covenant thoughts

do we have an imagination adequate for covenant? or has our image of covenant been so eroded by today's stories that we can no longer even drum up the energy to imagine a world where faithfulness is a virtue, and keeping a promise is honourable?

so instead we have a tarnished and tin-plate concept of relationship: something to furtively strip-mine whatever we can lay our hands on before proper disposal (or, nowadays, recycling).

covenant thoughts - god and us (because he started it all!)

god has covenanted to be with us. we cannot grasp this. in his presence a small, but significant, part of us gibbers in primeval fear that, this time, we really have blown it and, this time, he will reject us. we conceal, rather than reveal, ourselves because we cannot imagine that we could be in a relationship in which 'rejection' and 'divorce' are not viable options.

yet we fail to keep our part of the covenant if we hide. covenant requires us to present ourselves to god - dirty, fearful, deceitful as we may be. our responsibility is to take him at his word.

covenant thoughts - marriage (because maybe my feeble imagination can comprehend something of my relationship with god through my relationship with my wife?)

i have several responsibilities in my covenant relationship with mrs hope. one in particular has recently struck me with it's importance: my duty to disclose my baggage to my covenant partner. not for my sake, but for our sake.

in resolving to be open about my baggage with mrs hope, i enable us to reinforce our commitment to one another. i will not go elsewhere with my baggage. mrs hope will not reject me. separation is not an option. by being open with each other we declare we will work through anything and everything no matter what.

covenant thoughts - church (because god uses the metaphor of marriage for his relationship with the church - why can't we?)

what if we committed to one church community for life? what if we gave up our supposed right to ourselves as individuals (or individual families) and joined ourselves to a church community for life? what if all major life decisions were evaluated, from an interdependent viewpoint, with our church community?

what would it say to the world about covenant? about relationships? about courage? about sacrifice, the meaning of success, or living life to the full? about contentment, the 'poverty' of finiteness, self-control? and what would it require from us?