Perhaps it was the idea of summer family fun, or perhaps it was that strange image of the beard, but Psalm 133, one of the two we have the choice of from today’s lectionary, put me in mind of circuses, and those early days of PT Barnum, the founder of a most famous circus.  He originally exhibited oddities and curiosities all collected together in a strange community – tiny folk or giants as in our Old Testament story today.  Bearded wonders.  And his cleverest attraction of all – “The egress.”  This way to the egress signs read to keep the crowds moving along.  Not until they found themselves through the door and back on the street did they realize the egress was not an attraction, but an exit.  The end of wonders and curiosities.

Like this tiny, lovely psalm which seems to exhaust its wonders in just three verses.  But three verses packed full of wonders.  The Psalms invite us, perhaps as no other Biblical text does, to enter directly into the Biblical world – to step back in time and to lift up the words of the psalmist as if they were our own.  There is a power in the psalms that moves us imaginatively back in time, as we pray these words, we wonder what those eyes saw, what spirit moved in that heart, that these words would come down to us, to this day. 

So, to help us pray as the Psalmist did, a little explanation for the images in this psalm is in order –

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.

The oil running down from the head, over the beard, the beard and the oil flowing down over the collar of the robe, these are images of anointing a priest of the Lord – of Aaron or his descendants, coming for service in God’s holy Temple, high on Mount Zion, there in the dwelling place of God.  And this anointing is not stingy – but wasteful and extravagant, so that the precious sweet oil is poured on in glorious fragrant abundance. 

The second image is a geographical, topographical one – and it contains a very big mistake.

It is like the dew of Hermon,

which falls on the mountains of Zion.

If you check your Google earth or even a good old fangled map– you’ll find there’s a whole lot of zooming that needs to happen from Mount Hermon far in the North – and Mount Zion in Jerusalem.  Hermon was likely to be part of the divided Northern kingdom, or even another nation entirely, by the time of this Psalm.  It certainly would not have been naturally possible for the dew of Hermon to reach to Zion.  It is a picture that is not just an oddity and a wonder, but an impossibility.  Mount Hermon’s dew could never fall on Mount Zion

But this psalm is not about beards and oil and mountain dew in wild and crazy abundance – or at least not directly -- these are metaphors the psalmist calls upon.  The psalmist, raising eyes to look around, sees something that causes this wisdom to spill from grateful lips:

How very good and pleasant it is

when kindred live together in unity!

Ah, indeed – how good and pleasant it is! How good and how pleasant the dwelling of kindred – of brothers and sisters together.  How very good and pleasant when kindred settle in, set up permanent dwellings, move in together for a life lived together in unity and in peace.

What does the psalmist see that inspires these words?  We aren’t told, and so we are free to imagine what the view might have been.  Was it a family gathered around some ancient dinner table and this a kind of grace which spilled from the psalmists lips, from hands raised in thanksgiving?  The joys of family life, with meals and stories shared.   Grandma’s Challah dipped in sweet wine, dripping down the chin as it was gobbled up.  A feast shared with  folks who knew you when and know you now and love you even so?  Young ones and old ones joined in laughter and shared pain, in illness and in health, in greeting both life and death with cries of joy and sorrow mixed.

Or was it not so much a present view but a bittersweet vision, a moment of nostalgia?  Of places set at the table and no longer occupied?  Are these not so much words of celebration for a present reality, but the longing for one past? 

1How very good and pleasant it is

when kindred live together in unity!

Who from the psalmist’s family is not here this year?  The father who was here last year telling his stories, lifting his cup, but who is no longer with us.  The daughter who has wandered off to her own way, lost for this season, and perhaps for all the days to come?

For all its running down oil, running down the collar, running down dew, this psalm is collected with others called the “song of ascents.”  These were prayers/songs that the  pilgrims journeying to Jerusalem would have sung as they went up Mount Zion to visit the Temple.  Travelling upward – up the mountain of God’s promise, up to the place where God dwells.  Perhaps what the Psalmist saw were the lights of the fires of other families and kinship groups united in this shared journey to God’s dwelling place.  United in pilgrimage so that their voices would soon be united in prayer and worship.

