Language Power

For some people, learning languages comes relatively easily. Most students get some education in one or two extra languages, and people with a knack for them, get fairly proficient with them. Occasionally we meet people who are fluent in half a dozen different languages. Knowing two is called “bilingual”, knowing more than two, “multilingual”. There is no truth to the punchline that knowing only one language is called “American”, but I see where people get that.

Language is something that unifies people, and also something that divides. When we understand each other, we have the chance to take counsel together and to find commonality. Alas, if we use a language we have in common for division and accusation, we are divided. If we speak completely different languages, it holds us apart to some degree, although we can choose mutual respect and goodwill even without words.

Let’s recall a New Testament story about a time in Jerusalem when people of dozens of languages were all in Jerusalem for a special time. This Sunday we will absorb again through the scriptures a story of a supernatural event. The Acts of the Apostles, written by the evangelist, Luke, records a time when the Apostles of Jesus were gathered in Jerusalem at the time of the Jewish festival of Shavuot. Jews from all over were in the holy city for the special pilgrimage festival. Being fifty days after Passover it took the Greek title “Pentecost” and being seven weeks after Passover, it took the Hebrew name “Shavuot” meaning “seven weeks”. It was celebrated as a thanksgiving for the first fruits of the wheat harvest and in remembrance of the giving of the Law of Moses.

The thousands of pilgrims might have had many languages, but they all understood why they were there. Divided in language, they were united in purpose. What Luke records at this particular festival year is God had a huge surprise to lay upon them. God poured out on the gathered the Holy Spirit in the monumental way that the Hebrew prophet, Joel, had foretold (Joel 3:1-5).

The other supernatural surprise was all the people began to shout spontaneous acclamations of the powerful deeds of God. They did so in their own many languages. Amazingly, it had not the effect of a cacophony of chaos; each person understood all pronouncements they heard as though uttered in their own tongue. Instead of a riotous racket, it was sweet rhapsody. The language which would have been a division, by the gift of the Spirit was a bridge. Look at how it unfolded:

When the day of Pentecost had come, the disciples were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.

Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each. Amazed and astonished, they asked, "Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs—in our own languages we hear them speaking about God's deeds of power." All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, "What does this mean?" But others sneered and said, "They are filled with new wine." (Acts 2:1-13)

Peter clarified that they were not tanked up on wine, they all were encountering the ultimate fulfillment of what Joel the prophet, centuries before, told their people to expect. All people: free, enslaved, poor, women, men, old and young will know the outpouring of the Spirit. All who call upon the name of the Lord will be saved. What unity! What inclusion!

The God of generosity is not dividing us up but removing barriers. The language of the Spirit supersedes the way language usually works. Where the Spirit is received understanding and connection will pervade the experience. That Pentecost celebrated the first fruits of a whole new kind of crop: not wheat but believers, calling out for God. So can our celebration: People living not by bread alone but by the word of God. Moses received the Law, and now the gathered believers are receiving the Holy Spirit. This way is not a burden, but an ongoing production of fruit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such fruit. (Galatians 5:22-23) This is a celebration we are eager to have together. We open up, we greet the Spirit of God and say, I do not know what, perhaps, “Aloha!”