What's That Word?

The Rev. Whitworth Ferguson III
Manassas Presbyterian Church
Manassas, Virginia
August 10, 2008

What’s That Word?
Genesis 17:1-8
2 Corinthians 3:1-6

It’s a word that appears more than 300 times in the Bible
in both the Old and New Testament.
It’s a word that sounds weighty,
churchy,
even a bit legalistic.
So it’s no surprise that we don’t pay much attention to it.
It’s not a fun word;
it’s a word that sounds about as exciting as the word,
“homework”.

The word is “covenant”.
Covenant.
We have all heard the word;
we know it’s a Biblical word.
It’s also a legal word, one we may see when we
take out a loan for a home, a car, or school.
But for as many times as we’ve seen the word,
do we really understand it?
Do we really know what it means,
especially as we find it in the Bible?

Look it up in the dictionary, and you’ll find it says
“binding agreement, contract.”
The word comes from a root that means, “agreement”.
Agreement: that suggests that two parties talk about something
and then they come to terms,
they agree: “If you do this, I will do that.”
That’s covenanting with each other,
mutual promises that both agree to,
promises that bind one to the other.

When you make a covenant with another person,
you each look to the other to keep the covenant,
to honor it,
to keep the promises that you made to one another,
the promises that bind you to one another.
A covenant is by its very nature
built on a person’s word, their honor,
their faithfulness, their integrity.
If one party to a covenant doesn’t live up to
his or her end of the agreement,
the covenant falls apart.
Sure, you can always sue the other person,
but the damage has been done, the covenant broken.

The word first appears in the Noah story.
After the flood waters receded
God said to Noah,
“I am establishing my covenant with you
and your descendants after you,
and with every living creature that is with you”
(Gen. 9:8)
The covenant was simple:
God would never cause another flood
to wipe out life on earth.
And God gave Noah and his family,
their descendants, and all living creatures
a sign of the covenant.
Do you remember what it was? The rainbow!

Jump ahead a few chapters in Genesis
to our First Lesson and we find the word again.
This time, God was speaking with Abram
and the covenant was not about floodwaters and rainbows.
This time, the covenant was more intimate,
a covenant that created a relationship between God and Abram:
“I will make my covenant between me and you,
and will make you exceedingly numerous….
You shall be the ancestor of a multitude of nations…
I will establish my covenant between me and you,
and your offspring after you throughout their generations,
for an everlasting covenant
to be God to you and to your offspring after you…”
(Gen. 17:2ff)

Like the first covenant,
there was no bargaining,
no negotiation;
this covenant was not a two-way street.
It was a promise, a simple promise
that came from God
and was extended to Abraham, and all his descendants,
down through the years,
all the way to us, here and now.
A covenant that, by the way, includes Jews and Muslims, too.
This covenant was a promise that was grounded in love,
God’s unwavering love for his children.

Circumcision was the first step toward making
the covenant a two-way street,
but it was with the Ten Commandments that God began
to create expectations for all,
men, women, and children:
“These are my laws which I expect you to obey
as my covenant children.”
The laws themselves were referred to as the Covenant,
and of course, kept in the Ark of the Covenant.

And that’s when things began to break down,
once we had some standards,
some laws, some rules:
rules we were supposed to follow but didn’t,
even though the rules were given to us
not to limit our freedom,
but to make our lives richer and fuller.
We didn’t like rules,
we didn’t like anyone telling us what to do,
even when it was good for us.
We have always wanted to do things our way,
when we felt like it.

Our selfishness and pride proved to be
very effective weapons against God’s covenant.
Read through the Bible,
as our Year of the Bible group has been doing since January,
and it’s almost embarrassing
how quick we are to turn from covenant
whenever we found it got in the way
of our own desires, our own wants.

Now we learned two weeks ago
we don’t do this because we are fundamentally bad;
we don’t do this because we cannot help it,
because Adam sinned.
No, the hard truth is that we break our promises to God
when we choose to be selfish and self-centered,
when we choose to be prideful,
and as the Proverb warns us,
what follows pride is always a fall.

