Unity

There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call—one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.

Ephesians 4:4-6

 Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God.

Colossians 3:16

"What's…" I hesitate, trying to guess the pronunciation, "lah-teh?"

N. looks up at me, and I repeat the question, pointing to the Zomi word "Late," at the top of the page.

She shakes her head and laughs her "I don't know—no English" laugh. She flips to the table of contents and we look at it together. With some referencing and counting, I figure it out.

"Oh, Psalms!"

"Psalms," she repeats. "Late. Psalms."

_________

How can we encourage unity in the Church, across so many languages and cultures? How can we have fellowship when we can't even talk to each other?

These are questions I often ask myself when I pray for this community. There are many Christians here, but—understandably—they (we) tend to spend the most time with other believers of like-language. Yet while I advocate first-language Biblical teaching and fellowship whenever it's possible, the Church is also this mysterious thing that does transcend language and culture. These believers I see, these believers who can't say more than "hello" to me or to each other, are brothers and sisters. We are united in Christ. But how, how do we live out that unity?

As a step towards it, A. and I invited several women over to my house, to read the Bible and pray and at least physically be together.  Turns out that N.—a Zomi speaker from Burma—was the only one who could make it. Her English proficiency is quite low (although much higher than our Zomi proficiency!), but—all nervousness aside—I think she was as eager to meet with us as we were to meet with her. We read a story in Genesis, each of us following along as we alternated between Zomi and English, and then there was a pause. This is where, in an English Bible study, we would share thoughts or ask questions or make observations. Eventually, A. and I each said a thing or two in the simplest English we could, but we could tell N. couldn't really understand us. And she had an all-too-familiar expression of frustration on her face, of thoughts and ideas to offer and no language to share them.

There was another pause, then something beautiful happened. N.'s face brightened, and she began flipping purposefully through her Bible. She pointed to the passage she found, and—once we figured out that "Late" was "Psalms"—A. and I were able to find the same passage in English as she read aloud in Zomi. The passage went along with one of the themes of the Genesis story we had read, and I could see the connection she had made between them. The psalm reminded me of something I had read earlier that week, and we all flipped there together. And that's how the next two hours unfolded: the three of us side by side, cross-referencing and pointing and reading together, communicating through the words of our shared God.

This last week, we met at N.'s house instead of mine. When I arrived, the living room was already full: A., N., N.'s husband and sixth-grade daughter, another Zomi-speaking woman, a Jarai-speaking neighbor, and another American, were all sitting together with their Bibles out. Again, we all just read and prayed and pointed out meaningful passages to each other. Bl., the only Jarai speaker there, can't read in any language and understands even less English than N., and yet even she seemed fully engaged and wants to come back.

No, we didn't "study" the Bible in the traditional, American sense of the word. We didn’t apply hermeneutics or discuss theology, or look at the historical factors surrounding any given passage, or ask application questions. But it was one of the richest "Church" experiences I've ever had: three languages, three cultures, eight people with no reason to meet except the shared loved of the same Savior, spending time seeking him together. The chance to see what connections the eyes of different cultures saw between passages, and which verses were important to them—a tiny glimpse of how God is speaking to them and the thoughts I wish they could share with me. English, Jarai and Zomi all voiced in prayer in a Zomi home. 

Yes, it's only eight people, out of hundreds.  But unity has to start somewhere…