CONNECTIONS
October 6, 1985, 11:00 a.m. Worship Service

John M. Buchanan
Fourth Presbyterian Church, Chicago

Psalm 133, Galatians 3:25-28

Someone once asked Leonard Bernstein to reflect.on the creative process by which -
he did his: composing. He said:

"Y git for long nights all by. myself and don! t have a thought - in my.
head. _I!m.dry...I-sit at the piano and just improvise -- strum. some
‘chords. or: ‘try a sequence of notes. And then, suddenly, I find one® “that™
hits, that suggests something else... The whole ‘point of composing,” you
. see, is not to find one chord or.note you love. It. is only when they
~ progress to another chord or note that you have meaning..."

-...This is the most exciting moment. that: can happen | in an artist's: lite,
And every time it happens -I.am grateful forthe: gift.". (See Mat thew Fox, -
A Spirituality Called Compassion, Pelee from. John Ardoit, “High Fidelity

Magazine, August, 1978).

The essence of creativity, Bernstein seems to be saying, is the making of —

connections. That life -- I submit.---is a principal, which the human race:

is discovering in these latter decades. of. the twentieth. century: .a simple. idea

which is so important that the future. of the human enterprise depends © on: it.

Life depends on- making connections. The idea is not a new one. It: has not::

fared very well throughout the course of human history but.it-has ‘been. there

_ fora long. time, in a lovely Hebrew poem, for instance, written and: sung as a me
hymn more than» 3,000 years ABO... : a : ES Oe

"Behold, how. “good. and pleasant it, is: ao
when brothers and sisters dwell in-™ unity!
It. is: like: the. precious. oil: upon. they head,
running down upon the beard,
upon the beard of Aaron,
running .down on the collar: of his robes!
. It is. ‘like ‘the dew of Hermon, ; ;

which falls on the mountains of Zion! Lee
For there the. Lord. has commanded the blessing,

life for evermore." ons ae

Someone observed rede
in‘ our time. “And SO; the. -idéas ‘of - unity, reconciliation, connectedness ain the =

human family are indeed good and pleasant and absolutely critical.

Stty t that ‘all the: crises. Be history | seem to be. converging”

Tt love the poetry Ge this psalm: the wonderful iinagery :s san elderly 1 man,” ‘like
an old priest, with flowing white beard, a sign of his dignity and. ‘wisdom and
many years;. carefully cut according to the prescriptions of the Levitical law,
to extend down over the collar of-his robe... = : : :

The image 4s ‘of: a ‘patriarch. or a ‘matriarch, or “both. -sthe ‘progenitors;: of a sreat
family: co-creators, birthers who still.are astonished at the miracle they have had

~2-

a part in performing: Friends we haven't seen for years visited recently and cae
showed us family pictures. We knew them when they were six of them. Now there
are fifteen. There our friends sit in the middle of all those children and
grandchildren: with a look of wonder on their faces..."How good. and pleasant
it is. when brothers and.sisters dwell in unity."

f-love the ancient image because it. evokes. other images for me...0f hot August
Sunday afternoon family reunions, and of the patriarch with white hair, survey-
ing the familiar bedlam from a lawn chair in the only available shade, looking
-at-all he had wrought and thinking, perhaps,..."How good and pleasant it is..."

Or of more recent, closer homecomings, rare and wonderful reunions when brothers
and sisters’ literally come from East and*West, from North and South and sit
together: at.-table: those moments of amazing grace, when out of the complex
dynamics. of -the past, out of a shared history of victory and defeat, joy and
sadness,. love and anger, there comes a hint, a whisper, that one's -sons ‘and
daughters care for one another, enjoy one another, How good and pleasant that
is! Sale Peay Tes : aan me

That experience ig infinitely Precious, the ancient poet said. It is precious
like the oil which, with grain and wine; was alla people needed to survice. O11
from olives, grown in Tekoa, vineyard -of Amos; ground, refined, filtered, salted:
oil for cooking the cakes, for annointing the king andthe priest, oil for the
lamps and to heal the cuts and bruises. Scented oil, particularly precious, to
make the face shine, to make one beautiful for a béloved,. ..0i1 represents all

that is good and fragrant and ‘fertile in God's creation, When people dwell in
unity it's like oil, baptizing the ‘head of a beloved old man, running down over
his’ lined and beautiful face, over his beard onto his robe, so abundant, so extra-
vagant, so good. . aon BE a ca a

It is as pleasant as the dew: of: Hermon: majestic, snow-capped mountain north,

in Lebanon. The legendary dew is so abundant it falls like the rain, nysterious,
invigorating, refreshing. In the parched-dry hilis of northern Israel where the
dew from Mt. Hermon falls it is like God's ‘love’ and life-giving grace,

"How good and pleasant it is when brothers and sisters dwell in unity." it is
like the ultimate benediction: like eternal life. Bo!

