Two Pillars of Unity

by Rev. Jeremiah Cheung

Psalm 133 contains only three verses. There are no deep theological principles in this psalm, yet it talks about a very important matter – “unity”. If we try to divide this psalm into sections, we can find the central theme in verse 1, which tells us how beautiful unity is. Then, in verses 2-3, the author uses two metaphors to prove wherein lies the beauty of unity. Thus, we can divide the psalm as: V.1- the beauty of unity; V2-3 – the two pillars of unity.

We all know the importance of unity, there is a saying, “When there is unity in the home, everything prospers; when the home is divided, there can be no peace”. This psalm speaks of unity from another angle.

Today is the first Sunday of the year 2012, it is also the first day of this year, and this year is also our church’s 25th year, let us begin 2012 with the truth of unity. May God bless the Church and continue to preserve its unity.

I. The Beauty of Unity V.1

“Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brothers to dwell together in unity!” We should pay attention to the word “behold”. What does this word mean? The author meant: “Take a look for yourself, how good and how beautiful it is when brothers are in unity, living together in harmony.”

This poem is called a song of ascents. Three times a year, the Jews travel to Jerusalem to worship God. Jerusalem is situated at the top of Mount Zion. As they make their way up the hill, they would sing and praise God together. The songs of ascents are the songs they sing as they travel to the top. The author of the psalm tells us that when we see the sons and daughters of God come from all over to Jerusalem to worship God with unity of heart and mind, it is a good thing, a very beautiful thing. When we see the unity among God’s people, we must not do anything to destroy it, instead we must exert all effort to keep it.

The church has a 25-year history now (from 1987 to the present). Twenty-five years ago, in unity of heart and mind, we founded this church. Every Sunday, with one accord we worship God. We have seen and we have all enjoyed the unity, so let us not seek to destroy it. We must by all means try to keep the unity of the Church. In Ephesians 4:2-3, Paul said, “with all humility and gentleness, with patience, showing tolerance for one another in love, being diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” We must do our best to preserve the unity amidst us. Why? Because unity is not easy, for everyone has his own mind, his own opinion, and to accept the opinion of another is not easy!

There was this wedding wherein the bride was late. Of course, there is nothing new about a bride being late for her wedding, because it is a usual occurrence and there can be many reasons – maybe there was a traffic jam, or the bride took more time having her makeup done to look extraordinarily beautiful, or something unusual have happened. (I remember 20 years ago, during our wedding day, my wife was also late and that was because there was heavy raining and flooding. I was very tense, afraid that she might get stranded in the flood and be unable to reach the church. Thanks to the Lord, she did arrive, about half an hour later.)

However, in this story, the bride was delayed too long, everyone was very worried. Suddenly someone shouted, “The bride is here!” They looked outside, and everyone was stunned. The bride had indeed arrived, but her wedding gown was torn, dark and dirty, and she had bruises on her face, her hair was a mess, she was dirty all over. Everyone couldn’t understand what happened to her, suddenly they heard the groom sigh and say, “She got into a fight again.”

The bride’s name is the Church. Unity is beautiful, but unity is difficult to achieve. So when we see unity, we must seek not to destroy it, instead, we must strive to keep it. For when the Church is not in unity, not only is the Lord grieved, each one of us loses, too. Do you think it is easy to keep a church in unity? How can we keep its unity?

II. Two Pillars of Unity 2-3

“It is like precious oil poured on the head, running down on the beard, running down on Aaron’s beard, down on the collar of his robe. It is as if the dew of Hermon were falling on Mount Zion. For there the Lord bestows his blessing, even life forevermore.”

The psalmist uses two metaphors to portray the beauty of unity. In these two metaphors, we see the two pillars of unity:

1. Forgive One Another – v.2

“It is like precious oil poured on the head, running down on the beard, running down on Aaron’s beard, down on the collar of his robe.” Aaron is the first high priest of Israel, when he took up the duty of a high priest, Moses poured his head with oil, and anointed him as the high priest. The high priest is revered by all the people.

