"By Any Other Name"
Polk City UMC
May 31, 1998
Mark Haverland


Acts 2:1-21


When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. 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. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability. Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each. Amazed and astonished, they asked, "Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs -- in our own languages we hear them speaking about God's deeds of power." All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, "What does this mean?" But others sneered and said, "They are filled with new wine." But Peter, standing with the eleven, raised his voice and addressed them, "Men of Judea and all who live in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and listen to what I say. Indeed, these are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only nine o'clock in the morning. No, this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel: 'In the last days it will be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams. Even upon my slaves, both men and women, in those days I will pour out my Spirit; and they shall prophesy. And I will show portents in the heaven above and signs on the earth below, blood, and fire, and smoky mist. The sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood, before the coming of the Lord's great and glorious day. Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.' "


John 14:8-17 (25-27)


Philip said to him, "Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied." Jesus said to him, "have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, 'Show us the Father'? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own; but the Father who dwells in me does his works. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; but if you do not, then believe me because of the works themselves. Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father. I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If in my name you ask me for anything. I will do it. If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you." "I have said these things to you while I am still with you. But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts to troubled, and do not let them be afraid.




A few months ago while attending a training session in NYC on church growth and revitalization, I got into a conversation with a preacher from Houston. He wondered what percentage of a congregation could be African-American before the whites in the pews got nervous. We laughed some about what this tipping point might be, but he was asking a very serious question. The general conclusion was that no particular percentage was as important as the effect the minority had on the worship and preaching. One other black minister from Detroit called what most whites are used to a "northern European" style of preaching. It's pretty much the way I preach, long on words and short of emotions. Stereotypical black preaching uses words only to get to the more important emotions which lie more at the heart of the religious experience. The music and hymns also contribute to this difference. In the UMC we tend to sing our hymns pretty much straight up, marching though the verses like good tin soldiers - each line the same cadence and volume. Gospel music is far more expressive and "heartfelt." At any rate, when minority groups begins to change the style and content of our worship and preaching, the majority who liked it the old way gets uncomfortable.


Some religions design themselves so that such differences can't happen at all. In Islam, the holy book or Koran was written in Arabic and for the true believer can not be translated. The prayers and songs and scripture all are in the language of God, Arabic, and must be preserved. Anyone who reads it in translation doesn't get the real word of God, or Allah - as they would say. Our Christian tradition is quite different and has been right from the start. We know that Jesus spoke Aramaic but the New Testament is written almost entirely in Greek, a language Jesus, not to mention God, may have known but didn't speak. There is no indication that this bothered early Christians at all. In fact, translation of the Christian scriptures has always stood at the center of the missionary enterprise.


The story of Pentecost explains why. Pentecost is often called the birth of the church. The holy Spirit promised by Jesus as his replacement finally appears and converts the faithful into true disciples. But what a cacophony of voices. Everyone begins speaking in a different language. And everyone understanding all the foreign tongues in his own language. It is the firm belief of the early Church that our Christian faith can be expressed in any language because the Holy Spirit empowers us to understand each other, even when we can't speak the same language. The gift of the Spirit celebrated at Pentecost is not the gift of speaking in a foreign tongue. It is the power to understand those who do.


This business of the holy spirit is tricky business, it seems to me. We tend to credit the spirit when things work out, which sets us up for disappointment and discouragement and a feeling of abandonment by the spirit when things go badly. We can't have it both ways. We can't credit God with our success without blaming God for our disappointments. But this is the bind we seem to create for ourselves. Another difficulty with talk of the holy spirit is that we think of people who have lots of spirit, or are spirit filled, to be so enthusiastic that when the experience is over, we are not quite sure what has happened. My own sense is that there should be more continuity between our religious experience and the experience of everyday life. The life of the spirit should not require the abandonment of the normal way we think and feel. To be spirit filled should be a deepening, a broadening, an extending, of the way we normally are. But many seem to think that to be spirit filled is to be transported to a completely different way of experiencing the world.


So it is that often we think that the gifts of the spirit transport us out of ourselves into a new realm. Speaking in tongues is thought by many to be a special gift of the spirit. And maybe it is. Paul lists it as one of the gifts of the spirit. But although it included this strange speaking in tongues, as well as the sound as of a rushing mighty wind and the spectacle of tongues as of fire, the miracle of Pentecost was that they were able to hear and understand each other. So when Paul lists the gifts of the Spirit, he makes it quite clear that although there are many gifts of the Spirit, healings, prophecy, faith, speaking in tongues, the "greatest" of these gifts of the Spirit is love.


And the language of love often requires no language at all. It is a universal language. Reka Bashu tells the story of being in the airport waiting for a flight when a foreign looking family came into the waiting room. They were speaking a foreign language which she did not understand, but she could see that the wife was exhausted and uncomfortably pregnant. Reka got up and indicated that the family should use her space to help the wife stretch out and rest. No words were exchanged, at least none that either could understand, but a while later the husband went off to get a cup of coffee and brought a second cup back to Reka Bashu, handing it to her with a grateful smile that she immediately recognized and understood.


