Message: The Gift of Pentecost - Speak and Understand
Text: Luke 2:1-21
Today’s story begins by telling us the potential power and the significance of a group of people gathering in one place. Indeed, being ‘all together in one place’: “When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place.”
Today’s story is about the day of Pentecost, which, for the Christian Church, means the birthday of the Church. Pentecost’s origins lie in a Jewish harvest festival called Shavuot, which is also associated with the giving of the Torah at Sinai. The harvest festival origins explain why there could have been a large crowd of devout residents and tourists in Jerusalem, in the outdoors, as our Bible states, “Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem”, Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and parts of Libya, and visitors from Rome, Cretans and Arabs. This description also shows the diversity among the Jews. What is noted here is that these people were outdoors, on the streets, busy with their own concerns on the day of Shavuot. There was also a small group of people who were indoors, gathered in a certain place. It couldn’t be a home; the context gives us the information that there were about three hundred people - three hundred disciples, men and women, young and old. These three hundred people were all together in one place. I believe, ‘being in one place,’ ‘being all together in one place’ paves the beginning of what would unfold soon on this day of the birth of the church.
Verse 2: “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.” That doesn’t mean that they were swept by an actual powerful storm from the real, physical world, but there came a sound which was like it, so everyone heard it and felt it, as if it were the signal to blow away their past, bringing an entirely new reality. All together in one place, the wind blew them away from the past of that small community where the peace, oneness, the spirit of being all together had been disrupted and had yet to be formed anew. Now, the power of being all together in one place for these three hundred men and women was manifested in the form of forked tongues of fire, above each one’s head and shoulders and in between them and resting on each of them. These are images that seize our imagination and attention right away - - yet, the visual representation of the Spirit as fire may not be the focus of this reading. This story that tells us how the church was born, is born and will be born every day at every changing point of history and at all levels of society, climaxes in ‘auditory’ signs and representations. That means Speech. The Spirit speaks. As the Spirit gives us ability, the disciples become a body of renewed hope and faith and, all of them being filled with the Holy Spirit, begin to speak in other languages. What might “other languages” mean? They could be languages that they have not spoken yet…
The auditory representation, the auditory signs of the change, transformation, birth of the church are enormous in our Bible story today. They are sound, wind, thunder. The sound that the cloud makes on the mountaintop and the earthquake makes under the world. More importantly, the enormous roar of speech the people in the gathering, the disciples, the three hundred make by speaking in tongues, speaking in other languages, speaking in the language of the Holy Spirit, speaking in the language of the future of their being all together in one place. It is a speech event - overwhelming, uproaring and explosive.
The next scene of this story is also filled with auditory signals of the call to change. Were this a film, the scene would dissolve to be replaced by another; the focus is now outdoors, where a large crowd of devout residents and tourists gather to investigate the sound, the ‘voice’ from the inside, the voice from the 300 who were all together in one place. So these representatives of the “farthest corners of the earth” began to hear the message in their native tongues. That means, they COULD UNDERSTAND what they were hearing; the fall of Babel in reverse. It is a story of the original unity we must restore among all people under heaven. How can that original unity be restored in the human race across brokenness and division? By the tongues and by the ability to hear. This speaking event, breaking the silence, is like a massive truth-telling that leaves nobody feeling shamed. The birthday of the church was the day of a harvest of WORDS with the necessary presence of both sides: the speakers and the hearers. The Holy Spirit, the Mighty Spirit, encompasses both the speakers and the hearers with the birth of an entirely new reality - that’s the church. The church is born when all of us - as much of ‘all’ as possible - are united and are able to restore the original unity of the human race. That unity is not uniformity; on the day the church is born, the Spirit-driven event started with the three hundred men and women, young and old “in one place”, resulting in the multiplication by ten of those who received the Holy Spirit. The result is, the Bible says, three thousand new members.
I am not focusing on the growing of the numbers, though. I wanted to make the point about numbers because I believe in emphasizing the result - the multiplication of the number of those who are led and changed by the Spirit on this day of Pentecost could give us great hope. We sometimes say to each other, “Hey, I’m worried that we are just preaching to the choir.” What happened on the day of Pentecost (and that’s where the power of this day lies) - was the exact opposite. The choir preached to those who never would have come to that place if they didn’t hear that great sound, those who never would have stayed if they couldn’t understand it. We are divided by our different languages. I am not talking about you speaking in English and me speaking in Korean. The languages the story of the Pentecost talks about are an entire new reality after the fall of Babel. We CAN UNDERSTAND EACH OTHER after the Spirit’s change. Because the Spirit gives us abilities to do so - both speaking, truth-telling and hearing, truth-reckoning.
Our Bible stories were written not just to be archived as stories of the past, as the records of our history. Our stories are written to explain the present in the light of the past. The context I would like to present for us today is The National Inquiry’s Final Report of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls and Two-Spirited People. The official webpage shows us fast facts. The total number of participants in the truth gathering process is 1286; 1484 family members and survivors provided testimony. 819 individuals shared through artistic expressions. 83 experts, knowledge-keepers and officials provided testimony through 15 community hearings. Indeed, the final report communicates to us as “Reclaiming Power and Place”. To be honest, I have not had a chance to read it, but I will do so, very soon, and I hope all of us can. I hope that adding each of us in this place, in this “one” place, to the crowd who would be the “truth-hearers” and “truth-reckoners” (asking, “What does this mean? (Verse 12) would result in all Canadians and those who are resident in this land, (so much more than the three thousand reached by the three hundred), to experience the SPIRITUAL PENTECOST, TO HEAR AND UNDERSTAND the languages of the First Peoples, the National Inquiry’s Final Report of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls and Two-Spirit without inserting doubting voices and opinions, “They are filled with new wine (Verse 13)” but receiving the overwhelming, uproaring, grieving and explosive voices of First Peoples and the report. Let’s listen to their voices, as they spill out onto the street. For example, engage in discussions and learning about genocide. Find out why colonization is tantamount to genocide against the First People, so slow and systemic that we settlers can ignore it, have ignored for centuries this huge crime against the dignity and rights of First Peoples in Canada. Hear the words in the report: Commissioner Qajaq Robinson was equally direct: “As a non-Indigenous person I’ve struggled to come to terms with my role in Canada’s genocide.... it’s my truth, it’s your truth... I see it, I own it. Who we will be and who we are will ultimately be defined by how we respond, now that we know.” We have so many enormous factors to reform which are involved in Indigenous women’s vulnerability to violence. To name just a few, transportation, housing, harm reduction focused wet shelter, etc.
To study the Final Report, please click here.
To read "A Letter to the Church on the Final Report of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls", click United Church's Response.
The day of Pentecost is truly the birthday of the church, and the church is really a body of people, bound by God’s inclusive and affirming Spirit, a body of people multiplying in transformed and transforming places, ready to die again and again, willing to be born again and again, trusting in the Spirit’s ability to renew us and our hope. In this light, I invite us to think about Pentecost as the gift that enables us to “Speak and UNDERSTAND” words that were previously left unheard. So, our identity as disciples bound by the spirit of Pentecost is characterized by being both the speakers and hearers, and we know that the first call is to be the hearers of the Word. For now, let us have a quiet moment to ponder the first verse again, which prompted this reflection, “When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place.” Indeed, we are all together in one place, today, and we are (the number). Now, let us go and preach to the world, the new vision of the Spirit, the entire new reality of how we restore unity!
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