2023 05 28 Sermon

Sent by the Spirit into the Community
Pentecost Sunday
Acts 2:1-21
Rev. Karl-John N. Stone
                                           

        We were traveling by high-speed train from Rome to Venice—a four-hour trip.  Similar to flight attendants on an airplane, this train had attendants who wheeled their cart down the aisle to give snacks and drinks to the passengers.  My son Liam figured out that high-school Spanish was similar enough to Italian that he could ask for his favorite drink in Spanish, and the attendant would know what he was talking about.  “Agua con gas” he said when she stopped by his seat—“water with gas”; seltzer water.  The train attendant decided to help him learn some Italian.  “Agua con gas is Spanish” she said to him in perfect English.  “In Italian you say acqua gassata.”  Liam was delighted that now he knew enough Italian to walk into any restaurant or convenience store and ask for his favorite drink in the local language.  Acqua gassata.

        We found in Italy that most people appreciated if we at least tried to speak their language—and we found that by learning a few key words, pointing, and smiling a lot, we could usually find a way to communicate.  But we also found that almost everywhere we went, someone could speak English, especially in the tourist areas.  One evening, I wanted to order a pizza-to-go and bring it back to our hotel room.  I googled how to say the phrase in Italian, and walked down the street practicing: “pizza da asporto, pizza da asporto”.  Then I walked into the pizzeria, and said to the man behind the counter “pizza da asporto”.  When his face lit up, I knew I had pronounced it correctly!  Then a waiter walked over and started talking to me in English to finish taking our order.  We were lucky as Americans that so many people could communicate in our language.  It certainly made traveling easier.  But in a way, we were also unlucky, because we missed out on fully experiencing the culture in a way that’s only possibly if you have to learn the language.  Because there were so many English speakers, learning Italian was strictly optional for us.

        Now take a look at the miracle described in Acts 2, of the Day of Pentecost.  Gathered together were the apostles, as well as a multitude of devout Jews who were visiting Jerusalem from every nation known to the people of the Mediterranean world.  The Holy Spirit came upon them, with a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and the appearance of divided tongues as of fire.  It caused bewilderment, confusion, because each visitor from these different countries could hear their own native language being spoken by one of the apostles as the Spirit gave them ability!  This may have been the first time that people were confused by being able to understand their own language.

        Think about that.  God could have caused the miracle to happen in reverse—that each visitor in Jerusalem that day could have been given the ability by the Spirit to understand the apostles speaking in their Galilean dialect.  God could have made the visitors’ ability to hear the good news of Jesus dependent on their ability to hear and understand the language that Jesus and his first followers spoke.

        Instead, God chose to make it happen the other way around!  The apostles—whom God had entrusted with carrying the message of Jesus’ death and resurrection into all the world—could have simply been given the instructions to just wait for the people to come to them and learn how to speak the apostles’ own Galilean language.  That certainly would have made life easier for the apostles.  Instead, God was sending them, as the Holy Spirit gave them ability, to go out among the people and learn how to communicate in the people’s different languages.  This is the meaning of what it means to be an apostle, because the word “apostle” means “one who is sent”.  They started out as disciples (meaning learners or students).  Now they were becoming apostles—they were being sent into the world, to be among the people.  Jesus even commissioned the disciples to become apostles on that first evening of Easter.  We heard it in today’s gospel reading from John 20:21, where Jesus says to them “Peace be with you.  As the Father sent me, so I am sending you.”  You are apostles now; you’re sent: take what you’ve learned and what you are still learning, and go into the world with my love and grace.

        One thing I learned in Italy, with not being able to actually speak the language but only say a few words, is that it’s humbling—in a good way—because I had to approach people with openness, curiosity, respect, and patience.  There was no room for me to be embarrassed about mispronouncing a word—and no need to be, either—because most people returned to me the same attitude I gave to them.  If I was going to make my way through their country and enjoy it, and experience the rich culture all around us, the best way to do that was for me to “hop outside the box”; to venture outside of my comfort zones of language and culture and familiarity—and like the train attendant who taught us how to say “acqua gassata”—I found that I gained the ability to learn from the people whom I was trying to communicate with. 

This is similar to what our Faithful Innovation “HOP Outside the Box” team has been doing over the past six months.  Many of you have had opportunities to take part in some of their experiments, like Dwelling in the Word, or looking for the presence of God on the sledding hills at The Rock.  And the team will continue to invite you to try new experiments going forward—like going for a neighborhood walk next Sunday after church and asking ourselves the Dwelling in the Word questions about the walk, after we’ve experienced it; or participating as a church in the Franklin 4th of July parade; or holding a bonfire for the community this summer.  (Be on the lookout for more word from our HOP Outside the Box team.)  All of these experiments are, in some form, about learning how to “speak another language”—to look and listen for how God is speaking or acting in other people and places.  These are all little bits and pieces by which the Holy Spirit is bringing the miracle of the Day of Pentecost into our own time.  It’s all about how God sends us into the world to learn how to communicate the love and grace of God given in Jesus Christ.

Therefore, God calls us as his modern-day apostles to go into the world with openness, curiosity, respect, and patience.  We may or may not ever go to another country.  We may or may not gain the ability to speak a foreign tongue.  But we can each learn how to “speak the language” (so to speak) of another person.  We can learn how to communicate in ways that resonate with the people of our community so that they can hear of God’s love in ways they can understand.

This means that as Christians, we can’t only wait until people come to learn from us.  Of course, we gladly welcome people who come here, and that is an important part of our ministry—and our Evangelism committee has been doing a great jo implementing ways to make House of Prayer more welcoming--but that’s for another sermon.  In this sermon I’m talking about how God calls us as apostles to go outside of our own walls and let the people in the community know by our presence that House of Prayer is part of the community along with them.  We are neighbors; and as Jesus said, God’s law and prophets are summed up very simply: Love God and love your neighbor.  God has planted us as a church here in this place, and sent the Holy Spirit upon us, so that we can let our neighbors know that we care about them and their well-being as people.  And we can do that because God is already present among the people of our community, and Jesus already cares for them.  Amen.