It is said that in the Philippines, priests and pastors used to be highly respected by policemen, but things are a little different nowadays. However, there was once, when I was on my way to speak in a church in Makati, and due to rerouting, I took a wrong turn and was approached by a policeman. When I told him I was a pastor (maybe he couldn’t tell the difference between a priest and a pastor), he told me, “Father, I forgive you.”

In the eyes of the Jews, the high priest is most holy, because every year on July 10, the Jewish Atonement Day, the high priest will represent the whole nation, enter the temple and make atonement for the sins of the whole nation. The precious oil on Aaron’s head, running down his beard, down on the collar of his robe, until he is covered with oil all over, is just like the precious blood of the Lord Jesus washing our sins away.

The first pillar of unity is forgiving one another. But a condition must be met before forgiveness can happen, that is, each one must acknowledge his sins. Only when a man admits his sin will he find the Lord’s forgiveness, only then can the beauty of unity be achieved. To have true unity, we must first learn to confess our sins to one another. Without acknowledgement and confession of sins, forgiveness cannot happen. But then, can anyone of us say we are sinless? If we need God’s forgiveness, we have no reason not to forgive others.

But forgiveness is difficult, because human relationships are very complicated. Therefore, Jesus reminds us in the Sermon on the Mount that we must not judge others, because many times, we cannot see things clearly.

“Do not judge” doesn’t mean we don’t distinguish right from wrong, such that we remain silent even when something is clearly wrong. Do not judge means we are not to assume the role of God, who has the absolute authority to judge people. We must not judge our fellowmen because in the end, we will all be judged by God. Since human relationships are complex, we must not only learn to forgive one another, even more we must learn to establish good relationships with others. In doing so, we can lessen conflicts with others.

To establish good relationships with others, we must start with our speech or words. This is not some profound truth, yet we often forget it:

• First, we must learn to say “please” – This is a lesson we teach elementary students. This is called manners. When we ask someone for help, we begin our request with “please”. Even if he is your employee, your driver, someone under your employ, saying “please” will make things totally different. Do not think of yourself too highly, don’t assume that it is alright to order people around; they may obey you but they will silently hate you. We used to have a helper in our home who was only 17 when she came under our employ. That was probably about ten years ago. Later on, when she got married, she asked me and my wife to be her wedding sponsors or godparents. Although we pay her, we treated her with courtesy. We must learn to say “please”.
• Second, we must say “thank you” – Everyone wants to be respected, no matter how low or high our status is. We must learn to respect others, especially those who are subordinate to us – our workers, our secretary, our driver, etc. Don’t presume that just because you are the boss, you don’t have to show them respect. Although I don’t know how to speak Filipino well, I know how to say thank you. When the workers help me, I say thank you. In our home, the situation is the same. I tell my family members (my wife, my children, our helpers) thank you whenever they help me. You must say thank you if you want to have good relationship with others.
• Thirdly, you must say “sorry” – Sorry is not easy to say. Although we don’t need more than a minute to say sorry, some people are not willing to say sorry no matter how many weeks, months, or years pass by. Such people are very proud. When we are proud, we will not say sorry no matter what happens. These people find it too embarrassing to do so, and, in choosing to keep their pride, their relationships with others only deteriorate. We must understand that the longer we take in saying sorry, the more difficult it will be to do it. The more you delay saying sorry, the more excuses you will give yourself to keep from doing it; then in the end, your ties are severed for life.

Forgiving one another is the first pillar of unity. Maybe you are saying in your heart, “Pastor, you don’t know how he treated me, I can’t forgive him.” I acknowledge that I really don’t know the depth of your pain, but in the past 20 years in ministry, I have been hurt, I have been betrayed, I have been falsely accused too. But I don’t hate those people in my heart neither do I seek to avenge myself. Yes, I felt anger at the beginning, but slowly, I have learned to let it go.

Although the relationships couldn’t be restored to as they were before, since trust has to be re-established through time, I have already forgiven those who have hurt me. I forgive those who have hurt me because I recognize that I myself have hurt others, and God had extended forgiveness to me. Moreover, if we do not forgive those who had hurt us in the past, we will only be the ones in suffering. If we lock those people who have hurt us in prison, they will suffer, but we will suffer too. They may not have freedom, but neither do we have freedom; because we have to guard them, for fear they will escape from prison. So, let them go, release them and let yourself be truly free!

