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COMMUNION MEDITATIGN JOHN fi. BUCHANAN
PSALM 133 BETHANY PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
PHILIPPIANS 2:1-11 LAFAYETTE, INDIANA

OCTOBER 1, 1972

"Behold, how good and pleasant it is when brothers dweli in unity!"

What does that mean: Real Brothers? Fraternity Brothers? In the context of the 133rd
Psalm, written centuries before Christ, it referred to the "clan", the basic unit of Hebrew
culture. The clan closed ranks to celebrate the joyous occassions of life such as birth,
to observe the sad occassion such as death; the clan gathered for mutual protection, for the
shearing of sheep, for the marrying of the young. And it was good to be together.

And yet, in that phrase from the Psalm there is one of the fondest hopes of the human
heart, one of the noblest dreams ever dreamed ~ the unity and comionality of all men: the
universal brotherhood of man, trascending all barriers af nation, race, class or culture,
living together in peace and prosperity.

Well, how does it fare with the ideal today? How are we doing jin the good and pleas-
ant business of dwelling in unity. Hot well, I fear: not very well at all.

A brief hint at what it might be like kept turning up in Munich at the Olympic Games.
Something great was affirmed there, something stirring and. inspiring. Things couldn't be
too bad if beautiful young people could compete head ta head in the arena and embrace after-
ward, But the games of the 20th Olympiad will be remembered, not as the quadrennial
affirmation of brotherhood and international cooperation, so much as the setting for ruth-
Jessness and madness and bloodshed. That's how it goes with noble ideals: they come
crashing down under the onslaught of political reality.

How about elsewhere? How goes the unity business? In Rhodesia and South Africa
apartheid defines unity in terms of “white only". And even as Uganda was urging the
expulsion of Rhedesia from the Olympic games, all Asians and Orientals were being banished
from Uganda. In Belfast bombs punctuate each sundown, and little children Tearn to hate
the “bloody Papists" or the "rotten protestants".

How about here in the home of the free and the land of the brave? Michael Harrington
several years ago said that we were becomeing two nations: one rich ~ the other poor.

The Kerner Commission suggested another dichotomy - : one black ~ the other white. And

this week, Time Magazine held that we are already two nations - badly divided over the

fundamental issues of the day.

Brotherhood and Unity surface occasionally: frequently enough to keep the hope ative.
Project Commitment happened in our own community: people did get together to think about
the problems of human relations - but not very many of them: and certainly not the people |
who have the power to make things happen.

We may Tough at Archie Bunker every Saturday night. But I keep running into Archie
in ways that are not very funny. In the mind of a Frightening numbur of people terms like
nigger, wop, pollack, kike, jap, sti] provide the methodology for establishing “Who's
Whe" in the community. If you want a clinical experience that you won't ferget,grow a
beard, and see what that does to your personal participation in the human family.

And running beneath it ai] we're lonely. The sociologists call it cultural Fragmenta-
tion: the psychologists - alienation: the theologians - estrangement. Gerald Jud, a
clergyman, put it simply: "People are dying of thirst in the fresh water Take". And not
long ago the Beatles put it down in music in a song called Eleanor Rigby which asked: “all
the lonely people: where do they come from?

so today - World Communion Sunday - wo affirm once again the noble hope of Psaim 133,
in the one place in the world where it ought to have real substance. Yat even here - in
the Church of Jesus Christ - things are not exactly good and pleasant. In fact, you
couldn't take Communion in many of the Churches in our own community at this hour. In
many of those congregations the faithful are being told how right they are - and by
inference - how wrong we, and the rest of Christendom is. And lest our Prasbyterian
Openness become a source of sel f-righteousness, let us not Forget that we were the ones
who abandoned the Consultation or Church Union.

Is it any better personally? Be you feel at one with your fellow Christians - with
your inmediate neighbors - with your own family? I would hepe so. And yet my personal
experience leads me to suggest that much of the time thare is more celebrating of common
humanity - more real Fellowship - at the local tavern than there is in the church of
Jesus Christ: that we can find more reasons to pick at each other and be petty with each
other here than anywhere else.

So today we come to the Lord's table - on Wortd Communion Sunday. "How good and

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pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity." And it's just not enough to say those words
and engage in a ritual: because reality flies in our face. Something is demanded of us
today - as on no other day - if what we do is to be honest and not just a pious charade.