And as the psalmist lifted eyes, did a vision of another mountain and another kingdom come?  The dewy peaks of Mount Hermon and the grief of a kingdom split – those once called brothers and sisters, who are now denied as kin at all.  Or perhaps those of another nation and people who could never be imagined kin to those gathered on the slopes of Zion, gathered to worship their God.  How very good and pleasant … but impossible.

And even as the psalm takes us back to that time and that place, it also invites us to speak and pray in our time and our own context.  These words pray fresh in each generation, inspired again by the Spirit to be not only an ancient prayer and promise, but one still true in our time, in my life and in yours. 

Lift up your eyes and what do you see?  Families dwelling together in harmony:  a family at the dinner table filled with Grandma’s potato salad, and the watermelon juice spilling from the chin of the little ones eating without inhibition, the mouths or fingers moving so quickly with stories to share and life to catch up on. 

Or do you lift your eyes seeking a father who will be missing today – because of divorce, death, disease or distance – emotional or geographic.  A daughter or son no longer present, perhaps never again?

Or do you see the vision of another family at the table?  Something like an appetizer for that final feast which awaits us all as I saw at our Presbytery meeting in January.  One of our newest members of Presbytery, a pastor who made no secret of the good gift of her homosexuality when she came to us seeking membership – of this sister in Christ receiving the bread of heaven and cup of salvation from one I am not entirely sure voted to receive her into membership.  An appetizer indeed – a little taste of what is to come in that feast that awaits us, yet leaving us still hungry for more.

Or do you see a distant mountain and God’s power to flow in impossible ways.  Sees through street protests after a dubious election to the dew which waters desert life, to kindred dwelling together in harmony.  Sees how the choices we make to have a little more, to take a little more of the world’s resources means that the life-giving dew of the Lord is dammed up and won’t flow down to our thirsty brothers and sisters in less developed lands.

This dew that is miraculous, enlivening.  As Isaiah said, “Your dead shall live, their corpses^* shall rise.  O dwellers in the dust, awake and sing for joy!  For your dew is a radiant dew, and the earth will give birth to those long dead.”  And odd and impossible – like PT Barnum’s human curiosities – come and see these oddities, these impossibilities, bearded ladies, giant men, tiny folk.  Hurry along – the most unusual, perhaps impossible, yet to come – This way to the egress.  But don’t rest, don’t delay, the best is yet to come – this way to the egress!  The egress – the way out, the wonders over so quickly.  Or are they?

This is a song we pilgrims too are invited to sing as we travel upward – up the mountain of God’s promise, up to the place where God dwells – all the time stronger legs, the dew and oil of blessing flowing down to sustain the journey.    The adventures and vistas as we climb – the impossible visions.  This way to the egress – but the end is not an exit – but a blessing:  Life now and life for evermore!

We are all ascending to Zion—the place where it all comes together.  The place of blessing and fullness of life, the place where we come together in unity with one another and with our God.  Ascending while the blessings flow down and out, the blessings which water human life and the life of the earth.  The blessings which stretch from that first song thousands of years ago as pilgrim cried to pilgrim on the dark night, camped out along the hills beneath the Temple of God’s dwelling.  These blessings sing still in our hearts as we cry out to one another of the goodness of our dwelling together, of the goodness of our God who calls us to life together, of a shared journey up that Holy Mountain where God dwells – camped out on its slopes finding even in our flimsy tents that the Lord of life would deign to dwell there with us and would call us to dwell in harmony and unity with one another – even when it is impossible.  That our God is a god who tabernacles in wilderness places and leads us on – further up and further in.  A God who, as we journey up, rains down blessings that do not end when this life is over – the blessings of such abundant life that there is no egress – no exit.  A life full of wonders and oddities, strange ones to share the journey and the good God who sustains us in it, and gives us impossible visions of extraordinary unity, brought true in moments of ordinary time.

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 for evermore.

Amen!