You see, we can truly understand each other even when we speak different languages. Not literally, of course. No matter how blessed we are, Greek will still be Greek to us. God's love does not require that we understand or even like the way people speak, look or behave.


Pentecost also means that we can express our faith, our spirituality, our love for God in a variety of ways and languages. Those who do not understand and appreciate our strange ways of expressing our spirit filled lives, simply have not yet themselves been touched by the spirit. The real gift of Pentecost was the ability to hear God's voice in the language others speak. Those who do not hear God in others who speak and act differently simply have not yet been truly touched by the Spirit of Pentecost themselves. In other words, the magic of Pentecost is not the ability to speak in tongues, but the ability to understand when others do. For God will give each of us special gifts and talents, our own special language, if you will. Our tradition tells us that we do not need to learn one language to speak to God. God understands our languages, rather than the other way around. And if we are touched by the Holy Spirit, we will also be empowered with God's spirit to hear and understand when others express their spiritual longings.


So St Paul says in the 12 chapter of 1 Corinthians: "To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the discernment of spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. All these are activated by one and the same Spirit, who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses. (1 Corinthians 12:8-11). In other words, Christians differ from each other, not only in natural make up but in the spiritual gifts given to each. It is not for Christians to dictate to the Spirit what gifts they (or others) should have. My greatest disappointment in Christians is when they begin to believe that the gifts others have are inadequate or just plain wrong. The Pentecost experience of hearing God's word in the jumble of people speaking foreign tongues means that those truly touched by the flames of God's fire, can find God in all people, even those who speak a very different language. When the Spirit of God has touched and transformed us, no one is so strange that we can not hear God when he or she speaks.


Plymouth UCC where my wife works has a motto which they recite often that expresses this earnest desire to appreciate the many voices God has given us: We agree to differ, resolve to love, and unite to serve. This should be our motto, too.


Within our own community we have many different gifts of the spirit. We have people whose gift is to give money to the Church, others give time, others seek the betterment of the material surroundings we enjoy in this building. Others have a gift of prayer, others a gift of administration, others a gift of voluntary service to the community. Some have the gift of being able to be "spirit filled" when they worship, others the gift of music making, still others the gift of compassion and listening. Other's only gift is to be quietly faithful to church attendance in a humble quest to find a word of comfort and hope.


No one's gift is more important that another. The conception that everyone should speak in tongues, for instance, or to demonstrate in some other outward, fire in the belly way is quite alien to the whole thrust and substance of St Paul's words. Indeed a plain reading of the words in 1 Corinthians makes it plain that St Paul considered some of these more visible gifts the least important.


As all small churches, we are constantly seeking to grow and enlarge of membership. Sadly, we don't always recognize the importance of welcoming the diverse gifts which others bring. We fear a tipping point when strangers will cause us to be uncomfortable by changing the way we worship and, worse, challenge some of the ways we currently think and act. Unfortunately, no one will be attracted to a community where people are mostly concerned with whose vision prevails. The sadness is that we spend out lives trying to be evangelistic and welcoming, when in reality God sends people quite regularly, yet we want them to believe as we believe, worship as we worship, express their spirituality as we do. As long as they fit our expectations, and don't reach the tipping point where they begin to change the way we want to do things, they are welcome. This is not a strategy for growth. No one grows who does not welcome and encourage hearing, understanding and being changed by the new languages God sends.


We need to look afresh at the people God has put around us - look around us and see - not people to support our particular version of the faith - but look around us to see how the way others express their faith can complement and enhance our own. For if we look at others merely to gain support for our own particular version of our faith, we effectively dismiss their unique contribution as irrelevant, which Pentecost assures us is our failing, not theirs. This is the challenge of Pentecost: unless we can see God and understand God's word in the strange and exotic tongues of others not like ourselves, we have not yet been touched by the Spirit of God.


We are blessed here at PCUMC with many lovely gifts and with very generous people. Week by week, and month by month, people support this church. We have a lovely building and talented people. We have people prepared to give time for prayer and time for voluntary service. We have people who have organized projects like the bell tower and siding, for which we are currently enormously thankful. We have volunteers who help in the nursery, the Sunday school, the youth group, the UMW. We have people who speak a variety of languages when it comes to their spiritual lives and their religious beliefs. That generosity and diversity will no doubt continue and increase, as we recognize and cherish the wonderful gifts each brings to our midst . Let us look around us and see, in the wonderful variety of people whom God has called into this place, evidence of God at work still, praise God for all this goodness, thank God for the variety of languages God has given each of us. Most of all, of course, let us thank God for the Spirit which enables us to hear God's word in the strange languages and beliefs of those around us.