It's a day, I believe, for acknowledging that divisiveness between people begins
with me: that it's a special kind of hypocricy to cluck our tongues about the great
barriers in our culture while at the same time using those same barriers to insulate our
own Tittle world from outside intruders, It's a day, I think to acknéwledge that the
whole human unity business is essentially a person to person thing: that I may feel a
certain sympathy for the poce in South America, but what really matters is my relationship
with my neighbor.

In his letter to the early Christian Church at Philippi, St. Paul dealt directly
with the whole issue. There were problems in the Philippian church: the usual problems
of the Gospel in the hostile environment, persecution, opposition, misunderstanding. But
the problem that threatened the life of the church was an agrument, a dispute between
people and the resulting jeatousy and pettiness. That's always been the case. Persecution
Athetsm, communism have never been very successful in killing off the church: the fatal
foe has always been petty human divisiveness.

So Paul advised them: "do nothing from selfishness or conceit, but in humility
count others better than yourselver. Let each of you look not only to his own interests,
but also ta the interests of others.”

The interesting thing about that advice besides its profound simplicity is the use
of the word “humility.” In the Greek world - and the Philippians were Greeks - humility
was not at all a virtue. Only a coward or a fool would yield anything to his neighber.
And so Paul was here introducing a whole new idea to the early Christians: the idea that
humility is a positive virture, a necessary style of life in the church of Jesus Christ.

Now, he wasn't talking about meckness: Paul did not mean humility as the milque-toast
self debasement that we have coma to identify with the word. To the contrary, for Paul,
humility meant strength reigned in and commited to the service of others. That is to say,
there is no possibility of a man being humbic if he has no reason te be proud. Humility,

here, is a gift, an act of intention: a directing of my personhood outward to meet the

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personhcod of another man. Humility here is simple honesty: the honest recognition of
another man's dignity and worth, and an attempt cn my part to take seriously his needs
and wants and Aurts.

In terms of our nation, this kind of humility would Tead us to see that while we
are strongest - we are only one nation: that if the entire human family were represented
in a community of 100, six would be Americans. Jt might result in an honest recognition
of the fact that much of the family is suffering: that we six have a life expectancy of
more than seventy years, while all the rest average cut te thirty nine. It might result
in the acknowledgement that while we six have fifteen timcs the amount of food we need,
two thirds of all the rest go to bed hungry every night. Humility - which means strength
under control - might one day lead us tc spond a mitlien dollars a day to help our brothers
rather than bombing them into oblivion.

And on the personal level humility might motivate you to take your neighbor seriously:
to minister to him by trying to see how he sees things, by entering into his world for a
while and feeling his joy and his pain,

Did you ever think about how little we do that? How reluctant we arc to share our
happiness and our hurt with each other? Because we've Tearned that even as wo begin to
tell about something - the persun to whom we are talking is constructing his response
which will ba better or worse than ours.

lt's a simple thing, really. It's a gift we can give to each other ~ and it's based
on the fact that each of us has much to give. I am a unique person - arid so are you.

There is no one quite like me and no one quite Tike you. And we can minister to each other
by commiting our uniqueness - our strength to cach other: by saying - in word and deed -
“you matter to me - I am for you - I will share whatever you want te share with me.”

And it ought to be happening here all the time. It does happen: not Frequently
enough, but it happens. And when it dces, it is a healing and Saving experjence. Many of
you have ministered to me - and shared my joys and pains. And I've seen you do it with
each other.

And, you know, when all is said and done, that's what we have to offer the world:

a way of being that grants everyman his dignity: a way of being that is open and sharing

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and loving: a model of now life was intended to be lived. The world needs to see that:
the world needs te know that there is another way: that it is good and pleasant - and
possible - for brothers to dwell] in unity.

Paul called the Philippians to imitate Christ: vasus Christ who, though God's son,
emptied himself and became a servant. We come to nis table today - the ene who emptied
himself for us: we come with brothers and sisters of all colors and races and nations:
and we come - most importantly with each other. As we break bread together this morning ~-
let us give thanks fur each other: Tet us affirm the possibility of brothers awelling
in unity. Let us experience - in the presence of Jesus Christ - just how good and

pleasant it is. AMEN

Our father, we would climb over the walis that separate us. Help us te be honest and
open with each other. Bless our brothers and sisters al] over the world at thts hour.
And renew within all of us that ancient dream of brothers dwelling in unity. Through

Jesus Christ our Lord - who amptied himscif for us. AMEN