Acts
2:12
Here’s part of a note that I received from a friend this
week:
“How are you doing these days? I hope all is as well as can
be in these days and circumstances. The Smiths are good. Betsy has decided that
she will not continue working at Kroger when things open up to the yellow
stage. She's fully aware that people can be stupid now. Yellow just means more
people being even more stupid in her mind. I'm perfectly okay with her
decision. I'm really good after reading a news story from yesterday. A guy in
an Acme up there in Feasterville went wacko after an employee told him to
please put on a mask. He shoved stuff off shelves and threw a bottle of hot
sauce at an employee before walking out.
All of this causes me to wonder what happened to American
citizens in general. Where did the sense of community go that I knew growing
up? Where did the sense of being helpful to other people go? It's truly a
puzzle to me. It's affecting people that I've known for a life time and I don't
understand. Sigh”
Here’s
part of my reply:
“What has happened to the country? I wish I knew.
I miss it. There are a lot of ways that I don't feel connected to much of
it anymore. When I read about some bunch of partiers in the Ozarks or an
anti-whoever rally in Kansas or the yahoos waving their guns in Lansing, part
of me just wants to say, ‘Let them take the consequences themselves.’ Of
course, it's stupid of me to think that it doesn't bounce back on all of us in
some way, but I keep falling into the we/they trap.”
That is exactly why I pray for a new experience of the Holy
Spirit for all of us.
The first gift that
the Spirit gave was the ability to communicate across human boundaries. It came about on that day, Luke tells us,
that the disciples suddenly
“began to speak in other languages as the Spirit gave them
ability.” [Luke 2:4]
That let them connect with people who were, like them, Jews,
but who did not share a similar cultural background or even a common
language. I don’t know about you, but
there are huge numbers of people I don’t seem to be able either to talk or to
listen, to anymore. All it takes is for
someone to use the wrong buzzword and something switches off. Instead, what I hear is a warning voice
saying, “This is one of them.” This is one
of the
“Parthians, Medes, Elamites,”
This is one of the
“residents of Mesopotamia, Judaea, Cappadocia, Pontus, and
Asia.” [Acts 2:9]
This is a Democrat, a Socialist, a MAGA-hat-wearing
Texan. This is a snowflake, a racist, a
boomer, an immigrant, a deplorable.
Whoever they are, they aren’t one of us.
Whoever “us” is.
The very questions we ask go right past one another and come
with an edge of suspicion. “Why do you
need an assault rifle?” “Why do you want
to take my gun away?” “Why do you think
you can change the definition of marriage?”
“Why do you want to deny us the same rights you have?” Even when there is some actual good will and
a desire to understand, the similarities in the way we speak about things can
itself get in the way. It’s like trying
to go from one language to another and making the mistake of thinking that if
words sound similar then they must mean the same thing. So an English-speaker wants to ask a
Spanish-speaker if his shy daughter is embarrassed, and inquires if she is “embarasada”. The Spanish-speaker gets upset, wondering why
they want to know if she’s pregnant.
Pentecost, the gift of the Holy Spirit, is the gift of the
divine presence that hovered over the moment of creation, the moment before
everything was divided into land and sea, day and night, morning and
evening. The first thing the Holy Spirit
did when given to the disciples was to provide a bridge across the divisions
that keep human being from understanding one another, so that they no longer
are speaking about themselves, but
“speaking about God’s deeds of power.” [Acts 2:11]
Just by speaking to one another at all, they show what God
can do.
One of the most harmful things we do, and I know myself
guilty of this, is to give up on one another.
I may not know where the sense of community and willingness to help one
another went. But I do know that if it
is ever to be real, it will come about because Jesus’ followers are speaking a
language given to them by the Holy Spirit, not the language that comes to us
from the world in which we live. That
would be the language that talks about God’s deeds of power, not about our own
pride.
The question people asked the disciples was
“What does this mean?” [Acts 2:12]
Peter, quoting the prophet Joel, said that the miracle they
were hearing meant that a new age was begun, a time when the accepted order
would see some serious changes.
The Spirit’s presence still means that things get turned
upside-down and inside-out.
“Even upon my slaves, both men and women,
in those
days I will pour out my Spirit;
and
they shall prophesy.” [Acts 2:18]
What does it mean for us?
What does this gift of the Holy Spirit mean to people living in a
society torn apart into factions and proud of its divisions?
To us, it might mean not talking so much at all, but
listening. We might need to say, “Tell
me why you feel that way?” or “What has been your experience of people on my
side of the argument?” It might mean
saying, “Could you put that into your own words?” when you hear somebody using
another person’s talking-points.
It might mean standing your ground without fighting, learning
to say, “I disagree but I still like you.”
It might take the courage of saying, “I am truly offended, and don’t
think you even know what I just heard.” It might take the honesty of saying, “I
think I want to drop this subject right now and come back to it when I’m not so
angry.”
Of course, it might mean admitting that we could be wrong
about something sometimes. It might mean
saying, “I’m sorry.”
These things, too, are among God’s mighty deeds of power.
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