January 5, 2007 Krum Star
Article
"Contracts or Covenants"
Our society keeps going by
means of contracts.
A contract is an agreement
generally enforceable by law between two or more parties
for the doing or not doing of some specified thing. We
hire people to do something for us, and those people are
often called “contractors.” Contract labor
is a big part of the workforce climate today. Contact
employees agree to work for a certain period of time or
to complete a certain project. Generally, contract employees
have far fewer rights than regular employees. Their employment
can be terminated at will, without warning or prior notice.
Such employees generally don’t share in health and
pension benefits. In so many ways, the word “contract”
sounds very hard, rigid, unbending, without much softening
or space to move.
A covenant, according to www.dictionary.com
has a very similar definition: an agreement, usually formal,
between two or more persons to do or not do something
specified. The words, “enforceable by law”
do not appear in this definition. It is instead more of
a powerful agreement reached by two parties that involves
a connection not well defined by legal language. It is
made when those in some sort of connection with each other
decide to take that connection to the next level. The
covenant we are most familiar with is the marriage covenant.
Two people decide that they will, for the rest of their
lives if at all possible, live out of promises they make
to each other. But there are lots of other covenants around.
Covenants of life-long friendship. Covenants made on the
battlefield or in the hospital room. A covenant is a promise
and it is a promise that the covenant-maker will go to
the ends of the earth to fulfill. A covenant takes a contract
to the fullest extent of its meaning.
A contact is to a covenant
as artificial turf is to a rich organically grown meadow
of flowers and grasses and herbs. The contract skims the
surface. It can get the job done and people’s feet
can be held to the fire. A covenant, however, provides
for the riches of connection and trust. Ultimately, a
covenant is a far more binding and much tougher agreement.
Covenants are not made casually. Contracts are. Most of
us are in dozens of contract arrangements. The written
agreements are full of legalese, and only the very detail
oriented even begin to read and understand them. But a
covenant . . . oh my. It is in the practice and keeping
of covenant that we learn just what we are made of; whether
it is long lasting steel or quickly rotting pressboard
that forms our interior.
Join us in church at Krum UMC,
at the corner of McCart and 2nd, on Sunday. Let us discover
the fullness of covenant with God. That’s a connection
that will last.
