Most often, when we think of Pentecost, we focus on the scene in the upper room. There, in the midst of their prayers, Mary and the disciples of Jesus experienced a mighty wind blowing, tongues of fire and the ability to speak unknown languages. All signaled the coming of the Holy Spirit.
Instead, let’s go out into the street. There, in Jerusalem for the feast of shavuot (The Jewish feast of Pentecost) were Jews from all over the world, from faraway places with strange sounding names. They could have been from Wilkes-Barre, PA; Skagway, Alaska; South Sudan, Lichtenstein, Azerbaijan, and Mongolia. There they all were, caught up in the sound they heard. What they heard was the voice of the disciples speaking in their own tongue of the mighty deeds of God. Their tongue, which was common, ordinary, neither lofty nor honored in history and cultures. Here’s the thing about Pentecost. It said that people’s languages are important and that God is borderless.
God is borderless, not confined to one language, nor one expression of God’s call, nor the covenant to be one with God.
Powerful countries tend to use language as a weapon. You must speak this language if you want to be heard. You must understand this language if you want to move upward in life.
In the United States, the official language is English, even though there are well over 100 languages spoken in our country. If you don’t speak the official language, you could be understood as subversive. A threat.
*“On Pentecost, God gave the divine voice to a bunch of nobodies and a crowd of commoners. It was an act of liberation both for humankind and for God.” Those in authority have not paid heed. They have restricted God to certain languages to be used in prayer. God, on Pentecost, said, “Not so!”
God remarkably does not silence the speech of the oppressed, brutalized and marginalized. We heard that in the trial of George Floyd. His words, uttered 28 times or more in less than 10 minutes were heard by God and bystanders that day. “I can’t breathe.” God, who gave and gives all humanity breath, cannot bear to have the breath of George Floyd taken away. Without breath, there are no words. Without words, people cannot share, cannot bear witness to God and to the meaning of life. *“When someone suppresses the language of nobodies, they suppress God’s word.”
*“Pentecost was a rebellion against those who would restrict God to a single powerful language of a single righteous people or a single systematic way of looking at reality.
“Instead on Pentecost, God spoke and the people in the streets understood.
“They began to speak, too, in the tongues of angels and in the divine voice.”
Nothing could have been more subversive, then or today.
~Sister Joan Sobala
*The quotes in this blog are from an anonymous, brilliant, God-centered source. Regrettably, it was not I.
