Thirst-Quenching Unity
A Song of Ascents.
1 How very good and pleasant it is
when kindred live together in unity!
2 It is like the precious oil on the head,
running down upon the beard,
on the beard of Aaron,
running down over the collar of his robes.
3 It is like the dew of Hermon,
which falls on the mountains of Zion.
For there the LORD ordained his blessing,
life forevermore.
Thirst-Quenching Unity
Here are a few notable facts about Psalm 133 that might be helpful for obscure Bible trivia night.
First, Psalm 133 is in a three-way tie for the second shortest chapter in the entire Bible (Psalm 117 only has two verses).
Second, this psalm is one of fifteen labeled as “A Song of Ascents.” The fifteen psalms of ascents are thought to have been part of a hymn-book of sorts that was used and sung during pilgrimages for major festivals.
Those who lived outside of Jerusalem and could not worship regularly in the temple would travel together to the theologically-central city to experience the presence of God in community.
People from all over Israel—people with different ways of life and customs and traditions—would all gather within the walls of a single city for the sole purpose of worshiping YHWH.
The travelers would sing along the way—they would sing of God’s greatness, of unity, of God’s steadfast love, of the patriarchs and their deeds, and of hope.
Psalm 133 weaves together a striking metaphor. When kindred live together in unity, it is good and pleasant. So good and pleasant, that living together in unity is like precious oil running down Aaron’s beard and head and dripping all over the collar of his robes. So good and pleasant, that living together in unity is like dew falling on Mount Zion.
So much of my heart aches to live together in unity—as a church, as people of God, as a nation, as different races and ethnicities. Well, honestly, so much of my heart just aches to live together at all these days!
But the idea of an abundance of oil pouring down my head does not help me feel or see the goodness of unity.
This is a metaphor that doesn’t necessarily translate to modern-day times where beauty products promise to fight the scourge of oily hair and skin, and laundry detergent will banish oil stains from my clothing. If I’m honest, imagining oil dripping off of the poor priest Aaron’s head and beard makes me cringe a tiny bit.
Nancy deClaisse-Walford (at workingpreacher.org) helps put this metaphor back in context.
In the dry, dusty desert-like environment of Palestine, oil was a precious commodity that was soothing and healing. As a show of hospitality, a traveler would have their feet washed and oil put on their head after their journey, bringing thirst-quenching relief to the skin.
Likewise, Palestine received very little rain for much of the year. Without the night’s gift of dew, the land would have precious little moisture to help give it life.
This oil and this dew, deClaisse-Walford explains, falls on the first high priest (Aaron) and on God’s dwelling place (Mt. Zion). Our worship of God, not just our day-to-day reality, benefits from our ability to live in unity.
So, perhaps Psalm 133 makes more sense to us in 2020 like this: How very good and pleasant it is when kindred live together in unity!
It is like our skin being soothed and quenched by oil after the sun has left it parched and aching for moisture. It is dew on the ground that supports our places of worship, sustaining them with life while we wait for the rains.
Maybe you, like me, feel a tad parched during the particularly dry season of waiting and distance. Maybe you, like me, feel like we have been on a long pilgrimage back to the temple. Maybe you, like me, wonder how in the world we work on living in unity when we cannot even live in community right now.
And then I open up Facebook or I turn on the news, and I see an abundance of opportunities to work on living in unity. Hard, complicated, and difficult places to reclaim my kinship with other brothers and sisters in Christ and find places of reconciliation.
We no longer live in a place where we can worship God in the “temple” whenever we’d like and we’ve been on a pilgrimage, of sorts, for five long months to get back there. On the way, let the Song of Ascent remind us, with each step, that each attempt we make to live in unity with our kindred is a moment when soothing, healing oil is poured over our parched skin. Each time we strive to reconcile God’s children to each other and to God is a morning where dew seeps into our parched earth to give it life for another day.
Rev. Shelley Woodruff, Pastor for Community Engagement, First Baptist Church of Decatur