The extraordinary thing is that
even in the face of our faithlessness,
our selfishness,
our constant “I want what I want” approach
God has kept his covenant with us.
And even after 2,000 years of
watching his children constantly fight against covenant living,
God renewed his covenant in Jesus Christ.

We are covenant people, you and I,
called to live in covenant with God through Jesus Christ,
and called to live in covenant with one another
as disciples of Christ in this church and in the world.
The very nature of what we do as the Body of Christ
is to live in covenant with one another
and build new covenants as we follow Christ.

We just made covenant a few minutes ago:
a covenant with Braven and Joshua.
You made a covenant with each of them
when Jeff asked the question we always ask
each time we baptize:
“Do you, as members of the church of Jesus Christ,
promise to guide and nurture Braven and Joshua
by word and deed, with love and prayer,
encouraging them to know and follow Christ
and to be faithful members of his church?”

That is a covenant –
a covenant each of you made,
to each boy: more than two hundred covenants created,
times two, of course,
in just a few seconds.

Do you remember what you covenanted?
Do you remember your promises?
First, you promised to honor the covenant by how you live your life:
You covenanted with each boy to model Christian behavior
through your words and deeds,
and by your example teach the boys.

Next you covenanted to support them in prayer and with love.
And third, you covenanted to encourage them to know and follow Jesus.

You each made those promises to each boy!
Now here’s the question:
Will you do it?
Will you live up to your part of the covenant?
What will you do today?
What will you do tomorrow?
What will you do to live up to your covenant
to every other child in this church,
to whom you made the same promise,
with whom you have the same covenant?
It was only two weeks ago that you made the same
covenant with Rachel!

The easy path is not to do anything,
to assume that others will look after the boys
in the nursery,
and later in Sunday School,
and Youth Groups
as they get older.
But taking that approach,
is breaking covenant,
not living up to the promises you just made
before one another,
and before God.

When we live in covenant,
we accept responsibility,
take on responsibility,
even when it requires effort,
when it means doing something
we really don’t feel like doing,
when we are pushed out of our comfort zone.
But of course, living faithful lives,
truly faithful lives is not about comfort, is it?
It is about self-giving, serving,
and at times even sacrifice
as we follow the one who modeled
self-giving,
service
and sacrifice for each of us.

Covenant living is “to become new”,
new in Christ,
new in the Spirit,
leaving the old ways behind.
(Frederick Buechner, Beyond Words, 69)

To become new in covenant living
is to understand what Paul was saying is his letter to the Corinthians,
that we are not just called to be people of the covenant,
we are called to be ministers of the covenant:
to witness to covenant living,
to testify to covenant life.

Paul reminds us that Jesus sets the bar high for us:
that living in the covenant is not living in accordance
with the letter of the law;
It is living in accordance with the Spirit,
the Spirit of Christ himself,
for it is the Spirit that makes us,
“competent to be ministers
of the new covenant.”

When we become part of this church
we sign no contract,
no document that spells out the letter of the law
that church and member agree to;
some churches do that: require each new member
to sign a covenant.
We don’t; we come together in covenant community,
each of us taking on responsibility of covenant life,
which is the new life in and through Jesus Christ.

Paul concludes his letter to the Corinthians
with the words,
“if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation,
everything old has passed away;
see, everything has become new.”
That is the promise God makes with each of us
in the covenant that is Jesus Christ.

As you look ahead to September, and the Fall,
a time of year when we start anew,
when the autumn breezes blow through our lives
clearing away the stale and making room for the fresh,
it is the ideal time to reflect on how you live in covenant
with God, with Christ,
with family, with friends,
with one another here in church.
It is the ideal time to renew your own commitment
to be a minister of the covenant,
a covenant that is grace and love,
given you in grace and love through Jesus Christ,
by our loving Father in Heaven.
AMEN