In the course of a forty-eight hour period last week, the Islamic Jihad executed

a Russian hostage and boasted of killing an American, Fighting between Moslems

and Syrians and Lebanese Christians escalated in Tripoli, and Israel bombed a
Palastini Liberation Organization base in Tunisia, using American F-15 jet fighters,
The dew, I am told, still falls on Mt. Hermon, on God's sons and daughters who
continue the time honored custom of killing one another for the cause of religious
truth.and:political supremacy. Psalm 133 cannot be read honestly without express-
ing the sadness of. God and the judgment of ‘God on the whole human family.

"I built a cage," he wrote, "and in it put a dog and cat. And after
a little training I got the dog and cat to the point, where they lived
peacably together. Then I introduced a pig, goat, kangaroo, some birds,
and.a monkey. .And after a few adjustments they learned to live in har-
- mony. So encouraged was. TI by such sucesses that 1 added an Trish Catholic,
a Presbyterian, a Jew, a Moslem...a Buddhist...along with a Baptist mis~
Sionary...and in a very short while there wasn't a Single living thing
left in the cage."

-3-

God's judgment is in this lovely Psalm because the record is atrocious,
The church exists to be a model, to show the rest-of ‘the world what. it looks
like when brothers and sisters dwell in unity. We are the new creation, a
colony of God's Kingdom in the middle of the world. Our noblest task is quite
simply to show the world the goodness and pleasantness of the life which has
been healed by Jesus Christ. °° ~~ oe are cea eeant

Yet, Reinhold Niehbur could observe in his treatise on the human condition that
"religion is.often the last battleground between God and humanity." Nowhere

is that clearer than in-the dismal role religion continues to play in the finely
honed game of war. When we are not the combatants we are still found holding

the coats of those who are. The Reverend Ian Paisley and his evangelical friends
are a major part of the problem in Northern Treland. The: appalling tragedy of:
- Lebanon is nota theological ‘struggle per se, but the people who are killing each:

other are identifiable by religious. labels.

And still Christians are willing to invest time and energy in excluding one

another, building up the walls that divide us: instead of showing the world

what a united family of humanity might: look like, hanging on for dear life to

old imperialisms that: claim exclusive rights to God's truth, Some of us are
actually still debating about whether or not to allow the rest of the family to sit: .
down at the table. The Psalm is a reminder, in Wolfhart Pannenberg's blunt words, ~
that “It. is the Lord's Supper, not ‘a church supper." (Christian Spirituality,
pg. 48) iggeiys Ane acum nest ag eer eee

When the people of God refuse to live the truth, God. finds other ways to get the
job done, or the word spoken: °So itis that the world seems to be learning what
we have always known, but not always been willing to live, namely that ‘in the. Py
“Kingdom, there is ‘a good and pleasant’ unity; that- divisions are bridged and wounds ~
are healed. - Lee _ me oa eae nare

Biologist Lewis: Thomas, head of the Sloane Kettering Clinic, essayist and auther, is, —
I think, a prophet: of the Kingdom =~‘ although he might not wish to be saddled with ~~
the label. :."We are interlocked," Thomas ‘observes, .;"we are not just made up, as
we had always. supposed, of successively enriched: packets of our: owm parts... We

-are shared, rented, occupied. -I-eannot. feel as separate an entity:'as I did a

few years ago...We are dependent on the rest of °1lifés..we are part of the system."

