When preaching on family issues, it is important to remember
that in the Church the nuclear family is not the only entity needing attention.
The family of God most evidently expressed in local congregations also needs
direct and clear teaching about what it means to live together faithfully.
Placing this sermon in the context of a series on marriage and family will
make the connection that the New Testament regularly makes: Church and family
have very close parallels.
The text for this sermon is Psalm 133, one of the “songs
of ascent.” These were songs that were sung by pilgrims on their journey
up to Jerusalem for worship. These songs guided their journey and provided
significant teaching along the way. They served to remind the people of their
identity. Here, the reminder is that under God they are a family, and how
they live together has much to do with the health of their relationship to
God.
This particular angle on the psalm and some of the language
of the sermon comes from a wonderful book by Eugene H. Peterson, A Long
Obedience in the Same Direction (Intervarsity Press, 2000). The challenge
here is that just because we are a family of faith doesn’t necessarily
mean we are one big happy family. The people that show up at the family altar
are not always nice people. Some are kind of cranky. Others are kind of dull.
Some are just plain weird. But the Lord tells us that they are our brothers
and sisters. As others have said, “If God is your Father, then you are
my brother—you are my sister.”
This sermon is based on a chapter from Eugene H. Peterson’s
book A Long Obedience in the Same Direction. This book is an excellent resource
for a sermon series on the psalms of ascent (Psalms 120—134).
Some of you know all too well what General Assembly is. It’s
the quadrennial gathering of the Church of the Nazarene. It last happened
a couple of summers ago in Indianapolis as forty thousand people from all
over the world came together. It’s a time for inspiration, business,
and mission strategy, but even more than that it’s a family reunion.
The hallways of the convention center are filled with people joyfully renewing
acquaintance from the past.
Now I’m an avid observer of people. When I have to wait
in airports, I love to watch the people go by. It’s amazing how diverse
we are and yet at the same time how similar we are. So at General Assembly
I love to watch and to be amazed at this crazy family of ours called church.
I don’t know if your family does family reunions; but have you ever looked
around at your extended family and said to yourself, “I just can’t
believe I’m a part of this group”?
And I guess that could be said out of joyful amazement, and
it could be said out of disappointment. But it’s our family. We don’t
have much choice about it. I sometimes have similar thoughts about this crazy
family that is our local congregation. Sometimes I just wonder, “How
in the world did I get hooked up with a group like this?”
Don’t you ever think that? We have a lot of similarities
because we live in the same general area and have a common faith, but other
than that there is an awful lot that makes us different. In fact, there’s
really no reason that we should come together like this, except for our common
faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
This is one crazy family, but you are my brothers, and you are
my sisters. Even those of you who drive me crazy! And I am your brother, even
when I drive you crazy! That we are a family is God’s design. You see,
whether we like it or not, the second we confess Jesus Christ as Lord and
Savior, we become a member of the Church. Even if we never officially join
and even if we stay away from the community of faith most of the time, it
is impossible to be a Christian and not be part of the Church. It just doesn’t
work that way because we are immediately and automatically adopted into God’s
family—the Church.
The challenge is that just because we are a family of faith
doesn’t necessarily mean we are one big happy family. Because the people
that show up at the family altar are not always nice people. Some are kind
of cranky. Others are kind of dull. Some are just plain weird. But the Lord
tells me (I’m not making this up now, the Lord says) that they are my
brothers and sisters. If God is your Father, then you are my brother—you
are my sister.
A third grade Sunday School teacher was giving a Bible lesson
on the commandment, “Honour thy father and thy mother” (Exodus 20:12,
KJV). And during the course of the lesson she asked, “Now, does anyone
know a commandment for brothers and sisters?” I’m sure she was thinking
about some passage on brotherly love, but one sharp little girl raised her
hand and said, “Yeah, ‘Thou shalt not kill’” (v. 13, KJV).
One of my favorite quotes on the nature of this crazy family
called church comes from the writing of Carlo Carretto. I have this passage
displayed on the wall of my study. I look at it often. It says:
How baffling you are, oh church, and yet how I love you! How
you have made me suffer, and yet how much I owe you! I should like to see
you destroyed, and yet I need your presence.
You have given me so much scandal and yet you have made me understand
sanctity. I have seen nothing in the world more devoted to obscurity, more
compromised, more false, and I have touched nothing more pure, more generous,
more beautiful.
How often I have wanted to shut the doors of my soul in your
face, and how often I have prayed to die in the safety of your arms. No, I
cannot free myself from you, because I am you, although not completely. And
where should I go? (Carlo Carretto, The God Who Comes, Orbis Books,
1994)
That’s what I would call (to borrow a phrase) the “burdensome
joy” of being a part of the church. But here’s the deal: in spite
of the challenge of being part of this crazy family, the question for us can
never be, “Am I going to be a part of a community of faith?” That
question has been answered by the Lord—you are a part of it. The only
question for a Christian is: “How am I going to live in this community
of faith?” And you do have a choice about that.
It’s kind of like children. “Some run away from home
and pretend that the family doesn’t exist. Some move out and get an apartment
on their own from which they make occasional visits, nearly always showing
up for parties and mealtimes. Some would never dream of leaving. They just
make the others wish they would.” Some think that quarreling and complaining
is their God-ordained manner of being in the family. And some (I hope it’s
you) determine to find out what God has in mind for them and what He wants
to teach them by placing them in this crazy family called Church.
