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‘Covenanted together within the love of Christ we share a common heart for Northumbria and a commitment to wander for the love of Christ wherever the Father leads.’
As we continue to live through 2010 with its promise of huge transition and change at so many levels, we do well to ponder one of our foundational principles as a Community, namely, ‘Building the new on foundations of old’. Whenever we focus on re-evaluation and change we need to do so within the foundational stability of what God has said and is still saying to us about who we are and what we are about as a Community. A good example of this is exploring what it means to be covenanted together.
It’s important that we understand what we mean by covenant, because the notion of covenant or its use as a word is not familiar today, except perhaps in the marriage service.
The root meaning of covenant comes from the Latin ‘con venire’ Lit. = a coming together. That is, a bond entered into voluntarily by two (or more) parties by which each pledges to do something for the other. Where those ‘coming together’ determine what roles, rights and responsibilities are needed for a common understanding of the agreement entered into.
This of course is the shared commitment to loving-kindness and steadfast loyalty we read about again & again in the Bible, with the covenant God saying, ‘I shall be your God, you shall be my people’. Jer 31:33. A common understanding of what it means to say Yes to God in ‘coming together’ with Him.This awareness of a common understanding is so important, which is why I want to briefly comment on what we don’t mean by covenant before emphasising what we do mean, in order to have a common understanding of our shared vocation in being covenanted together.
1] Our meaning is NOT that of a Contract – as in a legally binding business agreement for goods or services rendered. Or as in a deed of covenant where we agree to pay monies to a charity. Such contracts involve a give and take arrangement that carry legal obligations where penalties exist for breaking the contract. More often than not entering in with an attitude of ‘I will do my part only as long as you do your part’.
2] Our meaning is NOT that of a Creed – as in Credo = I believe. That is, agreeing statements of faith and doctrine as formal confessions that carry authority from a hierarchy. Creeds tend to be exclusive i.e. unless and until you believe exactly as I believe, we can’t come together in heart. It follows that they are often static, legalistic, unchanging and lifeless.
3] Rather, our meaning IS that of Companionship – Something distinctly relational, not merely propositional or contractual. It is a shared lifestyle; a life lived with a common purpose and mutual intention. So that, to use Bonhoeffer’s term, we are ‘banded together’ to explore ‘a new type of monasticism’ as Companions under a common Rule of life.
Contract or creed can be impersonal, i.e. simply a unity of cooperation to achieve a common goal, whereas covenant is personal, a unity of persons which can’t be described in functional terms alone, hence companionship.
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