Pentecost
Sunday, May 11th, 2008 - The Reverend Jeffrey W. Mello, Assistant Rector
Pentecost – Year A
May 11, 2008
Preached at Christ Church Cambridge
Cambridge, MA
The Reverend Jeffrey W. Mello
Numbers 11:24-30
Acts 2:1-21
John 20:19-23
Learning another language is never easy, at least not for me. I took almost seven years of French in Junior and Senior High School and my first year of college. I remember Monsieur Silberman, a tower of a man. I remember him telling us he was learning Japanese. I remember he switched the letters in my name when taking attendance, and called me Meff Jello – to the amusement of all in the room, but me. I remember we ate croissants in class once. I remember all of this, but I couldn’t for the life of me order a croissant in Paris. Seven years spent studying the language and, even then, I could speak as much French as anyone who has never studied French at all.
Then there was the summer that two Anglican students from Brazil came and stayed with me. I remember a lot about those two months. I remember taking them to New York City as their guide, though I had only been once before myself. I remember attempting to go to the Statue of Liberty and ending up in the Bronx. I remember sitting on the bench in my parent’s backyard about a month into their visit and having wonderful, if slow, conversations with them – in Portuguese – a language I had never heard before their arrival. By the end of that summer, I could speak Brazilian Portuguese well enough to know these two visitors, and for them to know me – well enough for us to form friendships; well enough to miss them and our conversations when they left at the end of the summer.
Anyone who speaks more than one language I think will agree that learning a language other than one’s own is about more than learning a vocabulary. To really understand a language, for it to become a part of one’s self requires more than a textbook, more than a language lab, certainly more than eating a croissant. Learning another’s language requires learning about the other who speaks it. It requires that we spend time knowing not just the syntax or roll of the tongue of another, but knowing the culture, the context, and the worldview that shape it.
In order for knowledge of another language to mean anything more than an exercise in academic accomplishment, the language learned must become a vehicle through which we come to know another human being. It must become a way of reaching out of one’s own understanding of the world to discover another’s, and to value it, to lift it up and to celebrate it. Speaking another language well is the product that comes from breaking through boundaries that separate us, and it is also a means by which those boundaries are broken.
Breaking through the boundaries that separate us. This is the work of the Spirit, and the very foundation of our work as a church. The Holy Spirit is the means by which we break through those boundaries, and it is a palpable sense of the Spirit at work in and among us that comes to us when those boundaries are broken, like the rush of a violent wind.
Today we celebrate Pentecost; the first gathering of the church, when the followers of Jesus were changed from being a group of witnesses to the resurrection to those responsible for bringing the resurrection to the world as the spirit-filled body of Christ; for bringing the message of Christ not just to those who looked and talked and acted like they did, but to everyone, everywhere, from every nation and tongue. The work of the Spirit that we celebrate today is all about knowing the ‘other’ in our midst. It is not about knowing simply that the “other” exists in our midst, but knowing the other in our midst as a fellow member of the body of Christ of which we are all a part.
The work of the Spirit in Pentecost, the Spirit who came with a sound like the rush of violent wind, is the work of unity – unity, but not conformity. It is a unity that comes only in diversity. The Spirit enters in and lives and moves among us creating out of many parts, one body. We are one body, but we never cease being a unique part of that body. It is our differences, those things God created in us that make us utterly unique from the one sitting next to us that gives the Spirit a place to dwell, and to work, and to thrive.
The church began on the streets of Jerusalem with the Gospel, the love of Christ, being spoken in the languages of all those gathered. Though all those speaking were Galileans, the Spirit enters in and makes it possible for those of every nation and tongue to understand, to hear the Good News of God in their own language. Notice: the church did not begin with the Spirit bringing the gift that all should speak the same language.
And we are no less called to this same mission today. At its very beginning the church was about seeing the other, knowing the other, celebrating the other. Somewhere along the way we lost that message, and we starting asking those who sought a relationship with God through community with us to be like us, to lose their otherness, so that they might look, and act, and talk just like us.
Today, on this Feast of Pentecost, we have an opportunity to embrace the Spirit’s gift once again. This morning we have the chance to let the rush of violent wind as it appears in the reading from Acts or the soft whisper of the Spirit, as Jesus breathes it onto the disciples, to stir our hearts to see the other among us, to speak with the other among us, to know the other among us.
This is the promise of the Spirit. It is the promise we received in our own Baptism. It is the promise that we extend this morning to Benjamin, Andrew, Anita, Kaia, Eamonn and Catherine. To these six glorious and uniquely created creatures of God we say “welcome” this morning through the Sacrament of Baptism. “Welcome to the household of God”. We will stand with them and, as they make vows, renew our own.
When we do that, we ask each of them to change us by their presence among us. We ask that they bring all of who God made them to be in this world and we promise to respect it, to nurture it, and to see it as no less than God’s gift to the world. They truly are God’s gift to the world. And so are we.
What will the Spirit do with them? How will the Spirit move in these six lives? What difference will their Baptism to them as they grow in relationship with God and with us? I don’t know. I am filled with hope and expectation, though. I look forward to hearing great things about each and every one of them.
What will the Spirit do with the rest of us? How will the Spirit move in our lives? What difference will their Baptisms to us as we grow in relationship with God and with each other? I don’t know that either. But I am filled with hope and expectation. I look forward to hearing great things about each and every one of us.
I do know, though, that if I expect Benjamin, Andrew, Anita, Kaia, Eamonn and Catherine to make a difference in my life, it will require that I know them, and that I let them know me.
Today we learn their names. In the Baptism service they will be named three times. We begin with their most formal name, to their Christian name, and finally we use the name they will be called at home. That’s a good start. That’s the beginning of knowing. But it’s just the beginning. If we stop there, and call it a day, we have done little more than read the textbook.
And that is true not only when we welcome others through Baptism, but every time someone walks in those doors, even if they’ve walked through them many times before.
Today the Spirit invites us deeper into relationship. Today the Spirit gives us the power to speak the Good News of God in Christ in a language that they understand. Today, the Spirit gives us the gift of hearing that same Good news in a language that we understand. I’m not talking about hearing the Good News in French, or Portuguese or Spanish, but about hearing it in our spiritual language. It’s about that moment when we hear someone talking about God, or a passage of scripture, or a moment in worship and think – no feel – that “aha!” spring up in our chest. Those precious moments of “oh, I think I get it,” times we feel the Spirit at work that leave us wanting more.
And so Benjamin, Andrew, Anita, Kaia, Eamonn and Catherine – welcome to the family. To those who join us today to help us celebrate these six Baptisms – welcome to the family. To those who have come in for the first time this morning seeking community – welcome to the family. And to those of you who walked through those doors today for the fifth, or fiftieth, or five hundredth time – welcome to the family. We’re counting on you, each of you, to know us and be known by us. We ask that you bring what ever makes you who you are, all that makes you who you are, especially what makes you who you are because without it, without all of it, we are incomplete. Without knowing each other, we can speak the words of Jesus, but know nothing of the heart of Christ.
Today is a glorious day in the life of the church. Because today the Spirit breathed life into the church and sent us to do the work of Christ in the world, and because today that church is made more complete because you are part of it. Welcome to the family.
© 2008 The Reverend Jeffrey W. Mello