Coming Home to Covenant: A Reflective Exploration of Pluralism and Partnership

The smallest of moments often carry the seeds of something much larger. I’m reminded of a story about Lin-Manuel Miranda, long before Hamilton became a global phenomenon. On a vacation, he picked up Ron Chernow’s biography of Alexander Hamilton simply as something to read on the beach. It was a quiet, almost incidental act of curiosity. But it sparked a fire within him, a fascination that would eventually grow into something no one could have anticipated. 

While most of us won’t write a Broadway musical, we know what it’s like to have a small moment, a conversation, a question, a shared idea, settle into our hearts and expand. That kind of spark has its own quiet, transformative power. Something that begins as connection often evolves into an invitation for a deeper, more expansive relationship. It was in one such conversation that the Coming Home to Covenant curriculum was born.

Coming Home to Covenant is a 12-week Bible study curriculum designed to help Christian congregations explore the rich, often-overlooked terrain of covenant, a theme that stands at the heart of both Jewish and Christian traditions. The series opens space for deep spiritual reflection and interfaith understanding by drawing from both the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament, as well as contemporary voices and cultural references. It’s designed for real use in real churches, complete with a clear leader’s guide, curated discussion questions, contextual background, and thoughtfully chosen multimedia prompts. Each lesson invites participants into conversation, not just across traditions, but across the dinner table and pew as they reflect on what it means to be in relationship with God and with one another.

At a time when faith can feel isolating or polarized, Coming Home to Covenant offers an alternative: a rooted, relational path forward grounded in sacred text and mutual respect.

The conversation that sparked it was among rabbis and pastors. Reverend Dr. Herbie Miller, Rabbi Brad Hirschfield, Reverend Dr. Brian MacGuire, and I began meeting informally after participating in Clal’s Stand and See Israel trip for Christian pastors in 2022 and 2023. In our monthly conversations, we would read articles, discuss scripture, and talk about life. What began as four people from different faith backgrounds learning together soon became something more. We began noticing not only the differences between us, but the profound commonalities: a love of sacred text, a deep reverence for tradition, and a shared conviction that covenantal life calls us into relationship, with God and with one another.

We began asking ourselves: What if others could join in? What if study could lead not only to learning but to belonging? We decided to create a curriculum out of our conversations; we hoped it would be not just a curriculum, but a gesture of hospitality. A way to explore covenant not as a theoretical concept, but as a living, breathing invitation into understanding and shared hope.

During that Stand and See trip, I had a conversation with a young man serving at our hotel restaurant. He asked me why I was there. When I told him I was from Nebraska and a pastor, his eyebrows raised slightly, not in judgment, but in curiosity. He told me about his own Jewish studies and then asked me pointedly: “Do you take your faith as seriously as I take mine?” I smiled and said, “Yes, I do.” Then he asked the question that still lingers in my mind: “Then why would you want to visit this land, as a Christian? What are you taking back with you?”

He wasn’t testing me. He was genuinely wondering. And I answered the only way I knew how: Since coming to Israel, I had fallen in love with the feel of the earth beneath my feet. With the rhythm of something ancient and alive, swirled together in the streets, in the prayers, in the people. I told him I would take back with me the passion of the people here, and the weight of that passion. We ended up talking for an hour about faith, humanity, and life. We spoke about what made us different, but also about what made us the same. And we wouldn’t have had that moment if we hadn’t simply sat down and talked.

This curriculum, for me, is the extension of that moment: an invitation into dialogue. 

The Stand and See trip we participated in deeply moved and changed Herbie and me, awakening in us a deeper curiosity about the roots of Judaism and a more profound awareness of how our traditions are both intertwined and distinct. Standing in places of shared history and holy memory, we felt the weight of what has been and the possibility of what could be. That experience compelled us toward a more intentional pluralism, not just theologically, but relationally. 

We are humbly and gratefully learning from a Jewish community we are still discovering. It is from that posture of learning, not mastery, that this curriculum was written. It is also rooted in the belief that the concept of covenant is a shared inheritance for both Jews and Christians. Yet covenant, like all sacred things, is not static. It moves, stretches, invites, and challenges. What does it mean to belong to something larger than oneself? How do we stay faithful to people and purposes, even when they are hard to love or understand? What kind of responsibility does covenant call us to in our fractured world?

Pluralism, as I understand it, is not mere tolerance. It is a courageous, committed engagement with difference. It assumes that each tradition holds depth, beauty, and integrity, each deserving of reverence and serious engagement. This project has been a practice in pluralism from the inside out: not only in its content, but in its creation. Herbie and I worked in close tandem throughout the writing process, collaborating deeply with our colleagues Rabbi Hirschfield, Rev. Brian MacGuire, and Rabbi Elan Babchuck. Together, across our Jewish and Christian lenses, we often began from different assumptions or textual instincts. But we never viewed difference as a problem to be solved. We saw it as a gift.

Rabbi Hirschfield often reminds us that “The fight for presence should not rest on the need for another’s absence.” That ethos lives in this curriculum. We do not aim to blur distinctions, nor to erase painful histories. Rather, we attempt to create a space where faithful Jews and faithful Christians can come to the table, not in spite of our differences, but because of them. Where Scripture can be both familiar and strange. Where covenant is not owned, but shared. And in doing so, we will hopefully walk away with far more than we expected: understanding, curiosity, a relationship, and above all, hope.

Brian MacGuire brought a contemplative spirit to our work, reminding us all that the questions of covenant are not primarily institutional, but existential. Elan Babchuck, with his entrepreneurial insight and grounded clarity, helped us shape not only the content but also the strategy for how such a curriculum could live in diverse communities.

Covenants flourish only when we bring our full selves to them. They invite not only to receive but to contribute. This work has changed me. It has reminded me that the best theological work is done in relationship, with Scripture as a place of meeting. That covenant is not only a theological claim but a way of being with others, especially those whose sacred traditions are not my own. We are not trying to finish something with this project. We are trying to begin.

To come home to covenant is not to come back to something fixed and familiar. It is to return, again and again, to relationship: with God, with one another, with the texts that form us, and with the future we are brave enough to imagine together.

May it be so.