Hello and Goodbye

Behold, how good and pleasant it is

     when brothers dwell in unity!
It is like the precious oil on the head,

     running down on the beard,
on 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!

For there the Lord has commanded the blessing,

     life forevermore.

Psalm 133

Our first newcomers’ brunch at our church’s new Westside location was held this past Sunday. The people I meet at these events always encourage me. I often ask, “How is it that God keeps bringing such amazing people to our church?” One of the great privileges of being a pastor is meeting newcomers and hearing their stories.

However, it seems as if this time of year also brings a plethora of goodbyes. In the last two months, I have had to say goodbye too many times—off they go to Portland, Chicago, Chattanooga, Paris, the Bay area, Honolulu, Cambodia—the list continues. What is it about summer that takes the people we love away from us? It’s that time of year, I guess, when we say hello as often as we say goodbye.

This past week our men’s Bible study examined Psalm 133. It’s short and worth quoting in it’s entirety here:

Psalm 133
Behold, how good and pleasant it is

     when brothers dwell in unity!
It is like the precious oil on the head,

     running down on the beard,
on 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!

For there the Lord has commanded the blessing,

     life forevermore.

Though the metaphors are as foreign as they are evocative, we instantly feel the allure of this Psalm. Who of us does not desire to dwell in unity with others? Who of us does not long for flourishing with others? Such unity is both the will of God and the object of our desires.

For many, the question we ask of this Psalm is: “How do we get such unity?” Yet in Los Angeles, the harder question is, “How do we hold onto this unity in a place where, for many of us, our community changes every 18 months?”

For my money, one of the most moving portrayals of unity among friends in recent years is the HBO mini-series Band of Brothers. It is a fictionalized account of Easy Company, which was part of the 2nd Battalion assigned to the 101st Airborne Division of the United States Army during World War II. Over the course of ten episodes, the series details the company’s real life exploits throughout the war from jump camp in Georgia to the airborne landings in Normandy, the taking of the Eagle's Nest, and the capitulation of Japan. The series focuses on the soldiers’ relationships and their efforts to keep one another safe, together, and on mission. Nothing that they did was easy, thus in this cauldron of war a band of brothers was forged.

But alas, the war ended, the mission was accomplished, and they returned to their homes spread out over the U.S.—only to come together again at the occasional reunion. Yet it was in those two years of war in which they gave their all to one another, that they were forever changed. Indeed the power of short-term relationships has a biblical precedent: Jonathan’s early death meant his relationship with David was relatively brief, and Jesus, famously, only spent three years with His disciples.

Please do not misunderstand me. I am not suggesting that Los Angeles is a battlefield, nor am I pretending that our relationships can have the intensity and shared life of a combat company. And I am certainly not against long-term relationships.

What I am suggesting is that with the time we have, we should give our lives to one another, because we do not know how long it will be until we say goodbye. And as we do, we will realize the goodness and pleasantness of dwelling together in unity, even when we have to say goodbye.

In my story, the two hardest goodbyes this summer were our pastoral staff losses: Albert Shim and Dave Masoner. The pain of their leaving is so great because our time together was so rich. In the movie Shadowlands, C.S. Lewis put it memorably: “Why love, if losing hurts so much? I have no answers anymore: only the life I have lived. Twice in that life I've been given the choice: as a boy and as a man. The boy chose safety, the man chooses suffering. The pain now is part of the happiness then. That's the deal.” How good and pleasant it is when we dwell together in unity, even if only for a season.

In A Severe Mercy, author Sheldon Vanauken recounts what he said to his friend, C. S. Lewis:

On that last day I met C. S. Lewis at the Eastgate for lunch. We talked, I recall, about death or, rather, awakening after death…. “At all events,” he said with a cheerful grin, “we’ll certainly meet again, here—or there.” Then it was time to go, and we drained our mugs. When we emerged onto the busy High with the traffic streaming past, we shook hands, and he said: “I shan’t say goodbye. We’ll meet again.” Then he plunged into the traffic. I stood there watching him. When he reached the pavement on the other side, he turned around as though he knew somehow that I would still be standing there in front of the Eastgate. Then he raised his voice in a great roar that easily overcame the noise of the cars and buses. Heads turned and at least one car swerved, “Besides,” he bellowed with a great grin, “Christians NEVER say goodbye!” (A Severe Mercy, p. 123)