What Language Do You Speak?

Polk City UMC

May 23, 1999

Mark Haverland

Acts 2:1-21 or 1 Corinthians 12:3b-13

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?

We Iowans, as are people throughout the world, are learning how to hear and understand when people around us and with whom we must work and get along, speak a language we don't understand. We ency those folks on Pentecost who heard and understood the Babel of voices in their community.

An acquaintance of mine has recently taken a job with the city of Des Moines managing some of the downtown parking lots. He is an experienced and accomplished manager, who brings far more talent and ambition than such a job usually requires. He tells wonderful stories of the kinds of people he can hire in today's labor market for $6.50/hr, $7.50 if they work third shift. As you can imagine, his workforce is filled with people just starting out as workers. For us now in Iowa, this means lots of recent immigrants who don't speak or read English very well. He has had to learn how to manage employees who can't really understand you when you talk, can't read written instruction, and speak heavily accented English which often leaves him bewildered.

I told him the other day that when he learns how to do this, he should write a book and get rich. The challenge of the workplace of tomorrow is to learn how to understand and be understood when the people around you are speaking languages you can't understand. The future of our state and country belongs to those who can communicate in a polyglot world.

In some cases this may not be so difficult. Many human behaviors are pretty universal. Consider this story of a couple from the United States taking a tour on a South Pacific island. One day they saw a young boy climb up a palm tree to get a fresh coconut. But just as he was about to swing the machete to cut the coconut loose, he paused for a moment as his mother ran out of their hut and starting yelling at him in their native language. The American wife turned to her husband and said: "She's telling him to be careful or else he'll cut himself." Amazed, the tour guide turned to her and said: "I had no idea that you spoke our language." But the woman said: "Oh, I don't know your language. But I speak mother."

In some cases, we may find that some people may take advantage of the language problem. For instance, there is the old chestnut about Pepe Rodriguez, a notorious bank robber in the old West. He would sneak across the border from Mexico, rob banks in Texas, and then escape back into Mexico before the police could catch up with him. One day, though, the police illegally crossed the border into Mexico and followed Pepe into a bar.

When they finally took him into custody, they discovered that Pepe did not speak any English and none of the police spoke Spanish. But the bartender informed them that he spoke both Spanish and English and would be happy to serve as an interpreter. So the police asked: "Where did you hide all that money?" And the bartender translated into Spanish. At first, Pepe hesitated, but then when he saw all those police officers, ready to draw their weapons, he began to tell the bartender where the money was. And the bartender listened carefully as Pepe explained how he had hidden it in a certain cave that was just outside of town. The bartender then turned to the police, who were waiting for the translation. And the bartender said: "Pepe is a very brave man. He said that you are all a bunch of rotten cowards, and to go ahead and shoot him if you want."

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.

Last year, I attended 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. At what point does a foereign language threaten us 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. I'm working on this. I know that, although words are the way I access the spiritual life, this is not the case for most people. In fact, I am deeply convinced that words cannot get to the real heart of our religious faith. And this is the precise lesson of Pentecost. If we listen carefully, we will hear the sound like a rushing wind in the voices of everyone - no matter what language they are speaking or what they are talking about. Stereotypical black preaching is better at this than I am for it uses words only to get to the more important emotions which lie more at the heart of the religious experience. Of course, black congregations are better at this than you are, as well. All of us have a way to go before we truly understand that religion is primarily an experience, not a thought process.

Here at PCUMC we are trying to use music to open our senses a bit to new ways of listening to spiritual voices. The UMC Hymnal offers us hymns pretty much straight up, marching though the verses like good tin soldiers - each line the same cadence and volume. With the help of Phil Carver, we are trying to change this a bit, introducing beat and syncopation. This may not be easy for all of us. Some may not like the new strange voices emanating from our speakers, but listen carefully to see if you can hear in the foreign tongue some familiar message about God's spiritual power.

By the way, the answer to the question about how many minority people can make whites nervous is that it isn't the number. It is the effect they have on the familiar ways of doing things. When minority groups begin to change the style and content of our worship and preaching, the majority who liked it the old way gets uncomfortable. Pentecost tells us that if we are truly touched by the Holy Spirit, we can hear God even when the language spoken is not our own.

Some religions design themselves so that such misunderstandings are impossible. 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. Christianity has dealt with a multitude of languages ever since... well, ever since Pentecost. And there is no indication that early Christians were bothered by the different languages people used to pray, preach, and prophesy. In fact, translation of the Christian scriptures has always stood at the center of the missionary enterprise. We have always welcomed those who speak in a different language. We see this first and best in the Pentecost story where God speaks through the languages of all peoples.

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.

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. All languages are the language of God. If we are touched by the Holy Spirit, we will be empowered with God's spirit to hear and understand when others express their spiritual longings.

As Paul puts it, there are many gifts of the Spirit: "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.

Within our own community here at PCUMC 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.

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 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, and 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.