The journey to the great Passover began as it had for hundreds of years. An individual man, family, or small band of families from a Roman province began the ascent to Jerusalem singing Psalm 120, the first of fifteen Psalms of Ascent that would end at the mountain of the Lord in worship. The Psalms of Ascent begin with a desire for peace in a world of war and move through the ebbs and flows of the journey of God’s people through history, celebrating and anticipating the promises of God in the midst of present distresses.
From north, south, east, and west Jews traveled, meeting up with other pilgrims along the way. Their bands grew larger and their voices stronger as they converged on the roads and finally at the gates of Jerusalem. Standing at the gates or inside the city, Psalm 133 is sung as the penultimate Psalm, declaring the goodness of the unity of God’s people as they have gathered as one body and one voice for one purpose: to pledge their loyalty to Yahweh their King and receive the promise of deliverance from him. The servants of Yahweh’s house are then called to lead them to the throne in Psalm 134.
This year this ascent took on fresh excitement as the worshiping pilgrims ended their journey at the mountain of the Lord to welcome the Lord himself, riding on a donkey. This is the one, Yahweh’s king, who would unite them in his own body. However, there were some there that day whose intent was to destroy that unity. It is of these types of people that Solomon warns his son in the last of the seven abominations in Proverbs 6.16-19: “… he who unleashes conflict between brothers.”
For a body to be well-ordered, healthy, it must be unified in all of its diverse parts. This is true of our physical bodies, the body of Christ, or other bodies politic. We are designed at every level to be unified because we are created in the image of a God who eternally exists as a tri-unity, three distinct persons yet one God. When Paul argues for the unity of Jews and Gentiles, for example, in Romans 3 and Galatians 3, he does so on the basis of God being one. Unity, therefore, is a vital aspect of what it means to live; I don’t merely mean to exist, but to live in the fullness of divine life. Psalm 133 speaks of the unity of God’s people in his presence as where God has commanded the blessing, life forevermore. To rip the body apart is death.
God hates it when men set out to tear asunder what God has joined together. Whether it is divorce (Mal 2.16), dividing the body of Christ (1Cor 1.10-13; 3.1ff.), or even a well-ordered society, God hates the one who uses his words and actions as warriors sent out to kill those bodies with the weapons of divisive conflict.
People unleash these conflicts for various reasons. Solomon tells his son that it is hatred that stirs up strife (Pr 10.12). We view someone or a body of people as our enemies, holding them in contempt. The way another person, family, business, country, or a church lives in culture and with one another poses a threat to you, real or perceived. Somehow you will not be able to live the life you want to live unhindered. You feel condemned in the other body’s presence, so you go on the attack.
This hatred is, many times, stirred by envy. You despise what others have and, not only do you want it, you want them deprived of it. Envy is one reason Jesus was killed (Mt 27.18; Mk 15.10). Stirring up envy through cultural Marxism expounded in Critical Theories is a modern example of stirring up envy through the fictional creation of classes of oppressors and oppressed. Despising the gifts others have in the church whether abilities or positions and creating ungodly competition that divides is a perennial problem in the church.
Hatred and envy are rooted in pride, which is, not so incidentally, structurally parallel with the one who sows discord in Solomon’s list. Pride is self-exalting at the expense of anyone and everything around you. Pride cares nothing about the whole of the body, only about itself and its comfort and recognition.
Conflict’s warriors can be aggressive hostility, someone who bashes unity with a blunt object, or the saccharine sweetness of a passive-aggressive concerned person who stirs up discontentment through masked grumbling, complaining, and gossip. No matter size and shape of the warrior, the mission is the same: seek and destroy unity.
Solomon tells his son of God’s hatred for the one who unleashes conflict, not only so that he can avoid being that person and put down those who do so in his realm, but also so that he can create a well-ordered body. The son must cultivate character qualities such as humility, the ability to defer to others and serve the genuine needs of the entire body. To humility he must add gentleness or meekness, a reined-in strength that focuses power to be used for the good of others, refusing to assert personal rights and privileges before God or man to secure one’s own comfort ahead of the good of others. Longsuffering, enduring the difficulties, aggravations, irritations, weaknesses, and even the sins of others, will also be required to maintain unity. We must bear with one another in love, putting up with one another because we love them and striving to do always what is best for them. All of this must be done with an eagerness to guard the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There must be a genuine desire coupled with the urgency to create and maintain unity. (Paul lays out these character qualities in Ephesians 4.)
One day our journey will end in complete unity at the top of the mountain of the Lord. Until that day, we must fight for unity and fight all those who seek to destroy it.
