The art of shaping a shared life

 

Exodus 20: 1-4, 7-9, 12-20
New Ark United Church of Christ, Newark, DE
October 8, 2023

Close-up photo of the Statue of Liberty, showing the folds of the upper long tunic, revealing the petticoat skirt below, in shades of light and darker teal.

When human beings live together in community, whether it is a city or a neighborhood, a marriage or a friendship, a government, a 12-step group, or a faith community, we need a shared agreement on how we will live together peaceably. We need a covenant.



Sometimes a covenant includes prohibitions, things we can’t or really shouldn’t do if we want to live peaceably. Though some people bristle at the idea that we are all sinful, I think we can agree that within human nature we all have impulses we need to resist. Covenants are intended to liberate us, to free us from evil that we may live toward the good.



Some people have trouble with all those ‘shall’s’ and ‘shall not’s’ in the Ten Commandments. Folks just aren’t used to talking in those terms. So, in middle Tennessee they translated the King James version into ‘Jackson County’ language. Internet legend has it that this is posted on the wall at Cross Trails Church in Gainesboro, TN.

• Just one God
• Put nothin’ before God
• Watch yer mouth
• Git yourself to Sunday meetin’
• Honor yer Ma & Pa
• No killin’
• No foolin’ around with another fellow’s gal (I guess us gals are on our own)
• Don’t take what ain’t yers
• No tellin’ tales or gossipin’
• Don’t be hankerin’ for yer buddy’s stuff

Now that’s plain an’ simple. Y’all have a nice day.



A 4th grade Sunday School class in Monroe, CT chose to put the Ten Commandments in positive, contemporary language:



1. Remember that God is holy.
2. God is the only God – worship God and nothing else.
3. Say God’s name with love.
4. Keep the Sabbath for rest and worship.
5. Parents and children: love and respect each other.
6. Care for each other.
7. Show love to the person you marry.
8. Share with each other.
9. Be truthful to each other.
10. Appreciate what you have.



Unitarian Universalist minister Robert Fulghum said that everything he needed to know about living in community he learned in kindergarten.



1. Share everything.
2. Play fair.
3. Don't hit people.
4. Put things back where you found them.
5. CLEAN UP YOUR OWN MESS.
6. Don't take things that aren't yours.
7. Say you're SORRY when you HURT somebody.
8. Wash your hands before you eat.
9. Flush.
10. Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you.
11. Live a balanced life - learn some and drink some and draw some and paint some and sing and dance and play and work every day some.
12. Take a nap every afternoon.
13. When you go out into the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands, and stick together.
14. Be aware of wonder. Remember the little seed in the Styrofoam cup: The roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that.
15. Goldfish and hamster and white mice and even the little seed in the Styrofoam cup - they all die. So do we.
16. And then remember the Dick-and-Jane books and the first word you learned - the biggest word of all - LOOK.”



LOOK. As in, pay attention. As in, be curious, not judgmental. LOOK, as in, try to understand the situation from someone else's perspective, especially those who are oppressed, marginalized, and hurting because of their skin color, their gender, their identity. Covenants are about relationships and being in equal partnership with whole human beings, with all of who we are as individuals and as community members.



Living in covenant doesn’t mean we will never be in conflict. In fact, the more we are able to be our authentic selves, the more likely we will have disagreements. Henri Nouwen once quoted someone who said that community is the place where the person you least want to live with always lives. Funny, we never think of ourselves as being that person! Being in covenant helps us resolve conflicts without injury or violence. When we hurt one another, we tear away not only at our communal shared covenant but also at that unbreakable, unshakeable covenant of being human together.



A covenant requires everyone to voluntarily give away some of their power. Covenants happen by mutual consent. In God’s covenant with the Israelites, God in effect is limited by giving them the space to be human and to make choices. By the same token, human beings limit their freedom to do whatever they want. In the United Church of Christ Book of Worship, the marriage vows begin with the words “I give myself to you” rather than “I take you”. When new members join this church, we use reciprocal, mutual language. Everyone promises to lovingly challenge each other to be the best version of themselves, to help one another live up to the things we say we believe. We promise that we will allow ourselves to be shaped, changed, and transformed by each other, living into our called identity as a beloved community of God.



Living in covenant means that we laugh with each other, cry with each other, celebrate together, forgive each other, be accountable to each other. Which means we don’t have to hide from each other. Unless of course our community doesn’t feel safe to us. Which is why we continually need to work on being safe space for everyone, especially for those who don’t feel safe in this world. Living in covenant calls us to work on our recovery from our privilege and power, from normalizing our experience of being human, and centering the experiences of the oppressed. Living in covenant liberates all of us from supremacy, hierarchy, fear, greed, and violence so that all of us are free to live, to love, and to be at peace.



Kindred One, lead us from death to life, from hate to love, from war to peace. The kin-dom is always close. May we live as if it is so. Amen.

Benediction – stanzas from “Pray for Peace” by Ellen Bass


Pray to whomever you kneel down to:
Jesus nailed to his wooden or plastic cross,
his suffering face bent to kiss you,
Buddha still under the bo tree in scorching heat,
Adonai, Allah. Raise your arms to Mary
that she may lay her palm on our brows,
to Shekhina, Queen of Heaven and Earth,
to Inanna in her stripped descent.


Make the brushing of your hair
a prayer, every strand its own voice,
singing in the choir on your head.
As you wash your face, the water slipping
through your fingers, a prayer: Water,
softest thing on earth, gentleness
that wears away rock.


And if you are riding on a bicycle
or a skateboard, in a wheelchair, each revolution
of the wheels a prayer as the earth revolves:
less harm, less harm, less harm.


Pull weeds for peace, turn over in your sleep for peace,
feed the birds, each shiny seed
that spills onto the earth, another second of peace.
Wash your dishes, call your mother, drink wine.


Shovel leaves or snow or trash from your sidewalk.
Make a path. Fold a photo of a dead child
around your Visa card. Scoop your holy water
from the gutter. Gnaw your crust.
Mumble along like a crazy person, stumbling
your prayer through the streets.