In a striking essay on space travel, Thomas wrote: "Viewed from the distance of.
the moon, the astonishing thing about the earth, catching the breath, is that it =
is alive...the rising earth, the only exuberant thing in this part of the cosmos... —.

it is far and away the grandest product of collaboration in all of nature."
(The Lives of-a Cell...) SEES EA ESSERE PELE PRS a

‘Thomas's conclusion, expressed with “incréasing urgency in several books of essays,
is that life willsurvive only if there isa deep’ and broad conversion in: the human
spirit, from fragmentation to unity; from competition to cooperation.

Buckminster Fuller, visionary genius saw it too and said it. It is an ultimate
fatal error, he taught, to think ‘about ‘the individual apart: from the system, even
to discuss ethics, politics, economics,apart from the whole family: we

And even the entertainers, God bless them, could galvanize the world for one ‘wonder-
ful moment with the pop rock version of Psalm 133:.

~4-

Weare the.world ..
We are the. children;
So let's start giving >...
.. We're saving our own lives..." >

The great issue of the day is not whether we can make more Presbyterians in the ©

= Third World ~~ or noteven whether Christianity will keep uP with Islam numerically...

-The-great issue is whether..the world and life in the world. will:survive the great

; issue for us is whether or not. we can muster the courage and-creativity to bring

_. what: we know about reconciliation into play.in‘a very real.and-hurting and frag-
mented. world. ohae

On World Communion Sunday, Christian people are challenged to hear the. Gospel:

. to listen to it at precisely .those critical points where it challanges: personal
behavor, attitudes, priorities. The word todayis the simple -truth ‘thatthe first
and most- urgent item on the agenda of the Bible is reconciling, healing, bringing
together that.which is broken, The essential. harmony..of things «is what the. Bible
is about: Harmony in nature, in humanity, between people, and within the individual.
a wholeness, a ‘health, a peace. The Bible is about the ways human beings break apar:
what God has made whole -- and how God is working with and through his people to
~-put it back together. again. es ws =. oes

How good and pleasant it is,.not.only when one family dwells in unity, but. when

we learn that this unity, this peace and wholeness in the whole creation is what

God cares about..."In Christ, you are all one," St. Paul told a gang of contentious ~

quarreling Christians in Galatia, "In Christ," he said, “there is no Jew, Greek,

male, female, slave, free."'.Can you comprehend how radical, how revolutionary that

sounded --.to the slave-owning, proud, Jewish men.-- to whom it ws addressed? a

-- "All those ways of. defining yourselves at the expense of someone else, all those
protective barriers you build around yourselves, are gone now," Paul. said. . "They

are the old order. They are what sin does to the unity. and wholeness of God's.

-Creation.. They are-the self-inflicted wounds God.wants desperately to. heal.

-Those.wounds, that disunity -- are.the reasons-God has lived. among us and died

for us in Jesus. Christ... In him you are all one."

The hope is here in. God's love, incarnate in Jesus Christ: .in- God's kingdom that,
with stubborn persistence, lives within the life of the world and will.not die.
The hope is that there is more going for creation than us, that Paul was right

. when he-wrote that "in Christ, God sets. forth .a plan:to. unite all-things in hin,
things.in heaven and things on earth." (Eph.1:10)

The hope, the eschatalogical vision, the poetry, is the oil on the beard and.
the extravagant, abundant dew of Mt. Hermon. But in Christ --. God's love in
history, we are encouraged to see the realized hope, the actual coming of the
kingdom-in more modest images: perhaps in simple acts of reconciliation between
people -- in forgiveness between husbands and wives, acceptance between. parents
and children; in strangers reaching across the. divisions of. anonymity and urban
busyness to say to one another, "I care about you: you are important to me":
in .acts.of courageous generosity by which.a:great urban church opens its arms
to.a city and. expresses in its life the promise of a Kingdom in-which justice
and love and hope are realities: and in the hidden, healing grace which blooms
miraculously in the frantic haste of our living -~ and which assures us that we
are .loved and enables us.to make connections -- to heal, and-reconcile and love

and make whole. :

-5-

The hope is in Jesus: in his Kingdom breaking into our lives in ways we have .
to be silent to hear, and look carefully to see.. The hope is in a Lord who ‘died
for the oneness of the whole family, calls us to confess our brokeness,:and to
celebrate the healing of his love at a table to which he invites all of us...

So let us come. How good and pleasant it ist. Worthy is the Lamb who was slain —

to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!

Ameén. .