Reflection on Acts 2:1-11

by John G. Gibbs, PhD

The day of Pentecost reversed humanitys efforts to scale the heights of heaven. Pentecost negates the fall into chaos when the Tower of Babel collapsed. That tower was built by both pride and fear: that is, both in order to make a name for ourselves and to prevent being scattered abroad (Genesis 11:4). But neither goal was accomplished. The quest for domineering power that was signaled by the effort to build a tower with its top in the heavens led to the opposite result. Chaos came into human interactions. Indeed, the very thing they most feared happened: they were scattered abroad as if into outer space of utmost remoteness from one another. Pentecost was the event, on the other hand, when Gods Spirit moved from heaven downward into the nascent Church, restoring understanding across linguistic and cultural barriers. Lukes descriptions borrow from Judaisms apocalyptic imager. Pentecost is a cosmic event that joins heaven and earth, Gods deeds of power and devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. Galileans are empowered beyond their imagination, literally enspirited to the point of apparent intoxication (2:13). Or, you could say that the Spirit filled them with a kind of fire, perhaps like that of prophetic fire in ones mouth (Jeremiah 5:14). So heres the picture of the earliest Church: nothing staid and settled here, no over-reaching either, no fearful falling into chaotic confusion. To the contrary, the engines are revved up, takeoff is underway, great energy is vibrating throughout the entire house, and they all are about to burst forth onto the scene of world history. Such a Spirit-filled community, living among themselves with understanding, will live the same way among all other creatures. The Church does not approach the creation with the overreaching quest for power that vainly tried to grasp highest heaven and claim the powers of God. The Church will rather know that ultimate deeds of power belong to God, and that we become human by learning how to speak in other languages, how to identify with the needs and viewpoints of the others. The Church will remember, if she listens to this Pentecost story, that all creation is out there and in us because at the start of it all a wind [Spirit] from God swept over the face of the waters. The same Spirit that filled all Creation with form, life and meaning, fills the Church with the same ****************************************************************************** ****************************************************************************** Pentecost affirms that there is a different spirit, which God gives the churches to renew and transform human life. Renewal and transformation take place in the Christian community guided and filled with the Spirit (I Cor. 12:4-13) It is very easy to romanticize the Scripture passages which speak of the Spirit at work in the community. The Pentecost story in Acts seems a miraculous, one--time-only communication of the gospel to crowds gathered from throughout the

world. The guidance of the Spirit-Paraclete, a prominent feature of life in the Johannine churches, might seem a mystic experience of union with Christ and the Father that did not survive the apostolic generation. The Fourth Gospel itself notes the passing of the apostolic leaders, Peter and the beloved disciple. Pauls vision of the varied gifts of Christians working together in harmony under the direction of the Spirit remains just that (I Cor. 12A-13) We pay lip service to the ideal, but face a pastoral reality in which harmony or unity is achieved only by rejecting the gifts of some. We may acknowledge that the Spirit dwells in all Christians, but we find it very difficult to demonstrate that we are the heirs of God about which Paul writes (Rom. 8:8-17) In any case, we frequently think that all experiences of spiritual transformation belong to the private, individual realm of experience. They are not open to public observation or communal participation, except in the more Pentecostal forms of Christian worship. Romanticizing the primitive days of the church and privatizing religious experience make it difficult for most of us to grasp the public significance of Pentecost. Lukes account in Acts highlights the public importance of the event. This dramatic manifestation of Gods presence is not oriented toward the communal practice of glossolalia. Rather, the gift of tongues becomes a gift of speaking in other languages so that people from throughout the world could hear "the mighty works of God" (2:11) Even that miraculous event remains incomplete and misunderstood until it is interpreted by the apostolic preaching. God has fulfilled a promise to bring salvation to all in the last days. The death and heavenly exaltation of Jesus as Lord has inaugurated this new age. Lukes table of nations takes in not only those living in Palestine or in the Roman Empire, but even those beyond its boundaries in Parthia and Mesopotamia. Exegetes trace the origins of such a list to the work of ancient geographers and astrologers. It represents a catalog of all the peoples of the earth and presents in miniature the cross-cultural challenge that still faces Christianity. One public manifestation of the Spirit is proclaiming a message of salvation. And the "mighty deeds of God," which constitute the experience of Gods power, are no longer limited to a particular people, a particular language or cultural group. Christianity gave ritual expression to this conviction in baptismal initiation. All persons became children of the one God, whom they addressed as Abba, Father, regardless of the human divisions of gender, race or status. Luke expresses the dilemma of particularity seeking universality in the crowds reaction to the apostles. How can these Galileans be speaking of God to other nationalities, in their own tongues? On one level, Christian missionaries have faced this challenge by seeking to render the Bible in all the languages of the world. Such efforts required the recording and description of many languages, which would otherwise have remained the possession of local tribes. On another level, the links between Christian missionaries and the global expansion of European and North American commerce and culture have reduced Christianity to a new form of particularity. It provides the symbolic and religious underpinnings of the white, Northern European and American claim to control and dominate all the peoples of the globe. The public message of Pentecost is a challenge to all the peoples of the earth to discover their unity as children of God. It does not support isolation in Christian sects, which claim an

