A Uniting Vision...

   I want to say a few words about the vision of chapel. Universities are tough places to form a galvanizing vision. If you go to most universities across the Western world, you will be taught a lot of information about specific topics, but it would be considered arrogant to suggest that anyone would be able to provide a vision of life that could unite all the disciplines, life callings, and entrepreneurial pursuits of the individual students, instructors, researchers, and administrators of those institutions. The Almighty Buck appears to oversee much of what goes on: the university has to stay financially viable; it has to churn out productive citizens for the global economy; your research has to attract grant money to move forward; you need to study something that will pay the bills once you graduate. But the Almighty Buck is an awfully fickle and unreliable master. Perhaps we like to entertain the idea that we are our own masters ... it's all about me, so I can do whatever I want, as long as I like it. But the self is an easily dissatisfied master as well. Is this really what education is about?
    When the apostle Paul wrote to the church in Ephesus, it was a booming city at the hub of Asia Minor's thriving economy, the centre of a sexually-charged religion, of exciting regional politics, and of cutting edge education in philosophy, medicine and the arts (including one of the largest libraries in the ancient world). If you wanted to buy, experience, learn, or run anything, Ephesus was the place to do it; it was the poster-child for the triumph of secular humanism. Here, anything was possible as long as you had the money or power to do it.
   Into this impressive context, Paul wrote these words, praising the triumph of a different Lord, one who, "in Christ," had showered "every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms" on his people:

"With all wisdom and insight God has made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure that he set forth in Christ, as a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth" (v 9-10, NRSV).

   Paul argued, against the prevailing "tolerance" of Ephesian religion and politics, that the gospel was far more than just a private religion, more than just one shop in Ephesus' marketplace of ideas. It was God's means of bringing everything together under one unifying banner, of realigning everything so that they worked together instead of against one another in the accomplishment of His purposes in history. The plan, a plan God delights in ("good pleasure"), is to "gather up all things in Christ," or as various other translations have said it, "to unite all things in him" (ESV), to "bring together" and "sum up" everything in him (MSG), to "consummate" everything in him, so that everything "finds its perfection and fulfillment in him" (Phillips).
   This is a universal statement, one that does not just apply to certain religious knowledge or practice. "All things in haven and on earth" are included - things seen with our eyes, and things only seen with the eyes of our heart. If "all things" are included, then all that we do here on the university campus is included. If this is true, then we can learn something from Paul's applications of the unifying Factor of Jesus throughout the rest of the epistle.
    So, for example, Paul tells them that the gospel has drawn disparate communities together as "fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord" (Ephesians 2:19-21). Yes, we may all be on different personal, academic and professional journeys; but God is taking all these different parts and building a temple that He can inhabit. Here, at TWU, God desires for all our efforts to be drawn together in such a way that He can inhabit them in a beautiful and transforming way. And they are drawn together around the Cornerstone: Jesus Christ.
    If this is the calling we've received, we can't get embroiled in rivalries, factions, and petty arguments between roommates or faculty or departments. Rather, Paul says, "walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace" (Ephesians 3:1-3). People who participate with God in gathering up everything in Christ put aside their differences for the greater purpose of glorifying Jesus Christ through their individual and common work, and through developing Christ-like character.
    Neither can we continue thinking in the patterns of the world, valuing self-gratification, personal ambition, and human glorification more than God's purposes. These ways of thinking are futile, ignorant, hard-hearted, callous, impure (Ephesians 4:17-19). Rather, we are to "learn Christ" by being "renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness" (Ephesians 4:23-24). If we invest in our intellectual development and our professional skills, but ignore this deeper element of spiritual formation into the character of Jesus, we're still ignorant and futile thinkers!
    Finally, Paul encourages the church in this hotbed of secular humanism to "walk as children of light (for the fruit of the light is found in all that is good and right and true), and try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord" (Ephesians 5:8b-10). In all our learning, our highest goal cannot only be knowing for its own sake; we are learning so that we can discern the things that are most pleasing to God, that is, the things that fit with His "good pleasure... to gather up all things in Christ" (1:10). And a significant element of this process of discernment is this: "Be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ" (Ephesians 5:8b-10, 18b-21). A community that is seeking to embody the uniting of all things in Christ is a singing community, one that gathers often to express its thanks to God in Christ, and its submission to one another, through the joy of song. In The Knowledge of the Holy, A.W. Tozer said, "Music is both an expression and a source of pleasure, and the pleasure that is purest and nearest to God is the pleasure of love.... Heaven is full of music because it is the place where the pleasures of holy love abound."
    This is the vision that I have for the chapel program at TWU - to be a song-filled community because we're growing together in a common experience of the love of God in Jesus. I've expressed it this way:

"A United Community Treasuring Christ Above All."

   I believe God is always calling us, at TWU, into deeper unity, not on the basis of a particular field of study or means of administration or social standing, but on the basis of a common delight in the plan of God, centred in Jesus Christ. God could make our campus a temple, a tangible dwelling place for the glory of God, if we were to, together, make it our aim to treasure Jesus Christ as supreme over even the greatest of our personal, academic, or professional aspirations. Essential to that corporate experience of the treasure of Jesus is our worship: the declaration of the gospel in all its richness through music, preaching, and testimony.
    It's interesting to note that within a century of Paul's writing, Ephesus' significance in regional politics, religion, economy and education had dwindled to almost nothing. In spite of its pride and arrogance, it faded into oblivion on the world stage. But the church, which chose Christ over the Ephesian glories, prevailed and only grows in global significance!
    Would you pray with me this summer, that this coming year would see our campus more united than ever in our delight over the infinite worth and glory of Jesus Christ, both in worship and in our pursuit of Christ-likeness toward one another at all times? Let us be a united community treasuring Christ above all!

Let me know if you're reading these blog entries, and what's sparked in your mind, by sending me an email!