The Tie that Binds: Unity
Psalm 133, Romans 12:9:-18
Emmanuel Baptist Church
June 7, 2020; Rev. Kathy Donley
A recording of the service in which this sermon was preached may be viewed here: https://youtu.be/e9tfv8mWNIk
How good and pleasant it is, when kindred live together in unity. How good and pleasant it is, when people live together in unity. About this time last year, my family was in Finland. Finland was part of Sweden for about 700 years and Swedish has an official status there. So all the signs are in both languages, much like Canada uses both English and French. When it was my turn to be served in a coffee shop, the barrista turned and addressed me in Swedish or Finnish, I’ll never know which, but as soon as American words came out of my mouth, he immediately switched to English. I watched as he easily conversed in whatever language was needed by the customer in front of him. How good and pleasant it is, when people live together in unity.
After Helsinki, we went to Berlin. It’s a place where there are still reminders of the wall and the river which once violently divided the city. It’s a place where people pray for world peace every Friday in a the shell of a church destroyed by bombs. It is a vibrant, lively unified city, dedicated to remembering its past so the future will be different. How good and pleasant it is when people live together in unity.
Psalm 133 is a pilgrimage psalm. It’s one of 15 psalms that might once have been in small songbook for use for people on their journey to Jerusalem. Verse 1 says “how good and pleasant it is when kindred live together in unity.” “Kindred” refers to family. Families travelled together to Jerusalem for religious or political festivals. Families were and are a crucial institution. In our families we learn may intimacy, love and growth. In our families, we may learn resentment, abuse, prejudice, and destructive behaviors. We know from experience that harmony is not automatic in families and so we can readily affirm – how good and pleasant it is when people live together in unity.
What we learn in our families, we will likely reproduce in other relationships. If what we learned is hurtful, it may take a good deal of work and practice to learn new, healthy behaviors. Psalm 133 starts at the level of family, but its main theme is the unity of the country. It refers to dew of Mt Hermon, which represents the people of Israel, flowing down on Mt. Zion, the center of Judah. It holds open the possibility of reuniting a country which has been divided into two.[1]
One image of unity is the oil that flows over the head of a high priest at his installation. It is not an image that we relate to very well, but we can appreciate that the oil poured on the top of his will flow down and consecrate his whole being.
The second image is of the dew from Mt. Hermon, the highest mountain in the land. The dew is the only precipitation in the dry season and it is sufficient to produce a harvest of grapes. It flows down, like the rain, on the just and the unjust, the deserving and the undeserving, a blessing to all.
I am struck that the two images of unity are oil and water. Oil and water, which we know, are not easily mixed. Oil and water molecules bond with their own kind, unless continuously forced into relationships. What a provocative suggestion about the nature of unity among humans.
I don’t have to tell you about oil and water. You have seen it for yourselves. You have seen it this week in city after city, including our own. In peaceful protests and less peaceful rebellion, in tear gas and pepper balls and riot gear, in looting and the imposition of curfews, in the voices of the oppressed demanding justice for all, reminding us all about the unity and equality upon which our country is supposedly founded. How good and pleasant it is when people live together in unity. We understand that most clearly when it is not happening.
When unity is absent, how do we find it again? In his book, Life Together, Dietrich Bonhoeffer said “The first service that one owes to others in the fellowship consists in listening to them. . . . It is God’s love for us that not only gives us [God’s] Word but also lends us his ear. . . .
Many people are looking for an ear that will listen.”[2]
He wrote that in 1939, another time of great disunity in the world. So many people are still looking for an ear that will listen. There are so many voices speaking on top of each other. There are the voices of people of color who have been crying out for justice for hundreds of years. There are voices of white supremacists who are trying to change the narrative. And those representing law and order who may stand for justice, but may also have other agendas. And those of us who want to be good listeners will have to work hard to hear the truth.
Bonhoeffer continues “They do not find it among Christians because these Christians are talking when they should be listening. . . . [The one] who can no longer listen to his brother [or sister] will soon be no longer listening to God either. . . .
This is the beginning of the death of the spiritual life. . . . .
Christians have forgotten that the ministry of listening has been committed to them by [God] who is the great listener and whose work they should share. We should listen with the ears of God that we may speak the Word of God.[3]
I am learning again how hard it is to listen. I’m spending so much time on the phone and in Zoom meetings where I can’t read facial expressions and body language, where I have to rely on my ears more than ever. Bonhoeffer says that listening is a ministry, a service, entrusted to us by God.
“We should listen with the ears of God that we may speak the word of God.” The word of God is a word of strong love always. Throughout the Bible, the word of God is a word that brings good news to the poor, release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind and lets the oppressed go free.
So, as we sort through the conflicting narratives, as we seek the truth which may restore unity, let us listen especially for the good news to the poor and for release of the captives. And let us listen for recovery of sight, aware that we, ourselves may be the ones who need that most. Let us be open to hearing a perspective different from our own, a point of view that might help us to understand a new reality, so that we may live together in unity.
This is a hard time for most of us, for many reasons. Many feel that our country is coming apart, that our oily and watery natures will never mix, never learn even to get along. But others are seeing signs of hope. And I’m choosing, when I can, to listen to them. One person who offers hope is the Rev. John Floberg.
Rev. Floberg is a supervising priest for 3 churches on the Standing Rock Sioux Nation where he has served for about 30 years. You will remember Standing Rock and the resistance there to the Dakota Access Pipeline. Sixty-seven Emmanuelites signed a statement in support of Standing Rock at that time.
This week, John Floberg wrote these words, “I am writing as the priest at Standing Rock during the NoDAPL stand-off of 2016 and 2017. I write because I feel a need to process once again the events of those days and what it taught me that is being repeated in this day - but on a different scale.
When the fires went out in the Camp it was stated that the fire is not out, it has been relit in many more places.
What had been very much an amazing show of solidarity as people and nations came with their flags to Standing Rock and thousands streamed into the Camps - is now this amazing show of solidarity ablaze in the country.
The NoDAPL movement is about oil - but much more about oil as a means of threatening a people and the callous disregard for those people by others in power. The NoDAPL movement is about Indigenous people and the solidarity that others provided to witness their Standing. People did not come to Standing Rock to get them on their feet - they came because they were standing up.
And now the injustice of some in Law Enforcement, a large piece of what was experienced at Standing Rock is being experienced throughout the cities of our country. But people are not all flocking to Minneapolis where George Floyd was murdered. People are, by and large, standing up in their own communities to cry for justice. This part of the NoDAPL Camp Fires has been kindled and the light is showing brightly all around this country.”[4]
What some of us are seeing as disunity, as conflict, as coming apart, John Floberg sees as unity, unity for the cause of justice, a unity that may yet lead to a change of heart and reconciliation.
How very good and pleasant it is when people live together in unity. Beloved ones, let our love be genuine, hate what is evil, hold fast to the good and as far as it depends on us, may be live peaceably with all. Amen.
[1] J. Clinton McCann, Jr. quoting Adele Berlin in The New Interpreter’s Bible, Vol. IV, (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1996), p. 1214.
[2] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together (New York: Harper and Row, 1954), p. 97
[3] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together, pp. 97-98
[4] John Floberg, his post in the Facebook group Clergy With Standing Rock, June 5, 2020