Sermons

Sun, May 28, 2023

The real miracle

Sermon for Pentecost
Series:Sermons
Duration:12 mins 31 secs

Sadly, the indigenous journalist, Stan Grant—

someone who I admire and respect greatly— 

has stepped back from all of his media commitments…

in the wake of what has been described as a relentless assault of “racist filth”…

against him and his family;

along with the failure of the ABC, as an institution, to adequately support him or address it.

One man in Sydney has now been arrested and formally charged with making online threats.

In stepping back, however, Grant said that it wasn’t because of racism per se

“I am not thin-skinned. Aboriginal people learn to tough it out. That’s the price of survival”…

and he wasn’t going to give the racist trolls that satisfaction.

Rather, he said he was stepping back because

“We have shown again that our history—our hard truth—is too big, too fragile, too precious for the media…some things are sacred. Our stories are sacred. Yet the media has turned public discussion into an amusement park”.

Later in the week… 

appearing at the Sydney Writers’ Festival to discuss his new book… 

Grant said that he was finding it hard to know what to say—

in light of everything that has happened—

and then reflected, 

“I try to talk about truth. I try to talk about justice. And I try to talk about those things with love and respect. But people hear love and they respondwith hate. People might hear the word respect but respond with spite. Words are not enough… Sometimes, words just hold us apart from each other. We can talk about things, I can write about things, but what are people hearing?”

It’s ironic, isn’t it?

Often words are not enough…

but, ultimately, they are all that we have with which to communicate with each other.

It’s an old adage that “actions speak louder than words”…

but actions without explanation are open to all sorts of misinterpretation…

and misunderstanding.

Often words are not enough…

but they’re the best that we have got.

Yes, they can be misheard and misunderstood.

Lived experience gets in the way—

shaping what I hear, or think that I hear.

So too does culture.

And, of course, so does language difference—

whether that be because you and I come from different social locations… 

and we speak different social-dialects;

or because you and I have different first languages…

and things get lost in translation.

But it’s probably fair to say that issues of language, culture, and experience—

and that also includes history, of course—

are often what keep us apart as human beings.

 

All of which makes our story this morning from Acts—

the story of Pentecost—

so extraordinary.

Now, bear in mind, of course, this didn’t really happen.

The author has crafted this story based on what he thinks plausibly might have happened…

given his theological convictions and what he wants his readers to believe…

and how he wants them to be as disciples of Jesus…

and, especially, as church

Now, at the beginning of the book of Acts…

before the risen Jesus departs…

he tells the disciples to wait in Jerusalem for the coming of the Spirit…

and the power that it will bring them.

Our story, then, is how the author understands and interprets that.

Here, the Spirit comes upon the disciples…

gathered together…

and causes them to speak.

Suddenly…

miraculously…

they begin to speak in other languages…

and the crowds, who were outside, are amazed because each of them heard them speaking in—

as the Greek quite literally puts it— 

‘our own language in which we were born’.

And there seem to be quite a lot of them…

sixteen different groups are identified—

presumably, each having its own native language.

On the surface…

then…

the Spirit’s coming at Pentecost—

and the power that the disciples were promised—

appears to be one of speaking…

and communication.

 

And yet…

there’s quite a bit more to it than that. 

Beginning with the conquests of Alexander the Great…

the Greek language spread throughout most of the Mediterranean region.

So… 

at the time when the author was writing this…

Greek had been the common language—

the lingua franca

for all of these named peoples, for almost four hundred years.

Pretty much all of those present spoke Greek fluently…

if not natively.

Indeed, immediately after this, Peter gets up and addresses the gathered crowd directly…

and they all understand him perfectly…

because he addresses them in straightforward, uncomplicated Greek—

the language that they all spoke and understood.

 

So what was the point, then, of this polyglottal miracle?

 

Sure, there was something spectacularly showy about it.

But if it was simply about that

then the author could have come up with something showier and more spectacular.

Sure, it was about communication.

After all, what the members of the crowd heard spoken in their native languages…

we are told…

was, “God’s deeds of power”.

Yet, they were left “amazed and perplexed” such that Peter had to explain it to them in common Greek.

As such, if it was a miracle of communication, then it wasn’t really a very effective one.

Often words are not enough—

even the right words.

In this case, the language itself wasn’t getting in the way of communication.

Perhaps, then, either culture, or experience, or both were getting in the way.

After all, between many of the groups mentioned, there were histories of tension and suspicion… 

exclusion and prejudice.

For each of them to hear the same message in their native language…

was about far more than language comprehension.

It was, effectively, about ethnicity.

It was an essential affirmation of them in their ethnicities.

It was, first and foremost, a miracle of inclusivity.

That seems to be at the centre of the whole Pentecost event.

That seems to be the power that the Spirit imparts…

and, by implication, what God intends.

That seems to be the foundational value of the church…

which came to gestation on the day of Pentecost.

 

And, I think, that still has huge ramifications.

 

The only way that we can truly celebrate Pentecost…

today…

is to celebrate and embrace inclusivity;

to work to break down the barriers of language, culture, and experience…

that keep us and our world apart.

The only way that we can truly celebrate Pentecost…

is to listen to the experience of others—

especially those who have felt marginalised, abused, or neglected…

even when the stories that they tell are confronting and uncomfortable.

The only way that we can truly celebrate Pentecost…

is to learn to listen…

truly listen;

to recognise within us our own prejudices—

our own cultural, ideological, and linguistic assumptions—

which contribute to the barriers that divide;

and, then, try to let them go…

with the help of God’s powerful, empowering Spirit.

 

Now, that would, indeed, be a Pentecost miracle!

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