“The Miracle of Understanding”
June 4, 2006
Scripture: Acts 2: 1-13;
The Lord’s Prayer in Many Voices
Rev. Jean Morrow
What an incredibly rich experience…so many voices at prayer…and not just random prayer…but, virtually offering a prayer to God that incorporate the same concepts of praise and intercession, but using different words and languages and accents and interpretations. Is there any chance that this was the kind of experience people had at that event that we now call Pentecost?
The story from Acts is traditional Pentecost text. We read it almost every year. I have long wondered why the author of Luke/Acts included that insufferably long laundry list of who was there. This is an incredibly significant moment – they very beginning of the Christian Church – and we have so many questions about it! Where did this occur? Were they in someone’s house, an inn somewhere, a courtyard, outside the Temple? Were the disciples there? Why weren’t they named? Was this a business meeting…you know, a deliberate organizational meeting…or maybe a prayer meeting? Could it have been worship? What hymns did they sing?
Just imagine all the doctrinal feuds Luke could have spared the church if he had just taken the time to investigate and write down whether the people who were baptized later that morning were immersed or sprinkled; whether they prayed the Lord’s prayer saying “debts” or “trespasses” or “sins”; whether women took part in the service…and while we are at it, just what were the words they used when they broke bread?
We get none of this. Instead we get a long list of bystanders…people walking by, probably trying to mind their own business, but getting drawn in by all the commotion. There were Parthians and Medes, Elamites, Cappadocians, Phrygians, Pamphylians, Egyptians, Cretans and at least another half-dozed other nationalities. It reads like a United Nations guest list to a fancy party. We want to say, “Luke, get to the important stuff…get to the point!”
But, of course, this is the point. It is exactly this diverse and exotic gathering of unlikely companions that Luke is at great pains to point out. As Hubert Locke said in a sermon at my seminary, what Luke is trying to say, as clearly and as emphatically as he can, is that “the very first experience of the Christian church, its organizing moment, the inauguration of this grand venture…it all begins with an experience of diversity!”
If you look at the list closely, Luke carefully recorded peoples whose origin represented every conceivable ethnicity, geographic location and nationality that would have been known to Luke and his contemporaries.
We all know there are those today who try to dismiss an emphasis on diversity as a fad…a sometimes annoying twentieth century concern with people trying to be pc…politically correct. Curious, isn’t it? The Church has celebrated…and at times wrestled with…diversity throughout its 2000-year-old history. Being PC is an ancient concept, not a modern one. But, again, it is one with which we have wrestled throughout the ages.
If we simply fast-forward a few pages in Acts, we will discover Peter and Paul, two great leaders in the early church, wrestling it out over diversity…who is allowed in…who is not. They argue over whether to accept Gentiles into the church or whether to reserve entrance for the Jews. They argue about whether people with certain traditional and cultural food preferences can bring those preferences with them when they come into the church. They argue over circumcision.
Who is in and who is out is an unfortunate theme in the history of the church…however, over time, church leaders invariably decide to err on the side of inclusion, rather than exclusion, expansiveness over narrowness.
As Hubert Locke insists, this thing we call diversity has stood since the earliest days of the church as a kind of litmus test of our seriousness about the Christian message. Down through the ages, the key question with which the church has been confronted is not how we define the doctrine of the atonement…or redemption…or salvation…
Rather, the key question has been the difficult, painful, exasperating, absolutely fundamental issue, as Locke puts it, “of whether the church will be strong enough and faithful enough to transcend the artificial boundaries that we humans create and erect in every other realm of our existence – boundaries of nation, and blood, and race, and ethnicity, and gender, and geography, and history and class and sexual orientation”, and ability. The question has been and remains, whether the church can soar above these social barriers and act like what we are: one family, God’s family.
I recently read about a pastor from a mega-church who is a consultant…he goes out and teaches about hospitality and creating an atmosphere of welcome. One of the strategies he recommended was to station friendly parking attendants at the entrances your church parking lot. The attendants should be trained to direct owners of luxury cars to park near each other; owners of SUV’s to park near each other; owners of economy cars are similarly directed to their corner of the lot. And owners of old beaters – we all owned an old beater at one time or another…cars with dents and scrapes and rust…mine happened to be a 1968 Dodge Dart Swinger, I kid you not – well, these, too have a corner reserved just for them. He was confident that engaging this strategy would make everyone feel at home…newcomers would be among their own kind…they would park near others who had shared experiences and would speak the same language.
