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Rev. Steven Davis

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The Gift Of Unity - September 18 2011 sermon

 

I was glad when they said to me, ‘Let us go to the house of the Lord!’ Our feet are standing within your gates, O Jerusalem. Jerusalem - built as a city that is bound firmly together. To it the tribes go up, the tribes of the Lord, as was decreed for Israel, to give thanks to the name of the Lord. For there the thrones for judgment were set up, the thrones of the house of David. Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: ‘May they prosper who love you. Peace be within your walls, and security within your towers.’ For the sake of my relatives and friends I will say, “Peace be within you.” For the sake of the house of the Lord our God, I will seek your good. (Psalm 122:1-9)
 
 
     Unity and community. They just go together. Even if you just look at the word itself – you can't have community unless you have unity. They just go together. If you remember the old song, they're kind of like love and marriage – they go together like a horse and carriage. You can't have one without the other. Truly. If you have two or more people who have unity around some issue you have a community of sorts, and you can't have any type of community if you don't have some sort of unity around some common issues. Think of the various communities we belong to, and we see that unity and community are a daily part of our lives. In addition to the church, we have our city, our province and our country – all with some unifying ideas. I spend time a lot of mornings and some afternoons talking with parents at Steele Street School, because in a way the school Hannah attends is a kind of community with a unity that revolves around making the school the best it can be. I've belonged to various groups and associations over the years. I've belonged to political parties, labour unions and community organizations. All with something that holds that particular community together. It's not unanimity, because I've never known any community of any kind in which all the members agree with each other completely, but it is unity – it's people with a common goal or belief who in spite of their differences want to work together for some common purpose. That's community, and unity is the thing that makes community possible. You can't have one without the other.
 
     When I look back, most of my life I've been lucky. I've generally had the good fortune of being accepted as a part of some community. Let's face it, I've got a lot of privilege going for me. I'm white, I'm male, I'm straight, I'm middle class, I'm Protestant, I'm anglophone. It's never been hard for me to find some sort of community to belong too; some group that I could identify with. To be alone – to try to make it without that community to belong to and be nurtured by – how would one manage it? The closest I came to experiencing that was probably Grades 7 and 8. For whatever reason (and I never really understood it) I became the subject of almost non-stop verbal bullying from kids who had come from a different feeder school than I had come from for those two years. It never became physical, because early on I showed that I'd stand up for myself if I had to, but the verbal abuse continued. Those who had been my friends from my previous school abandoned me, I guess because they figured they'd become the next targets. I went from being a popular kid with lots of friends to a lonely kid with no friends in the space of a few months. I distinctly remember lunch periods, when everyone else would be sitting at tables in the cafeteria talking and laughing, but I'd take my sandwich outside and walk around the neighbourhood eating it because no one would sit with me if I stayed at school. Somehow it was easier being alone walking the sidewalks than it was sitting by myself at a table. I became something of an expert at faking being sick just so that I wouldn't have to go to school. My marks went down (actually they were terrible in those years.) Things got better in high school. The kids who tormented me went to a different high school, but it was still probably Grade 11 before I started to enjoy school and do well at it again, and even then there were still kids who remembered me as the target of the bullies and so I couldn't really escape the legacy. It wasn't until I went off to university that I was finally totally removed from that past and could start over again. But I remember those two years of hell and torment even now, almost 35 years later. But if there's a bright side to what I experienced, it's that I learned to appreciate the importance of both unity and community.
 
     I read something like Psalm 122 with such a sense of joy and wonderment; almost reflecting the words of the author who began by saying “I was glad when they said to me, ‘Let us go to the house of the Lord!’ ” “I was glad!” I hear those words. I was glad when they said to me, “you're going off to high school, and leaving this place behind.” I was glad when they said to me, “you're going off to university and leaving that part of your past behind.” I was glad when God said to me, “you're a part of my family – go to my house.” I was glad when God said to me, “you're mine and you always will be.” I was glad 7 years ago when Central United Church said to me, “you're ours, and you're coming here.” I'm glad 7 years later, when I can say to you “we belong to each other, because we're all part of God's family.” I was glad! I am glad! I always will be glad, because God has opened up to me – and to all of us – the wonderful privilege of being bound together with one another and with countless numbers throughout the world and throughout the ages by adopting us as beloved children. Yes. I'm glad. I hope you're glad. The author of the psalm understood it. He was glad. “I was glad when they said to me, ‘Let us go to the house of the Lord!’ ”
 
     He was glad about Jerusalem. Most of the Psalm is about Jerusalem. It's about “Jerusalem - built as a city that is bound firmly together.” But it's about more than a city. For whoever wrote this psalm, Jerusalem was more than just a place – it was an idea, it was a concept, it was an image. It was the place where the divine met the human. Jerusalem was where God's people gathered. It was the place where God's people celebrated their common faith and the unity God had gifted them with. This was their identity; this was, in a very real sense, who they were. As a concept or image, Jerusalem is still with us. Not the ancient city of the psalm, characterized by the community of God's people gathered together. Not the reality of later centuries – a city torn apart by violence and conflict. The unity of God's people was already a distant memory on the day when Jesus stood in the city in the midst of the people and cried out, “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it!” But even in the midst of that ugly reality there was hope; there was a promise; there was perhaps a glimpse of something better. “How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!” The issue isn't that God doesn't want us to enjoy unity with one another as God's children; it's a question of our willingness. That unity remains a distant memory today. Jerusalem remains a city torn into factions, with the three great faiths that trace themselves back to Abraham having spent centuries fighting over it and still fighting amongst themselves. “My people, My people,” I suspect Jesus cries out today. “How I wish I could gather you together and fill you with my peace and my love and my grace.” You see, that's what Jesus wants to do. We have the object of our unity among us even now. For the psalmist, the unity was found in the temple - “the house of the Lord” which he rejoiced to approach. For us, our unity is found in Jesus, around Whom we gather to be refreshed and revived and sustained and strengthened and comforted. The psalmist was made “glad” by the opportunity to go “to the house of the Lord.” Like the psalmist I'm glad to be here today – not for the chance to be in a church building, but to be in the presence of Jesus, and to be in the midst of at least a small portion of God's people. That's what makes me glad; that's what should make each of you glad. 
 
     This gift of unity, focused on Jesus, is such a precious gift. It doesn't mean unanimity. It doesn't mean we have to agree on everything or even on many things. It means that we have the common experience of being glad to enter the presence of Jesus together. It means being here, with Jesus in the centre, and with whatever might divide us being overwhelmed by the sheer power of God's love and grace that shines from Him. It's our trust in Him that brings us together; it's our faith in Him that gives us unity – a unity that helps us to be the people of God wherever and whenever we have the opportunity to gather together to be about God's business. You see, there's yet another image of Jerusalem in the Scriptures. There's the Jerusalem of the future hope; the place of which John would write, “I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them; they will be His peoples, and God Himself will be with them; He will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away.’”
 
     That's Jerusalem. A place of perfect peace and unity and wholeness and well-being. As disciples of Jesus gathered here at Central United Church, we're called to make that vision a reality – at least among ourselves for the moment, but also with an openness to others and a desire to share that joy and gladness with others. I think back to my days in Grade 7 & 8, walking the sidewalks through the neighbourhood  while eating lunch. What it would have meant to me to have someone join me; to have received an invitation; to have had someone willing to risk friendship with an outcast. The author of the psalm was made “glad” when he was asked to go to the house of the Lord, because in that place there would be no divisions – there would be only the unity of God's people joined together to rejoice in God's presence. Just as we're doing today. I'm glad to be here. I'm glad you're here. I'm glad God has invited us all! What a gift!
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