Acts 2:1 - 11
Joan and I just got back from Orlando,
where we took two grandsons to Disney World. We've now taken eleven
of our nineteen there. I saw someone with a t-shirt that said, “You
are never too old for Disney World”. I beg to differ. When our
kids were little we took them there two or three times as well.
Things have changed a lot. In addition to prices and long waits in
lines, the place is crowded with people who don't speak English, at
least to each other. That is a big change from when we first set
foot in the place. Language is interesting; it isn't just another
way of talking, it carries with it all the baggage of culture, all
the ways of looking at the world that speakers of the language have.
When I meet an Australian or an Englishman, to me they have
outrageous accents, but our way of looking at the world overlaps.
When I meet someone whose primary language is not English, even
though he may speak it well, I can tell that there is a gap that
humanly speaking we can't overcome in getting to know each other.
Some Jewish wise men say that the
original language of Adam and Eve was Hebrew, which is spoken in
heaven and will be spoken by all men at the end of time. There is a
legend that if you don't stimulate a newborn baby with your language,
he or she will speak Hebrew. Hebrew, to orthodox Jews, is kind of a
sacred language and a serious Jew learns it.
It's the same with Muslims, God gave
the Koran to Mohammed in Arabic, and there is no hope that a person
who studies a translation will pick up all the nuances. If you are
an Indonesian Muslim and take your faith seriously, you learn Arabic
so that you can read the word of God as He intended it to be read.
We had something like that in Roman
Catholicism from about the 1600's to the mid-20th century.
Latin was the language of the Church, and I heard a sermon one time
talking about how Mary changed the whole course of history with one
word – fiat. That means “Let it be” in Latin. But Mary didn't
speak Latin. Nor did Jesus, nor St. Peter. But in the time of
Jesus, I suspect everyone who spoke a particular language could tell
you why it was the most natural, the most beautiful, the language
spoken by the gods or God.
In the reading from the Acts of the
Apostles, the striking thing is that the Spirit speaks through the
apostles in all the languages of all the people in Jerusalem at that
time. There is no privileged language, or perhaps every language
becomes God's language – and by extension, every people, every
person, is invited into that wind, that fire, that is the enveloping
love of God. The people who hear the apostles are not surprised by
their message, but rather, by the fact that they can understand it.
But even here the Spirit is at work, Because there are some who
resist the Spirit and conclude that the apostles have had too much
wine and are simply babbling.
Our Church still says that the
official text of the bible is the Vulgate, which is the translation
into Latin prepared by St. Jerome and later revised in 1592 and again
in 1979. And of course the Church does not say that Latin is the
language of God, or that it is somehow privileged. The Latin text is
dead, in a sense, and that's a good thing. Living languages change,
but the Latin can't.
But Pentecost tells us that no
language is sufficient; when God speaks to us, there will be no
barrier, there will be no culturally related misunderstanding.
Because the Word of God is not the Bible, the Word of God is Jesus
Christ, and the Bible, whatever the translation, is the Word of God
only insofar as it leads us to hear God speaking to us in His Son.
And to be able to hear the Word of God through the Bible is a gift of
the Holy Spirit.
We human beings like to be in control.
We like to hang out with our own kind; because we know them, we know
they are like us. We are anxious when forced to engage with people
who are different, who don't share our language. Perhaps in our age
we've learned how poisonous this attitude is; even fifty years ago
everyone heard the same newscasts, read the same news magazines, and
there were two syndicated organizations that provided national and
world news stories to our local newspapers. Bias existed, of course,
but we knew that and took it into account. And there were liberals
and conservatives in those days as well, but since we all heard the
same news and read the same magazines, we had common ground and could
speak the language of the other; and being able to speak it, we knew
that even if we disagreed, the other was sincere, and had thought
things through from his own perspective, using the same data. Now we
live in echo chambers. Because social media is so widespread, it's
possible to go through life without even thinking about how someone
else may see the world. And since our viewpoint is reinforced by
what we read and never contradicted, we don't speak the same
languages anymore. We kind of laugh when we hear about people who
don't want to be referred to as male or female; we think it's silly
when a New York City born chef who specializes in southwestern
cuisine is called out for cultural appropriation; and we scratch our
heads to try to figure out the difference between people who are
awake and those who are woke. But it's getting worse. We are losing
the ability to understand each other.
One of the many gifts the Spirit
brings to the Church is that of being able to speak to all men and
women, regardless of language, of political stance, of social status.
And if that is a gift of the Church it's also a gift to its members.
On this feast of Pentecost let us resolve to use the gift of
tongues, the gift of communicating with those who are different from
us, because that's what the Spirit tells us is the will of God;
that's what Jesus told us when he sent us to teach all nations;
that's why no human language, political party, social class, or
sexual orientation can contain the word of God, the word who is Jesus
Christ.
