June 1, 2025 Text: Psalm 133
Dear Friends in Christ,
On C-SPAN every week they have “Prime Minister’s Questions” from the British House of Commons. I love to watch this 40-minute program because it is a wonderful sociological study in human behavior. Two weeks ago, the opposition parties all had sympathy for the British Prime Minister Keir Starmer because that week, many properties that he owned were set on fire. In Britain you now have 3-4 main opposition parties to the Labour government that took over last year. What was interesting was they all felt bad for what happened to him, which was good to see, but after the short pleasantry, they ripped into him and his party’s policies. They try but they just can’t help themselves. I laugh every week at the human foibles on display.
I recently was thinking about the term hunky dory. What a strange term and how did it get started? I looked it up. “Hunky dory…Hunk (homebase) + dory (origin unknown)…meaning quite satisfactory: fine.” You’ve probably heard it or said in your lifetime. “How are things?” “Everything is just hunky-dory.”
But is it? When looking at the world, our community, our lives, and even the church are things hunky-dory? Or are we ready to go after each other like they do in British government?
In our Gospel, the night before Jesus died on the cross, he prayed about this whole subject. Jesus prayed for the church that people would not be jealous, backstabbing, power hungry, but one – as He and the Heavenly Father are one. Which begs the question this morning . . .
“CAN WE DWELL IN UNITY?”
Well, can we? Please note that what we are talking about this morning is spiritual unity, not political unity or sports team unity or what goes best on a hot dog. The first verse of our text, “Behold, how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity.” Look at that. The text gives no indication of disunity. It simply declares that there is good and pleasant unity among God’s Old Testament priests. It came from their common anointing.
We see this unity in our First reading from Acts. Luke writes “with one accord they devoted themselves to prayer.” Jesus had prayed for this unity. He got it. When they chose a new disciple there was no backroom dealings or power plays by the supporters of Barsabbas and Matthias. How pleasant is that? These 120 were united by their joy in the resurrection of Jesus. How wonderful that Jesus is alive. The ministry would continue.
This is what spiritual unity begins to look like. The oil in verse two of our text, specifically running down the beard of Aaron, points to the ordination of priests. The priest would feel the unity with the congregation, the people he was ordained to represent. In a broader sense we have one Lord, one faith, one Baptism.
“The dew of Hermon, which falls on the mountains of Zion.” (v. 3). Refreshing moisture falling on dry ground. Such is the blessing of spiritual unity. Zion is the source of blessing for God’s people, the place where the temple is established. It is in Zion that Jesus Christ, who is Immanuel, God with us, will lay down his life for his people. Zion is a picture of Christ’s Church where the life-giving Gospel will go forth.
Can we dwell in unity? Yes, because this is Christ’s prayer for us as well. We are one in the resurrected Christ. We are all forgiven sinners by the same cross. We kneel side by side at the altar to receive Christ Himself. We will spend eternity together with Christ and with one another.
In a world that loves disunity, you must have conflict to have drama, isn’t it nice to know that unity really does exist. One of the reasons we enjoy getting together each week like this is because we come together as like-minded Christians. We are not alone. We are one with fellow believers around the world. How good and pleasant that is. We can live this out in our own lives. Actually, it should be no surprise that something Jesus prayed for and gave his life for is answered.
Amen.