And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language?
In addition to celebrating feast days, and commemorating various saints, the appointed readings in the daily office make their way through the Hebrew Scriptures, Gospels, New Testament, and Psalms. I believe that if you read Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer, you read all of scriptures in a three year period. Who says we aren’t people of Scripture?
So this morning, the appointed reading from the New Testament is continuation of the sequential reading through Acts, which is also read on the Sunday of Pentecost, just a few weeks ago. Tongues of fire, many languages and nations represented, Holy Spirit descends on everyone and all understand. One interesting thing about this gathered many who understand, is that it reverses or at least counters the story of God spreading all people in Babylon when they made the tower to try to reach heaven. It was named the Tower of Babel, with Babel meaning confused. God did not like the people’s arrogance to try to build a tower to be better and closer to God, so he gave them all different languages and they couldn’t understand each other. Now in the book of Acts, God descends on the gathered people of different languages and they can all understand. No more confusion.
About 10 years ago, we took a family trip to Kenya, for about 10 days, we worked in an orphanage in a coastal town. We had a driver who’d daily transport us from our lodging to the orphanage, and to other errands. He was probably 25, and our son was 18. In the course of the trip, we discovered that he was on a soccer team, and learning our son played soccer, invited our son to play with his team one night.
That day, he picked us up, and we drove through his village on the dirt road. Turning off the main road, the road was not paved and not even cleared, just a few ruts driving between huts. Eventually we come to an open dirt patch with two make-shift goals at either end, surrounded by huts. The field is surrounded by villagers and really big Kenyans. And my family. Most of the other players did not wear shoes, so our son decided not to wear shoes either. And out they go onto the field. There’s my blond barefoot son, and 21 dark skinned mostly-barefoot Kenyans. They’re playing soccer, all playing their positions, the majority of them speaking a language we could not understand.
Meanwhile, on the sidelines, my family was possibly more interesting to the villagers than the game itself. Everyone came over at some point, and touched our skin, smiled, sat, and continued on. We even had a Masai elder, complete in his traditional red outfit meander up to take in the match.
I was struck by the common language we had that day. Our son, able to play a game with 2 dozen people speaking a different language. We able to communicate with the young children, mothers and elders, the common language of greeting, and gratitude. We all had a common understanding, each in our own language.
If you look at the language in Acts, it does not say that the Spirit spoke to each in their own language. Rather it says each understood or heard in their own language. Rather than being about a sprit that is multi-lingual, I like to think this is about people coming together, and with the help and gift of the Holy Spirit, each had a common understanding about what God and grace and love and community was about, each in their own language.
This morning, I’m thinking about all of the different languages, and dialects, and colors, and customs and cultures are in my city, let alone my country, let alone my world. I’m thinking that the challenge isn’t that we need to become multi-lingual, but rather we need to have a common framework, like the rules of soccer. With that, we can understand, each in our own language. Love God. Love your neighbor. Common rules. Common understanding.
No comments:
Post a Comment