[Audio not available.]

In the year 1784, John Wesley, a priest of the Church of England, and a Fellow of Oxford University, published a pamphlet for a liturgy designed as a Covenant Renewal Service.

It began with a preamble:

Get these three principles fixed in your hearts: that Things eternal are more considerable than Things temporal; that Things not seen are as certain as the things that are seen; that upon your present choice depends your eternal lot. Choose Christ and his ways, and you are blessed forever; refuse, and you are undone for ever. And then, Make your Choice.

This liturgy has deep roots in biblical tradition. Scripture records a number a covenant renewal ceremonies in which the people of God renewed their commitment to the divine covenant.

Genesis 15 describes the first covenant renewal ceremony. The Lord appears before Abram as a burning fi repot and enacts an ancient rite of commitment.

Exodus 19-20 describes how Israel entered into covenant with God at Mt. Sinai, a covenant which they broke, but which was renewed in Exodus 33 and sealed by the construction of the tabernacle.

The entire book of Deuteronomy is cast as a covenant renewal document. After recalling to memory the people’s experience of God’s faithfulness, Moses exhorts the people to commitment saying,

See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil, I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live; that you may love the LORD your God, that you may listen to and follow his voice, and that you may cling to him, for he is your life and the length of your days. (Deuteronomy 30)

And so it goes through the rest of Scripture. Joshua exhorts the people following Moses death, after the people had entered the Promised Land: “Choose this day whom you will serve. As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”

A church is a covenant community. It continues the Biblical covenant-making and covenant-keeping tradition. Covenantmaking and covenant-keeping comes to life in ceremonies and rituals of commitment.

In its basic form, baptism is a covenant renewal ceremony. Indeed, Holy Communion, is a call to renewal of commitment every Sunday. We reenact the Lord’s Last Supper with his disciples by which he called them to commitment – to remember him, and in remembering him, to love one another, even as he has loved them.

Today we are bringing the covenant renewal tradition forward and making it explicit in our liturgy. We have invited our parishioners to renew their commitment to God and to one another. We have distributed a Commitment Card to every parishioner.

Our challenge is to stand up and with one voice re-affi rm a genuine commitment to the One Eternal Covenant we share in Christ Jesus.