Though there is much that I don’t remember from my first
year at Multnomah Bible College in Portland Oregon, there is one thing that
stuck with me. We were sitting in philosophy class with professor Lubeck, talking
about ways that people view the world and he made an observation. “Here in the
Northwest, we are probably the most independent people on the planet… except
possibly Alaskans.” To which I promptly agreed and responded with “Except
definitely Alaskans.” Alaskans know what I’m talking about. There seems to be
something about the “Last frontier” that attracts people who want to live
independently. Not only that but the spread out, often rural, lifestyle seems
to promote independence. To apply a little bit of generalization, it’s every
Alaskan man’s dream to own his own snowplow, 4-wheeler and hunting gear so that
he doesn’t need anyone else to help him live the way he wants to.
Ironically, it was in another of Lubeck’s classes in my last
semester at Multnomah that this Alaskan cultural virtue of independence took a
serious hit. The class was Advanced Bible Study Methods. One in which our
method of learning was to dissect the book of Ephesians with a scalpel to the
point where that frog that we dissected in my Jr. High science lab looked
healthy by comparison. I ran across a problem in this process though. I found
that dissecting Ephesians was remarkably similar to attempting to fillet a
bucket of tar with a Swiss army knife. It has these annoying sticky themes that
run all the way through it to the point that every time you take a slice at it
in order to pull of a chunk, you glance away only to look back and find it inseparably
interwoven to the pieces before and after it by an annoying theme like unity and
togetherness. It was that unity that wouldn’t let me separate
anything.
One of the first things Paul does is lay out the master
plan:
“…to bring all things
in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ.”
(1:10)
And if that weren’t bad enough, he goes on to built and
incredibly robust theology of the church saying things like,
“And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him
to be head over everything for he church which is his body, the fullness of him
who fills everything in every way.”
And then give it even more significance by saying,
“In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which
God lives by his Spirit” (2:21-22 emphasis mine)
And in case that were not enough, he goes on to say things
like,
“Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit – just as you
were called to one hope when you
were called – one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and
Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.” (4:3-6 emphasis
mine)
Are you getting the idea of oneness yet?
There’s also this annoying term “together” that is used 16
times in many different ways to show that everything we do as a church must be
together.
But why, what is it that is so important about being one,
being unified and using our gifts together? Well, in order to help us see this,
Paul backs off and asks us to look at the church from a high orbit where we can
see what Professor Tom Kopp recently called, “The forgotten middle.” Us
westerner’s have an easy enough time believing in humanity and things made of
mass, and we do ok at believing in God, but for some reason we like to ignore
the spiritual realm in-between. Paul,
however, had no problem treating other spiritual beings as a reality and thus
we read about the mystery of the Gospel that is now revealed.
“His intent was that now, thought the church, the manifold
wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the
heavenly realms, according to his eternal purpose which he accomplished in
Christ Jesus our Lord.” (3:10-11)
Can you see as I have that the unity of the church is not
just so we can all have warm fuzzys and a nice comfortable place to go on Sunday
where people will like us? It seems that the church is more of a cosmic thing and
her unity is how God has chosen to display his superior wisdom to the spiritual
rulers and authorities that we can’t usually see. So we can talk about the social
gospel and how we need to show the world God’s nature by our love for one
another, but do we realize that in doing so, we are also displaying God’s
wisdom and nature to the rest of creation that we may or may not even be aware
of; something beyond the limitations of physics and mass.
It aught to be enough motivation that our neighbors all
around us are thirsting for the living water and without unity our living water looks like just another mud puddle. But if that’s not enough, we aught to
remember that as Christians we have been made a part of the Church, God’s plan
to show the world, including the spiritual realm, his grace, mercy and love. If
we do not stand firm and fight for the unity of the church against the
spiritual forces that face us, (The armor passage in Eph 6) then we are doing a
poor job indeed of reflecting the nature of God.
Thankfully, Grace is a part of that nature.
So here I am a white Alaskan to the core with the cultural
value of independence ingrained deeper in my bones than their own marrow. Then
this annoying guy named Paul starts telling me that in order to fulfill my
ultimate purpose in life, it is not an option, but in fact it is required that
I become as interdependent in the church as a catcher’s hand is with his eye
while intercepting a 100mph fastball.
I am learning interdependence as I have been raising support
for the past few months to go and serve in Port Alsworth at Tanalian Leadership
Center. As I rely on my support team, I am able to go and they rely on me to
carry out the work that they have committed to being a part of. It’s a humbling
experience, knowing I can’t do it alone. Yet I something tells me that the
money and prayer are only the start of a long list of areas that God wants to
apply this lesson to. I will have much to learn as I integrate into the TLC
staff team, Lake Clark Bible Church and the community as a whole.
I also expect to learn from the students who I am supposed
to be teaching since native culture as a general rule is much more founded on
community values and interdependence. While I’m at it, perhaps I should learn a
bit about “the forgotten middle” In fact, why don’t I just re-define what it
means to be Alaskan based on some of the cultural values that existed in my
beautiful state long before us white people even got here.
