SCRIPTURE - Acts 2:1-21 (2-8)
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 those who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear each of us, in our own native language?
PREPARE THE PEOPLE -
Let’s recap. Remember, when we said that Easter is not just one day - but fifty days long? It is a whole season of learning and preparing the people? In other words, to bring new life into the world. We have been preparing for today! Today is a Christian holiday called Pentecost. It is traditionally celebrated on the 50th day from Easter Sunday. It is the day that the Holy Spirit descended upon the Apostles and other followers of Jesus Christ while they were all partying in Jerusalem. Some thought the “speaking in tongues” was drunk people having a good time. They were soon convinced otherwise. The Holy Spirit works in mysterious ways. The text from Acts 2 describes that moment. It is also known in more contemporary settings as the birthday of the church. Up until this moment the church did not exist.
What occurs to me, after reading Acts 2 and reflecting on this wild moment of Jesus-followers speaking in tongues is that understanding the other person means listening with your whole heart, not just hearing the words a person says. Like, to say “I hear you” does not really count. I can hear the baby squalling but do I understand the baby’s cries? I hear the words of the prayer but do I embody those words in my life?
We often get stuck on the “speaking tongues'' part of this story. You might imagine a pentacostal church praising God in the spiritual practice called “tongues.” And, this is not a spiritual practice of our mainline protestant tradition, so I don’t really understand it. Speaking tongues in Greek is Glossolalia: meaning strings of syllables, made up of sounds --put together more or less haphazardly and emerging as word-like and sentence-like units with a language-like rhythm and melody.)There are youtubers that will help you learn this language of Glossolalia if you are interested. I find it interesting to think that the Holy Spirit works through YouTube in 2021, but as Marta said, the Holy Spirit works in mysterious ways.
Rather than focus on a spiritual practice that most of us here cannot relate to - I expect this speaking-in-tongues- moment has something more to teach us. This pentacostal movement in Jerusalem was important. Large groups of people of all ages, ethnicities, class, race, gender and sexuality were gathered and they were celebrating! They all showed up in their unique selves, life-stories, experiences, values, and spoke their stories into the community - sounding like a raging party of chatter, diverse languages and drunken tones. This was not about the diversity of words but rather the diversity of broken lives, in need of a healing community. Ironically, what healing the community meant was that each of them was different and diverse. The text does not tell the story that all of the same type of people from the same tribe gathered together. Rather, multiple tribes were celebrating with tongues of fire because they were desperate to know each other. Miraculously, the Spirit of that day enabled them to understand each other. Not just hear each other, but empathize and love each other with their whole bodies.
The church barely out of the womb was creating space for deep listening, whole-person listening, listening that crossed divides. Once they got past their differences they could really listen and there was real empathy that sees no race, ethnicity, economic, or gender barriers. Real listening and real empathy says: I see you. Writer and activist Valarie Kaur says,“Listening enables us to fight in smarter ways for justice - not only to remove bad actors from power but to change the cultures that radicalize them. Listening is how we succeed. It begins with the art of listening to stories.”
Theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer says, “The first service one owes to others in the fellowship consists in listening to them. Just as love of God begins in listening to His Word, so the beginning of love for the brethren is learning to listen to them. It is God’s love for us that He not only gives us His Word but lends us His ear. So it is His work that we do for our brother when we learn to listen to him.”
Poet Mary Oliver says “Listen...are you breathing just a little, and calling it a life?”
Jesus of Nazareth models listening with the whole heart when he meets the Samaritan woman at the well. An unexpected meeting. Jesus engages the woman, an interaction that usually did not happen in the first century. It was an act of listening that spans more than words: word became flesh. The woman at the well was forever changed by Jesus’ love for her. The love of curiosity, interest, and empathy. A love that spanned social structures and boundaries. What was it about this moment in Jerusalem where they did more than just hear each other? How is it that they understood each other?
Tell us a story or time that describes How do you listen well?