2. Bless One Another – v.3

“It is as if the dew of Hermon were falling on Mount Zion. For there the Lord bestows his blessing, even life forevermore.” Mt. Hermon is a very tall mountain, all year through it is covered with snow. In the Holy Land, there is a river called the Jordan River. The water from this river comes from Mt. Hermon. When the snow on Mt. Hermon melts, the water flows down and its final destination is the Dead Sea. Mt. Hermon is higher than Mt. Zion, cold air from Mt. Hermon blows down towards Mt. Zion, bringing the dew with it, so that the whole Jerusalem is cooled.

This is like our cooler, it is not an air-conditioner, but the cool water inside it blows out cool air. The psalmist said, “For there the Lord bestows his blessing.” In community life, the second pillar of unity is blessing one another. Jesus said, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” We must not misinterpret this statement, this verse means, both giving and receiving are blessings, but it is more blessed to give than to receive.

There are two kinds of blessings here:

1st. The Blessing of Receiving. Not everyone knows how to receive. Some people take it for granted. There are people who receive gifts and don’t feel any tinge of gratitude as if people owe it to them. A person who knows how to receive will accept gifts with a grateful heart and will say a heartfelt thank you. A person who knows how to be thankful will be blessed more and more. This is a simple principle. When you give a person something, but he is not pleased, will you continue to give to him? On the contrary, if the response is good, and the person shows much gratitude, will you give him again? It is that simple. Receiving is a blessing, but if a person knows how to give thanks, he will be more blessed.

2nd. The Blessing of Giving – Not only must we learn to receive, we must also learn to give. Selfishness ruins unity. Selfishness is ignoring the needs of other and looking only after one’s own interests. In his heart, a selfish person only thinks of: “give me, give me”, and never, “give others, give others.” We must learn to receive, and we must learn to give, too. When we say learn to give, we aren’t referring only to money and material things. We can give in many ways, for example, encouragement and praise. When you see someone perform well, are you able to praise him? (Today, you really sang well, I was touched!) When a sister comes in a beautiful dress, are you able to praise her? (You look so beautiful today, I like it!) Let us learn to encourage with our words instead of criticize.

Encouragement in the Chinese culture is relatively rare, we don’t know how to encourage. It is good when we refrain from criticizing, but the Bible says in Hebrews 10:24 “And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds.” The Bible tells us to encourage one another. It is not difficult to learn how to encourage others; as long as we know how to appreciate, we can encourage others. To appreciate is to use a positive attitude to view another person. If we don’t know how to appreciate another person, it is because we use too much time dwelling on the criticisms and judgments we receive from others.

There is great capacity in every human being. We can remember every word that people say to us, especially the hurtful words. These words gradually become our thoughts, and these thoughts will bind our hearts and then we become angry people, our hearts now only have hate and are devoid of love. When this happens, we will of course not be able to appreciate others. But we must remember, a person who doesn’t applaud others will neither be applauded. If we want others to appreciate us, we must learn to appreciate others first, because to appreciate and be appreciated are interactive forces. The more you know how to appreciate others, the more others will appreciate you, and then, the whole atmosphere will change.

Turgenev ( a famous Russian writer) read in a magazine a short story entitled “Childhood” and he became drawn to the story. The magazine did not name the author of the short story. Turgenev went about looking for him. After sometime, he found the author’s aunt, and he expressed his admiration and affirmation for the author. The aunt wrote his nephew immediately, mentioning that the famous author Turgenev highly appreciated his work, “Childhood”. Turgenev said that if this young man continued to write, he would have a limitless future ahead of him. The author, upon receiving the letter was so happy. He said he had initially thought to discontinue writing, but because of the famous writer’s encouragement and appreciation, he found his value and continued to write. As a result, he became Russia’s great writer, and even an internationally well-known literary artist, he was Leo Tolstoy.

Unity is very beautiful. When we see it, we must not only refrain from destroying it, moreover, we must strive to keep it. The two pillars of unity are forgiving one another and blessing one another. May the Lord help us to establish a church of true unity.