Makes me a little nauseous just to tell that story, but I can’t deny that I don’t see it lived out in a variety of ways. Mixing it up with those who are very different, whether it be ethnically, culturally or pedagogically, can be difficult, and painful, and exasperating. It is just so much easier, less complicated and, frankly, more relaxing to be allowed simply to gravitate to our own kind.
As an example, I am reminded of the Sunday several weeks ago when Jacob and Andria told us stories from their college experiences this past year. For those who don’t know, Jacob and Andria are members of this church family and are from Sudan. Though they were gracious and polite in speaking about their college classmates, they did say that it was their impression that, in the case of group projects, their ideas weren’t taken seriously…that American students didn’t really take the time to listen to them and work to understand them through the cadence of their accents. And so, they learned to simply remain silent and go along with the group ideas. That’s a hard story to hear. It doesn’t speak well of American young people, but I’m not surprised. When we are in the majority, we leave very little room for difference. We hear everything through our own cultural filters…and we oftentimes filter out that which doesn’t fit or might not fit…we actively filter out rather than absorb or take in something new.
In a slightly different way, that is what happens sometimes in the enthusiastic evangelizing of conservative Christians. They seek out the non-believer or those who believe differently and attempt to make them over into a version of themselves…teaching right belief and right understanding of God..
I heard recently that there is a conservative prayer group that is organizing a revival to go and save the souls of our dear Native American brothers and sisters living on the reservation. I can only guess that listening won’t be on the agenda…patiently listening to stories from their traditions?…listening for God already present and at work in the people? I just don’t think it will happen. I suspect there will be lots of talk about salvation with a fairly narrowly prescribed formula for achieving said salvation.
This brand of evangelism reminds me of the book, The Poisonwood Bible, written several years ago by Barbara Kingsolver. In it, we find Rev. Nathan Price, an American evangelist, saying, “Jesus is bangala!” to a group of confused villagers living in the Congo. Their confusion stems from Rev. Price’s failure to learn the nuances of the local language’s use of tone and cadence. While he meant to say something like “Jesus is supreme,” what came out was “Jesus is poisonwood” – the name for a local plant with horribly irritating qualities. Throughout the whole novel, Rev. Price never budges in his determination to preach the gospel out of his own King James Bible…remaining oblivious to the traditions and stories and spirituality and needs those he was evangelizing. He was trying desperately to make Christians, but he wasn’t being the church.
If we look back to the origins of the church at Pentecost, we can’t help but recognize that church has to be done a different way. I feel fortunate to have been influenced by a most wonderful Taiwanese professor in seminary, Dr. C.S. Song. He was born into a Presbyterian family in Taiwan, grew up in a Buddhist culture, was educated in Indian and Chinese philosophies as well as those of the West. He studied with both Karl Barth in Switzerland and with Paul Tillich in the United States. He is old and wise and vibrant.
As an introduction to studying theology with him, Dr. Song wrote, “You are invited to take a theological journey around the world: to Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and Europe before returning home to the United States. We will not engage the high and mighty in these places, but the poor and the powerless, those who have been left behind in the pursuit of wealth and power.” He asked us to set aside our fondness for the religious concepts and traditions of the First World, as he called the US, in order to focus our attention on Christian life as it is lived around the world. He pushed us to listen and hear and understand…really understand…the stories of others…to see God at work and present within them, though their ways and their language and their stories were foreign from ours…though their Christian understandings were different from ours. And he asked us to listen and learn outside of our Christian tradition. He was fond of saying, “My God is a Christian God, but also a creator God. And God created Hindus and Buddhists and Muslims and Christians.” And he pushed us to appreciate and celebrate everything we learned.
I don’t remember him saying it, but I think he was teaching us how to live the miracle of Pentecost…the miracle of understanding across all boundaries.
We in the church, perhaps especially in the United Church of Christ, are part of a living laboratory…an ancient laboratory…a grand venture in the celebration and appreciation of our god given, God inspired diversity. What we do in the church is not about being politically correct. This isn’t about wrestling with the current issue of the day. It is about reaching across boundaries…sometimes to pull someone in…sometimes to be pulled in…always to accept and embrace and expand our community of love and appreciation and understanding.
Today,
we celebrate the birthday of the Church. Let us also celebrate this day,
you and me, by renewing our commitment to embrace human differences, not as a
burden to be borne, not as a problem to be overcome…but as a precious and
exotic gift from the God of all creation. May it be so for you and for
me. Amen.