Acts 2:1-21
“To Understand and Be Understood”
May 23, 2021
What word or phrase do you use to express amazement?
Maybe it’s awesome or spectacular or even unbelievable. This is the day for all of those words and any others you bring out for those special occasions when life has deviated from the normal routine and suddenly takes a sharp and dramatic turn toward wonderful.
This is just such a day.
It’s Pentecost and this day is meant for celebration. Today is our birthday!
Yes, today we mark this Pentecost which was being celebrated by the Jewish people 50 days after Passover as one of their big 3 major events that started out as a harvest festival. This was what brought all of these folks together in one place, after all, to birth what we now know as church.
Rather than presents and a cake with candles on it, these early Christians are met with a powerful wind and tongues of fire.
Instead of celebrating the anniversary of the day someone arrived on this earth, this is a celebration of the arrival of the Holy Spirit which was there to spread the good news of the Gospel story.
Where we might break into a rousing singing of the oh, so familiar “Happy Birthday,”
What they had was a bunch of complete strangers from all over the place speaking to each other and being understood in a multitude of languages.
Of all the miracles that could have been visited on these early disciples – healing the sick, bringing someone back from the dead, making a feast out of a single lunch bag worth of food – the Spirit provides the gift of communication across a swath of languages.
The comedian and host of “The Daily Show” Trevor Noah was born into apartheid era South Africa as a bi-racial child where there were 11 official national languages. This in a time when the very circumstances of his parentage – a White Swiss father and a Black South African mother – was illegal.
In his memoir called Born a Crime, Trevor Noah recounts coming to truly value and then becoming conversant in multiple languages at a young age. He wrote, “When you make the effort to speak someone else’s language, even if it’s just basic phrases here and there, you are saying to them…I see you as a human being.” (p. 148)
The language Xhosa was what his family spoke at home except when it was time to pray.
They always prayed in English and young Trevor was tapped by his grandmother to lead the prayer because his English was the best.
His grandmother’s line of thinking was “The Bible is in English, so English prayers get answered first.”
Funny yes, but also telling because her lived experience was that she first heard the Bible read in English and she saw that all of the white, English speakers were living comfortable lives that did not include curfews and travel restrictions. How we hear can sometimes be as important as what we hear.
The Spirit on that Pentecost found in the early part of the Acts of the Apostles chose to have the miracle of understanding and being understood just the way they were speaking in the only way they knew how, as the miraculous virtual groundbreaking for the church.
The enthusiasm and level of energy of this early church gave all would be followers the power to proclaim the Gospel story for everyone.
They are being called as individuals to be something big enough and with room enough for everybody.
We are a part of something bigger and bolder than any one congregation or denomination.
The church is all of us – including the ones we barely recognize or understand or identify with.
The Holy Spirit is still at work and with this Pentecost we get to reclaim the idea that it was not just a one-time event.
Think about how much change within church has happened over the past 2000 years.
The Holy Spirit is still hard at work in us, finding a way to work through us.
Who would have thought a year and a half ago that we, the Federated Church of East Arlington would have spent 14 months worshipping through a pandemic via screens and phone lines and that because of this we now reach folks who would never or rarely have been with us in person?
We get to be the new wine for this time.
The message of God’s all-inclusive love has not changed – it’s just how we communicate it that has.
We as a congregation chose to use the tools and technology of our modern era because the news was too good to let slip away, especially during the darkest and most dangerous points of the Coronavirus.
We have learned, as has every generation of Christians before us, that leaning into the Holy Spirit can help us a find a way out of no way.
The Gospel message is for everyone and we each have the power to share it.
Since March 2020 we have been figuring out how best to reach people where they are at.
That will need to continue to be our mission – spreading God’s love as best as we are able.
That love takes the form of Sunday mornings spent in praise and thanksgiving, story and song, in person and at home.
That love is communicated in feeding folks through the Summer Lunch Program.
The message of love we have to share happened with COVID kits and continues with Everyone Eats.
Just like the fire in this pit and the sparklers we hold, something gets them started.
Of course, there is science behind what it takes to light a fire, but let’s not forget the belief and passion we have for the message of Jesus of God’s love is lit by the power of the Holy Spirit.
It’s there in every one of us. Let it shine!
Be with me in prayer then lifting these words from UMC Deaconess Tracy Tarver-Weisel:
Gracious and generous God, God of the wind and the Spirit
Breathe into us your spirit, your kindness and your will
Rejuvenate us, even as our bones cry out for life
Water us, as we grow into our walk with you
Breathe into us and let us live again with you
Grateful for your gifts of spirit and love,
Send us out into the world to become the wind and spirit to those in need
Set our tongues and hearts to speak in the language of those we seek
Let our words open their eyes and minds to the love and wonder that you offer
Filling them with the spirit, that they may share with those they meet
Renew our spirits, cleanse our hearts and strengthen us as we share about the wondrous things you have done for us.
Hear us as we join our voices, beautiful children of your creation, praising you in the voices and languages that you love to hear
For where your Spirit of love guides us, we will follow.
Amen.
(Tracy Tarver-Weisel, Deaconess, Seacoast District, UMC Daily Prayer, 5/22/21)