Sermon of the Week:
Things We Do To Heal
An online sermon preached with The Kirk of Kansas City, Missouri, on August 16, 2020.
Week three of a nine part sermon series:
I Feel Seen: Ancient Stories and Modern Wisdom
Keywords: Joseph, Forgiveness, Reconciliation, Unity, Beard Oil. #pcusa
Scripture readings (which you may wish to read prior):
Psalm 133
and Genesis 45:1-15
Permission to podcast / stream the music in this service obtained from ONE LICENSE with license #A-733469. All rights reserved.
This week I found myself dreaming
of something that feels increasingly out of reach these days:
what it would look like for kindred to live together in unity.
A few years ago, when I might feel pessimistic
about the ability of people to avoid
presumptive maligning and rancorous arguing over something,
all I would have to do is take a break from reading the comments on the news articles for a while
or I could step away from facebook,
dedicate a bit more time to in-person relationships,
hold the door open for someone at the pharmacy…
receive a smile and a thank you, and you’d be reassured of the potential harmony you find there…
These days, do you wonder if it is just harder?
Disputes over wearing facemasks during a pandemic have led to altercations at subway and costco,
people have strong feelings about whether
it’s a good idea to send kids to in-person school right now or not,
even something as obvious as affirming that black lives matter to God and to us
because they do…
even that sends neighbors over the edge.
There’s no shortage of discord and angst and disunity these days.
And I’ve had to wonder, you know,
if it has been something of a privilege, to dream of unity,
me, not living in the dangerous part of town,
not wondering where my next meal is going to come from,
not fretting about a routine traffic stop
or the fact that my kids, now fourteen, will start driving soon
and will have a traffic stop of their own someday…and I presume that they’ll be ok when they do.
And then again, its election season
which makes all of it worse, more fraught, in a way,
and for many of us, the stakes feel higher this time around.
Even so, I so very much adore
this little Psalm that Wendy read for us this morning.
The 133rd Psalm is one of the shortest,
three verses, just four sentences,
but generations of faithful people, Jews and Christians alike,
have turned to this psalm with hope and with expectation.
We were talking about this passage a bit at bible study this week
and I was trying to frame for the group what the big deal is about this oil, right
the oil on the head,
running down the beard,
just like the beard of Aaron
running down over the collar of his robes…
and we just don’t intuitively get it.
Seems a little gross, actually,
to have a quart of oil poured over our heads…
olive oil we’re probably talking about here.
Not other things we might call oil.
They didn’t have petroleum or mineral products yet, in the biblical period.
But to get your head around it,
just go to Target or CVS or Walmart sometime
and walk through the aisles of bath salts and lotions and deodorants
and all these products which are tested and formulated and refined
just to make your skin feel oh so good, your hair look healthy and vibrant,
your odor pleasing and your smile inviting.
There are these things called shower bombs,
which are little fizzing wonders that you toss into your shower
and they soften your feet and provide an aromatic steam,
and, if you get the right one, you might just be smiling all day because of it.
Now think about what it was like to live around 1500 BCE, and you might wonder
what was the average guy to do…
Well, Robert Alter, scholar of the Old Testament, reminds us that
“In the Israelite world, as in ancient Greece,
rubbing the hair and body with aromatic olive oil
was one of the palpable physical pleasures of the good life.”[i]
a way to help you remember that life is good, that living is good, that your body is good so good…
This Psalm is called a “Psalm of Ascents”
which means that it is a song sung by those who travel up to high places,
just like “heigh ho, heigh ho, its off to work we go”
of Snow White fame might also be a song of ascent,
but this one, here, was sung by pilgrims going up to the temple mount over Jerusalem,
Where they would look down upon that city
that holy city, the pride of the people,
and pray: How very good
and pleasant
it is
when kindred live together in unity….
knowing full well, as we know, how elusive that vision of humanity is.
///
The biblical world isn’t naive to the tendency of human beings
to be disunited, disjointed, fragmented. [Read more…]
