 Seven women sat in a circle in the quietest room in the church, struggling to finish the covenant. We wrote most of it during our first two meetings and decided that we would work with it awhile before we finished it. We pulled our copies out and looked at them again. "Do we need to be more specific?" someone asked. "Do we all agree with all the statements we made?" another asked. "What are we missing?"
We wanted it to be clear enough to challenge us and know if we were following it, spacious enough for each of us to find our own way to live it out, and common enough we could all agree to it.
"I think we should read the Bible everyday." Heads slowly nodded in agreement. We struggled a few moments to decide where to add that clause and how to word it.
"Now what about the reign of God?" I asked.
When we first met to write our covenant, one person suggested that we add "we will pray daily for the coming reign of God" in our Acts of Justice section. Another woman said, "I'm not so sure what that means." After a few minutes we had set it aside and worked on our other clauses, agreeing we'd come back to it. Now, several weeks later, it was time to finish.
We began to wrestle with the statement. What does "the coming reign of God" mean? Is it like praying "thy kingdom come, thy will be done?"
"Does it mean 'shalom?'" one asked. "Is it God's vision of peace in the world?" "It's love, isn't it?" None of these familiar words quite fit.
Then one woman said, "Isn't it seeing the world as God sees it, or as God means for it to be? It's like seeing the world the way it could be if we really lived out all that we are saying we will do." We talked about what it means to practice -- to practice seeing the world as God sees it, to practice moving our lives to fit that vision more closely, to practice transforming the world around us to become what we see. I typed their words as we wrestled with the limitations of language to say what is so holy and impossible and right in front of us all the time.
Finally, we wrote a sentence. We liked it; it seemed right. Then one
woman said, "This goes in our preamble, not under Acts of Justice. This statement describes all that we are trying to do, not just a part." We took another look. We nodded our heads. We put it at the top of our covenant.
"We will envision a world caught by God's reign and seek to take steps that will realize it."
There is something about writing it, claiming it, which makes it seem possible.
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The Rev. Michelle M. Hargrave is pastor of Fairmount Avenue United Methodist Church in St. Paul, MN. You may read her blog at http://33namesofgrace.blogspot.com/.)
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