On Sunday - Past Sermon

Sermon Title: "How Very Good It Is "
Date: August 14, 2005
Minister: Rev. Charles E. Ensley, Jr.

Lesson:  Psalm 133

Do you ever read the columns in the real estate section of the newspapers?  One of my favorites is the “community association” column of questions and answers.  For eighteen years, we’ve lived in a community association, a sixty-unit condominium complex not far from here.  For ten or twelve years I’ve served on the board of directors of the homeowners’ association, and for the past two-and-a-half years, guess who’s been president of that same association?  I’m in good company, for I know at least two of you are presidents of your homeowners’ association.

Living in a community association is both like and unlike living in a free-standing residence.  As opposed to renting a home or apartment, you have all the advantages of building up home equity, and who of us haven’t seen that soar incredibly in our Southern California real estate market in the past decade?  At the same time, you live in close proximity to fifty, seventy, a hundred or more other homeowners, all of whom own 1/50th, 1/70th, or 1/100th of the common areas:  the exterior walls, roofs, gates and fences, walkways, landscaping, pools, spas, fountains and elevators.  Homeowners pay a monthly association fee to underwrite the maintenance and replacement costs of same.

Things can go along pretty well in such community developments…until a resident has a barking dog larger than is supposed to live there, or they leave storage items on their walkways visible to others, or a resident’s car is left in guest parking, or they think the homeowners’ association should pay the cost of their interior plumbing repairs, or they don’t understand why they, on the first floor, are being assessed for a roof over the third floor units.  Then living together isn’t so cozy.

Lest you think this sermon is going to be a tutorial about the advantages and disadvantages of where I live versus where you live, it’s really inspired by today’s psalm:  “How very good and pleasant it is when kindred [meaning brothers, relatives] live together in unity!”  (133:1)

The Bible is full of stories of families, especially brothers, who were unable to live together in peaceful unity.  Abraham and Lot were unable to coexist on the same land with their flocks, families and hired help, and neither were Jacob and Esau.  Almost inevitably there was a parting of the ways, and although Abraham and Lot were able to do so amicably, such was not usually the case.

Brotherly unity is likened by the Psalmist to “the precious oil on the head” which runs “down upon the beard,” and runs “down over the collar of his robes.”  The pouring of oil seems to have been a sign of hospitality in the ancient Near East, signaling joy and relatedness, as well as an official act of consecrating kings and priests.

Yet in verse three the Psalmist speaks of both the dew of Hermon, in the northern kingdom, and the mountains of Zion, the hill upon and around which Jerusalem was built, in the southern kingdom, some 140 miles south of Hermon.  These kingdoms were divided at the time of this psalm’s writing.  It becomes clear that the ultimate goodness God intends is the gathering of God’s larger family, the whole people of God.  When God’s people come together in Jerusalem, God’s place, they experience their true family and home, for they are in touch with the true source of their life—God’s presence.

The teachings and actions of Jesus move in the same direction as does Psalm 133, and they serve to bring into focus the radical implication of this direction.  In the Gospel of Mark, when Jesus’ mother and brothers come to see him, he looks at those around him and says, “Here are my mother and my brothers!  Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.” (3:35-36)  In other words, the most important sphere of relatedness is defined as the larger family of God’s people.  Today, the next sphere of God’s people larger than our own family we call the church, or the local congregation, where we profess our faith and live out our lives together.  And sometimes, as in our families of origin, we don’t always agree on everything about our faith.

I suppose it was even before I entered seminary 35 years ago that I realized you can prove just about anything with one Bible verse or another.  Take the sixth commandment, for instance:  “You shall not kill.”  One could take that to apply to abortion, capital punishment, murder or manslaughter, both premeditated and unintentional.  Or, if one is in favor of abortion but not capital punishment, how do you justify that against the sixth commandment?  What of a person driving on a rain-slickened highway who accidentally hits and kills a bicyclist nearly invisible in the darkness?  Should that driver, understandably shocked and shaken for some time, be accused of breaking the sixth commandment?

Theologians, clergy and members of faith communities of every persuasion can argue about that issue at length.  And at the very end, it is quite possible that very few persons’ minds would be changed one way or the other, or that any resolution satisfactory to all could be reached.

The same is true for discussions of divorce.  The divorce rate in this country is alarmingly high, and the current mindset among some is that ‘we’ll stay married if it works out.’  Jesus has some quite harsh things to say about divorce, especially the ease of obtaining it in his day, all around a discussion of the sanctity of marriage.  Yet we, as a society and as a faith community, accept divorce.  How many people do we know in our own families, here in our church, among our friends and co-workers who are much more satisfied and fulfilled in their current marriage versus their first, which perhaps should not even have occurred in the first place?

Both society at large and Christian denominations struggle with the issue of homosexuality, especially as it relates to union ceremonies, or so-called “gay marriage,” and the ordination of homosexuals.  In the past few days, at the national assembly of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, a gathering similar to last month’s General Synod of the United Church of Christ, the delegates were almost evenly split—503 to 490—in denying clergy in “life-long, committed and faithful same-sex relationships” to serve local congregations.  They also upheld a 1993 policy that frowns on blessing same-sex unions.

Yet at the same assembly, by a favorable vote of 851-127, an overwhelming 87% of the delegates urged the 4.9 million member church to find “ways to live together faithfully in the midst of disagreements.”  This matter was covered in yesterday’s Religion section of the Press-Telegram, accompanied by some provocative and timely responses by three clergy in the “Ask the Clergy” column.  I commend it to your reading if you still have a copy.

My wife and I do not agree on every political candidate, on every proposition on a ballot, on every political, theological or moral issue.  Yet, if we make it to this Wednesday, we will have been married for 31 years.  And I’m quite sure not every couple here is of the same mind on every issue, even child-rearing or some of the choices your teens or grown children make.  You simply agree to disagree, and work it out while you continue to live and love together.

We, in the church body, ought to be able to do the same.  We continue to acknowledge the Jewish heritage from which Christianity arose.  But when Christ came, he brought a new covenant between God, present on Earth in Jesus, and God’s people.  When a lawyer of the Pharisees asked Jesus, “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” Jesus answered, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’  This is the greatest and first commandment.  And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’  On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”  (Matthew 22:36-40)  Could Jesus have issued us any better advice on how to live together today?

Tomorrow night, when my condo’s homeowners’ association meets to hear about the special assessment for new roofs, how I wish I could wear my minister’s hat and quote the Psalmist:  “How very good and pleasant it is when kindred live together in unity!”  How I wish I could preach to them that which we in the church already know, and sometimes even succeed in living out.