exclusive monopoly on the Spirit and demand conversion to the language and mores of their tribe as the price of salvation. Pentecost affirms the cultural and linguistic diversity of all the peoples of the earth. Its message of forgiveness summons all peoples to the common cause of justice and seeing that life prevails over death. ****************************************************************************** ****************************************************************************** SERMON: Finding Our Own Voices Last week as I walked through an airport concourse, I saw a display case full of matching yellow boxes, each with the name of a language prominently displayed upon it. At this counter, a traveler could purchase a set of tapes for learning any of a number of the world's major languages. With these tapes, plus time and persistence, it was possible to become, if not fluent, then at least familiar, with the everyday speech of millions of people. What's available for sale at that airport counter comes free to the first disciples on the Day of Pentecost. The Holy Spirit of God fills them so that they speak diverse languages recognized by the cosmopolitan crowd thronging the streets of Jerusalem. People in the crowd are bewildered to hear folks from nearby Galilee talking in languages from all around the Mediterranean basin. The Galileans speak out in ways that moments before were unfamiliar to them. Without resort to the yellow boxes I saw, they have suddenly become masters of strange speech. Yet what happens on this first Christian Pentecost has to do not only with language, but also with content. The Galileans are not making small talk. They are announcing God's latest deeds of power. They are declaring that Jesus the messiah has conquered death. Yet even more is going on. Each member of the original Christian community has found his or her own voice. Below the language spoken, below the content of what is said, this is the foundation for their extraordinary outburst. Because each life was open and waiting for the Spirit, because the Spirit's flame touched each person, each one speaks now with new authenticity, new authority. Each one has found his or her own voice. What they speak cannot stay inside the confines of conventional language. New languages are required. The divine reality shatters the containers of human speech, demanding fresh expression, new words, new syntax. Both sides are blessed. Speakers are shocked to find their true voices, a gift to them from God. Listeners are shocked to hear firsthand a message from heaven, that God is active here and now. There are ways in which the events of the first Pentecost are unique. Their uniqueness may make this feast of Pentecost seem safe to us, a harmless diversion. But the events of the first Pentecost-and today's celebration of them--are anything but safe, because they help us recognize that God is active here and now, upsetting our small consistencies.

One way God takes action involves people finding their own voices. I am not referring to people whose speech is impaired because of a problem medical science can diagnose. I mean that people find their voice because they accept their life's truth, and they speak out on that basis. To accept the truth of one's own life is a great challenge and a continuing task. It means turning from a multitude of outside influences, influences that may be oppressive, or ill-informed, or simply irrelevant. Accepting your life's truth means honoring yourself, not the confused surface self, but the deeper, nearly inaccessible self, the one which, if certain mystics are to be believed, is never out of touch with God. When we honor this truth, then we speak with our own voice, and we do so in a way that benefits both ourselves and our neighbors. What we say shatters the confines of language. Words are no longer simply words, cheap and plentiful; they serve their purpose as pointers to truth. Using their own voice is what great artists do. This is what distinguishes them from hacks. It's not hard to recognize when the music is Mozart or the poetry is Shakespeare; each one has his own voice. In the same way, using our voice is what each of us must do in the artistry of living life. We cannot become a second Shakespeare, a second Mozart, but even better we can become ourselves, the first and only one of our kind. We can be authentic, we can be real. Doing this is the human task. It is a gift from God. The first Christians recognize that the truth of their lives is not found outside the death and resurrection of Jesus. The life of each of them, for all its rugged uniqueness, makes sense only when Christ's suffering and triumph appear as the background, the stage that frames the story. Through days to come, these believers discover that the more they enter into the mystery of Jesus suffering and triumphant, the more they recognize the truth of their lives; and the more they enter into their own unique and unavoidable truth, the more they find there the paschal pattern of "dying and behold we live." [2 Corinthians 6:9.] The first Christian generations experience this, some to the point of martyrdom. A few, including Paul, write about it in what become the books of the New Testament. So as Christians we find this truth which strangely belongs to our lives and yet also belongs to Christ. Insofar as we set aside alternatives and access this truth, it becomes the basis for what we say. Working through our lives and our speech, the Spirit sent by Christ shatters the boundaries of language for us, bringing about new life, life abundant. This world contains speech that is confused and untruthful. Some of it uses the vocabulary of faith. Speech becomes confused and confusing when people have not found their voices, when the truth of their lives remains alien to them. Here in our time, the tower of Babel remains a popular place. Authentic Christianity means claiming the truth of our lives and speaking with our own voices. This process makes room for the Spirit to act--in us and through us.

When we dare to claim the truth of our lives and speak with no voice other than our own, our authenticity rings out loud and clear, shattering the language barriers that separate us from others. When this happens, then other people hear, perhaps for the first time, how God is alive not only in our lives, but in their own as well. Let us pray. Holy Spirit, fire from heaven, so illuminate our storehouses of memory and hope that we may discover Christ there as we look for the truth of our lives. Holy Spirit, filling us anew, may we find our voices and speak in new languages, so that others will hearken to the God who waits for them. Holy Spirit, gift of power, make us bold enough to be ourselves, ready to act in ways that reveal us as your image in the world. Amen.