Well, our psalm for today, Psalm 133, is a description of what
we are trying to accomplish in the Church: the joy and blessing of learning
what it means to live together in unity. This was sung by a group of people
who were making a journey together. They are on their way up to Jerusalem.
And on this trip they realize that one of their blessings is the fact that
they are going together. It’s good not to have to travel alone. We really
do need each other. That’s why God put us together—because He knows
that we should not attempt to make this journey solo. So the worshipers sing,
“How good and pleasant it is when brothers live together in unity!”
(v. 1). When brothers live together. Like brothers. Wait a minute. I am a
brother. And I am the father of brothers. Truth is, brothers fight! And sisters
fight. Isn’t that true? The first story of brothers in the Bible is the
story of Cain and Abel—a murder story. And to top it off, it’s a
religious fight, a dispute over worship styles.
Then there’s Joseph and his brothers, and David and his
brothers, and even Jesus and His brothers. These are not stories of gushy,
brotherly love. They are stories of conflict. Why is that? Because children
are often so full of their own needs and wants that they look at a sibling
as a competitor and not an ally. If there’s one pork chop on the plate
and two brothers who want it—watch out! This is not a warm, fuzzy psalm.
In reality it’s easier to do almost anything else than what Psalm 133
is calling us to do.
We are being called, not only by this psalm but by the whole
of Scripture, to live together as brothers and sisters under the Lordship
of Jesus Christ. We are to live in unity. So the critical question is, “How
can that happen?” Especially in this family where I spend so much time
wanting to hide my crazy relatives in the closet before company comes?
Well, I guess there are a lot of ways to answer that question,
but this psalm gives us two poetic images that begin to define the unity that
he is talking about. One of those images is “precious oil poured on the
head, . . . running down on Aaron’s beard” (v. 2). The word picture
is from Exodus 29, where instructions are given for the ordination of Aaron
and other priests. After sacrifices were prepared, Aaron was dressed in the
priestly vestments. Then this direction is given: “You shall take the
anointing oil, and pour it on his head and anoint him” (v. 7, rsv).
Oil is a sign of God’s presence, a symbol of the Holy Spirit.
And when the people saw the oil of anointing flowing over the head of Aaron,
they knew that Aaron was to be a priest for them. This is one that God had
chosen to mediate His grace to them. Now remember that under the new covenant
of Christ we are part of the priesthood of all believers. Christ makes us
priests for each other. We are all mediators of the grace of God to each other.
So that living together in unity means I am willing to see the anointing oil
of God’s Spirit flow through you to me. It means that I am willing to
accept you as a priest, one who mediates the mysteries of God to me, one who
represents Christ to me. Unity comes when I am willing to learn even from
those brothers and sisters who make me crazy sometimes.
Folks, in a church like ours there are some people who are going
to drive you crazy. There are some people who are going to irritate you. There
are some people that you’d just as soon stay away from. Listen closely
now: what you and I do not have is the luxury of writing anybody off in the
Body of Christ. That’s how the world does it, but that’s not the
way in the Body of Christ. You do not have the luxury of avoiding and excluding
and protecting and managing folks out of your little sphere of relationship.
Think for a moment about the person who bugs you the most in the church. According
to God, they are a priest to you. Which means they are God’s chosen instrument
to help shape your life in the image of Christ Jesus. To intentionally exclude
and write off anyone who is a brother or sister in Christ is in effect to
say to God: “You don’t know what You’re doing.”
The second image here is the phrase in verse 3: “It is
as if the dew of Hermon were falling on Mount Zion.” What’s that
all about? Hermon is the highest mountain in that part of the world, rising
above 9,000 feet. At those kinds of altitudes, the morning dew is very heavy.
If you have ever experienced camping out at those kinds of elevations, you
know the feeling of that kind of morning dew. “There’s a sense of
freshness and a clean anticipation of a new day and of growth. That freshness
of the morning dew is an oft-used image of the hope and expectation that new
things are ahead for us. Things look better in the morning.”
And in the church we need that ever-renewed sense of expectation
that God is at work among us, and He is doing new things in the lives of our
brothers and sisters in the faith. A community of faith flourishes when we
view each other with that kind of expectancy, wondering what God will do today
in this one or in that one.
I will confess that some days I wonder if God really knew what
He was doing when He created the Church. This can be one crazy family. But
I do believe that God knew exactly what He was doing. Because somehow in the
task of learning how to live together and to love each other, we learn what
it means to be children of the Father.
And you have to know that this idea of unity is not a side issue.
It’s central. When Jesus prayed for us, He prayed, “[Father], may
they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me”
(John 17:23). And in one of the greatest descriptions of Christ’s Church,
Paul writes in Ephesians 4: “Make every effort to keep the unity of the
spirit through the bond of peace” (v. 3).
“How good and pleasant it is when brothers live together
in unity!” It is so true. Unity is amazing to the world. It draws them
and makes them want to know how it could happen in a family like this. Disunity
is ugly and damaging and hurtful to the cause of Christ. One of the scariest
verses in the Bible comes in Proverbs 6—a description of things that
God hates. The last one on the list of things He hates is “a person who
sows discord among brothers” (v. 19, NLT).
This is one crazy family that God has called you to be a part
of. But if you want to belong to Christ, you have no choice—you also
belong to us. Simple question: are you helping us to experience unity? Are
we a more unified family because of you? Or are we a less unified family because
of you?
There’s no question about what God wants. He promises,
in the last verse, His eternal blessing to those who will live this way.
So, will you?
