Bible Reading: 1 Corinthians 12:12-31 & Luke 4:14-21
Dear Friends
Methodists hold an annual Covenant Service, at which we celebrate all that God has done for us and affirm that we give our lives and choices to God. Most churches hold the service in the New Year.
The traditional Covenant prayer (shown below) makes it very clear that this affirmation is a serious one that embraces the whole of our life, in all its parts. Most people find it quite tough to say, and really mean it. But the prayer is so central to the Christian life that other Churches have also adopted it. In our culture we tend to prize our ability to make decisions and choose our own path in life. It can feel very hard to give that up. But this prayer is like a love poem. It is about surrendering to God in love and joy.
The Covenant Service goes back to John Wesley’s time. He wanted a form of worship which would help people open themselves to God more fully. In 1755 Wesley created such a service, using material from the writings of the seventeenth-century puritans divines, Joseph and Richard Alleine. Over succeeding generations the Methodist Church has made changes to the service so that it continues to be relevant to congregations using it. The aim of the service is to help people hear God’s offer and God’s challenge; to provide space for God to prompt and for people to respond. Yet, more than this, for the Covenant Service is not just a one-to-one transaction between individuals and God, it is an act of the whole faith community.
The Covenant Prayer has been compared by some to a set of New Year resolutions, but ones that emphasise the importance of doing and being as much as believing. But more than that, the prayer represents a commitment to being a disciple and putting God first in our lives and in everything about our lives: what we do, what we say and who we are. It is both a surrender to, and a trust in, God. “The words ‘put me to doing, put me to suffering,’ … do not mean that we ask God to make us suffer, but rather that we desire, by God’s help, actively to do and patiently to accept whatever is God’s will for us.” Here’s the prayer, to say alone, in a small group, or as a family, perhaps even share it with colleagues:
A covenant with God
I am no longer my own but yours. Put me to what you will, rank me with whom you will; put me to doing, put me to suffering; let me be employed for you, or laid aside for you, exalted for you, or brought low for you; let me be full, let me be empty, let me have all things, let me have nothing: I freely and wholeheartedly yield all things to your pleasure and disposal. And now, glorious and blessed God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, you are mine and I am yours. So be it. And the covenant now made on earth, let it be ratified in heaven.