A Sermon for Pentecost 2018
Acts 2.1-13
We
often think of Pentecost as a miracle of speaking,
with everyone suddenly talking in different
human languages;
but
actually I have always thought that it’s more a miracle of understanding,
with people suddenly discovering, through
the activity of the Holy Spirit,
an ability to hear one another
across barriers that would otherwise divide them,
including, of course, the language
barrier.
The
so-called ‘language barrier’ is never just about language, of course.
I mean, I can speak a bit of French,
and with practice I
could get much better at it,
but that wouldn’t make me French,
because I haven’t grown up there,
and I don’t know all the
other nonverbal cultural cues
that make up French
ethnic and cultural identity.
There
seems to be something deep within humans
where we are always seeking ways to
divide ourselves up, one from another.
Did
you see the research published recently,
which showed that infants as young
as 6-9 months
can be demonstrated to show bias
towards people of their own ethnicity?[1]
We
learn at a very early age to prefer those who are ‘like us’,
and to be distrustful of those who
are not quite like us.
And
of course at one level this makes perfect sense;
you want a baby to seek solace from
its parents, or from members of its wider family,
so it is good for a child to
naturally find people who look like it more comforting
than people who look
different.
But
when this positive trait of familial belonging
gets carried over into other areas
of our lives,
we
find ourselves with divisions that are far less healthy.
So
the childish preference we have for parents and family members who look like
us,
can become racism, and intolerance
of ethnic diversity,
if it is not integrated into a wider
understanding
of who we are as human
beings together.
Similarly,
the other ‘-isms’ which divide us
can also be seen to be the result of
dis-integrated personalities.
From
national-ism, to sex-ism,
to class-ism, to cisgender-ism,
to able-ism, to
heterosex-ism,
to
antisemiti-ism, to colonial-ism,
to
ethnocentr-ism, to religious imperial-ism,
I could go on and on…
There
is seemingly no end to the ways in which we stake out our territory
based on normalising our own
identity
and rejecting those who are not
quite like us.
This
can happen with both dominant and minority groups in society,
but it becomes oppressive when it is
exhibited by the majority against the minority.
We’ve
just come to the end of a preaching series on the first letter of John,
during which we have heard, again
and again,
that the call is for Christians to
model something different,
to
become communities of love,
where the love that Jesus has for us
is lived out
in the love we demonstrate to one
another.
And
this loving community of Christ is created by the Spirit at work in us,
enabling us to bridge the divides
that would otherwise keep us from one another.
So,
what does a Pentecostal, Spirit-inspired, loving Christian community look like?
Does it look like Bloomsbury Central
Baptist Church?
It
can be hard sometimes, can’t it, to love one another?
It can be hard to live together with
the differences that we have.
Differences
of theology, belief, style, or preference.
Some of us like noise in worship,
some of us like silence.
Some of us like the organ, some of
us would prefer drums.
Some of us like intellectual
sermons, some of us struggle with them.
And I could go on, and
on…
And
of course, it can be difficult when we don’t get what we want from our church,
or if it feels like things we have
put our heart and soul into
are being trampled or
disparaged by others.
Somehow,
it can all seem more real in church life,
because it is here with our siblings
in Christ
that we lay our emotions before one
another and before God,
and ask to be loved for
who we are and what we bring.
And
when we aren’t, or feel that we aren’t,
the divisions can so easily creep
in,
and we step away from our commitment
to love.
So
what is it that will hold us together?
Well,
firstly, it is our shared conviction that God loves us,
and that God listens to us.
Whatever
it is that we want to say, God listens.
Whether
we are angry, or hurt,
or joyful, or exultant, God listens.
Sometimes,
when it feels like no-one else is listening,
to know that God is hearing us can
be a profound insight.
But
that is only the start,
because the fact that God hears us
must form the basis for us hearing
each other.
When
we all come together, we gather speaking a range of different ‘languages’,
and you know that I’m not just
talking here about French or English or whatever.
We
gather with such differences
of style and opinion and insight and
preference,
that even if we are all
speaking English,
we can so easily be
speaking across each other.
Just
think about the staged argument Luke and I had earlier
about what I’m saying by the choice
of clothing I wear.
And
we so need to hear each other.
We
need the gift of the Spirit at Pentecost
to work in our midst a miracle of
hearing,
to break down the barriers that
divide us.
Today
is an all-age service,
where we work out our commitment to
including people in worship,
where we live out our desire to worship together
across the barriers that divide,
and
in one small way, this is an example of what I’m talking about.
We
need to learn to bear with one another in love,
to listen to one another across our
divides,
and to discover in our time and our place
the
Pentecostal Spirit-inspired, loving Christian community
that came into being with those
first disciples at Pentecost.
And
if people end up saying of us,
‘do you know, they’re so happy it sounds like they’ve
had too much new wine?’
I’m
fine with that too.
[1] https://nypost.com/2017/04/13/your-baby-is-a-little-bit-racist-science-says/
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