THE DAY OF PENTECOST

Whitsunday

May 19, 2024

Saint Mark’s Episcopal Church, Warwick, R. I.

 

 

In my first year of seminary, my classmates and I were all required to take a course in homiletics – that is, preparing and preaching sermons. The course followed a strict format. One of us would give a sermon, and the rest would listen. While the preacher was speaking, we weren’t allowed to take notes. When the sermon was over, we’d sit in silence for five minutes and write down everything we remembered. Then we’d each read back to the preacher what we’d heard. During this time, the preacher wasn’t allowed to say anything – even though there were plenty of moments when one wanted nothing more than to shout, “No! That’s not what I said! You got it wrong! That’s not what I meant!”

 

It was excellent training. We discovered how great the discrepancy could be between what was said and what was heard, between what was meant and what was understood. As the semester progressed, however, this gap narrowed considerably. It was good practice in learning how to get our message across clearly. And it was even better practice in learning how to listen carefully.

In our world today, it’s often difficult to hear what others are saying. Sometimes, we may sense that no matter how insistently we speak out, we’re not being heard or understood. Our different backgrounds engender different mindsets and worldviews. Sometimes we use the same words and phrases to mean completely different things. The New Testament scholar G.B. Caird once remarked on the difficulties of translating ancient biblical languages: so much depends on context and frameworks of meaning. To illustrate his point, he observed that when someone says, “I’m mad about my flat,” it helps to know whether the speaker is British or American. If British, the speaker is most likely expressing enthusiasm about an apartment; if American, most likely frustration with a punctured tire.

 

A feature of postmodernity that many commentators have discussed at length is that even when we’re formally speaking the same language, we often fail to understand one another because we’re nonetheless effectively speaking different languages. I’ve noticed this phenomenon a lot in the Church: when liberals and conservatives, progressives and traditionalists, try to debate the hot-button issues of the day, the result is often miscommunication and misunderstanding because each subculture has its own code-words, its own narratives, its own interpretive frameworks. The same is even more true in the wider culture. Add in difficulties in communication resulting from differences in upbringing, geography, ethnicity, education, race, and class, and we may well despair of ever truly hearing and understanding one another.

Against this background, the story of Pentecost describes a miracle of understanding. When the Holy Spirit descends upon the apostles in the upper room, two things happen. First, the apostles are empowered to speak out and proclaim the Gospel in the city streets, whereas before they’ve remained silent, and kept a low profile. Second, pilgrims gathered in Jerusalem from every nation in the known world miraculously hear the apostles speaking to them in their own native languages. What seems to be happening is a miracle of understanding.

 

Some biblical commentators describe Pentecost as a symbolic reversal of the confusion of tongues at the Tower of Babel. In the early chapters of the Book of Genesis, we may remember, all human beings speak the same language. When they attempt to build a tower that will reach heaven, God confuses their speech so that they no longer understand one another; and they subsequently scatter over the face of the earth to form different nations and peoples speaking different languages. On the Day of Pentecost, however, the Holy Spirit descends in a rush of wind and tongues of fire to overcome this profound mutual alienation. Suddenly, they all hear. Suddenly, they all understand.

Such a miracle is necessary if the Church is to fulfill its mission of preaching the Gospel to the ends of the earth. From the day of Pentecost until today, and indeed until the end of time, the spread of Christianity requires a continual work of translation. God’s truth is unchanging and universal, yet it needs rendition into new idioms that its hearers can understand in the places where they live. This process is sometimes called “enculturation,” and it applies not only to translating the Scriptures into new languages, but also to finding new ways to express the truth of the Christian faith in the diverse musical, liturgical, artistic, architectural, and literary forms of the cultures where the Gospel is preached and received.

 

Pentecost remains an ever-present possibility for us today. The Holy Spirit enables us to overcome our deafness to one another. Perhaps you’ve had the experience of working hard to express yourself, to get another person to understand what you’re trying to explain, and your frustration is building and you’re on the verge of giving up – and then suddenly the other person exclaims, “Oh, I get it. What you’re saying is …” And then they summarize back to you the point you’ve been trying to make so well that you can only respond, “Yes, that’s it! I couldn’t have put it better myself.”

 

As Christians we believe that such moments are much more than human achievements reflecting effective communication skills (necessary and important as effective communications skills undoubtedly are). Rather, they signal the presence and work of the same Holy Spirit who enabled peoples of every nation to hear the apostles proclaiming the Gospel in their own native languages. One mark of the Spirit’s presence among us is the ability to engage in grace-filled conversation: to hear and be heard, to listen and understand, to recognize and respond to God’s truth.

 

It gives me great joy to be able to celebrate the Day of Pentecost here at St. Mark’s. During the past few months, this community has been engaged in a great project of discernment. And that task will continue as the Search Committee and Vestry meet with priest candidates for the position of Rector. This work entails careful listening not only to the candidates themselves, but also to one another, and most importantly of all, to what the Spirit is saying to the Church—and to this church in particular.

 

Today, then, we take the opportunity to call upon the Holy Spirit to manifest his presence among us, so that we may be empowered not only to speak the truth, but also to hear and understand, in the confidence that we’re being heard and understood as well. May the Holy Spirit continue to form this parish into a community of people with ears to hear, minds to understand, hearts to love, and wills to enact the truth that comes from God.