also listen to God by reading his word, and studying it. We seek to know God’s will for our lives and invite the Lord to melt us, mold us, fill us and use us for his good purpose. Covenant people’s lives are so full of God that we can’t help but talk about our faith to our friends and neighbors. John Wesley encouraged Methodists to nurture our relationship with God by taking advantage of the means of grace, like Holy Communion, as often as possible.
And what about our covenant with one another? Through our baptisms we entered into this covenant with the whole Christian church. We became brothers and sisters with every other Christian around this world. Just think! That’s one big, beautiful family we belong to! Being in covenant relationship with God means not only honoring our parents, but also our children, our neighbors, the strangers among us and even our enemies. We are not only to respect our elders and our bosses, but the bus drivers, the garbage collectors and even the person that cuts us off on the highway.
Pause for translation
But the covenant also gives us a special relationship with our local congregation. When Zara and Kevin joined Wesley United Methodist Church last week their covenant included a promise to uphold our congregation with their prayers, their presence, their gifts, their service and their witness. The full blessings of being in covenant can only come to us when we are present and engaged in our congregation. We have a unique congregation here, one with diversity, which at times can seem challenging, but has the potential to be a great blessing. As a new part of the Wesley community I have been wondering and praying about how we might more fully nurture our covenant relationship with one another.
These monthly worship services are a great start. But I wonder what else we might do to come to know one another better as brothers and sisters in Christ? I haven’t kept my promise yet to roust myself out of the house early enough to attend morning prayer here – but I think that might help. Or perhaps we could have a study group of some kind, which includes members of both parts of the congregation. I also know how to lead a kind of prayerful movement to music an activity called “devotions in motion.” It’s a little bit like Tai Chi so I think we could do it together in spite of our language barrier. Maybe you have ideas – how could we be more fully present to one another, pray for and with one another, share our gifts with one another, serve one another and witness to one another as a whole congregation?
Another aspect of living in covenant as a United Methodist congregation is entering more fully into the United Methodist way. Similar to the Old Testament Law, United Methodists have a code of living together called the Discipline, which is amended every four years at General Conference. It is published in English and Korean and we should be ordering our new copies of the 2008 edition soon. In these first few years of being a bi-lingual congregation we have not been held accountable for following all the ways of the Discipline. We comply with some of it, like our Church Council meeting today, and our participation in mission shares. But there are other aspects of being a United Methodist congregation.
For example our congregation is entitled to send lay representatives to the meeting of the New England Annual Conference – a wonderful time when Methodists from all over our region gather for worship, fellowship and the work of setting policies. Our current lay member, Bill Cowens, is unable to attend Annual Conference any more. Who will we select to replace him?
Another event mandated by the Discipline is that every United Methodist Church hold an annual Charge Conference where the members meet to celebrate our life together and make plans for the coming year of ministry. This year our Charge Conference is scheduled for Thursday November 6 from 7 to 8:30. I encourage all members of this congregation to be present in keeping with our covenant promise.
Also related to the New England Conference, Wesley Church made a covenant to contribute $250 every month for five years toward the Together for Tomorrow Capital Campaign. This campaign supports the ministries of camping and retreats, missions in Nicaragua and West Angola, retired clergy health care, and money to help congregations grow stronger. Together with other churches our contributions can make a big difference for United Methodists in New England.
The Discipline also encourages us to send lay members for training in preaching and worship leadership and the Metro Boston Hope district offers such courses every spring and every fall. Kevin has already signed up for the fall sessions, which will meet on October 25 and November 15. Are there others in this congregation who would like to take advantage of this opportunity to grow in your faith?
And the Discipline designates six special Sundays when United Methodists are to focus our attention on special ministries. Today just happens to be one of those Sundays, called World Communion Sunday. Celebrated on the first Sunday in October, this day calls the Church to be the universal inclusive Church. It was first observed by Presbyterians in 1936 and was adopted by the Council of Churches in 1940. It is now a global and interdenominational event. On this day, Protestants all over the world join with Catholics in taking communion and remembering that our covenant extends beyond this local congregation, and beyond the United Methodist Church, to Christians all over the world. Part of the United Methodist observance of World Communion Sunday is to take a special offering which goes to support ethnic and minority U.S. and international students. Last year American United Methodists collected over one million, two hundred five thousand dollars on World Communion Sunday.
By the grace of God we are gathered for communion here and now, and we represent some of the wonderful diversity God has created in his children. So as we gather at Christ’s table to receive his good gifts on this World Communion Sunday, let us truly remember that through our baptisms and as members of this congregation we are members of his body, connected to one another, to other United Methodists and to the world wide church by such a strong and life giving covenant which began with Abraham and Moses and has been extended to us through Jesus Christ, our Lord.
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