Many Mother Tongues
Acts 2:1-21

May 11, 2008


Here we all are – together in one place, just as Jesus’ disciples were on the day of Pentecost. For us it’s the Birthday of the Church! Without that historic event neither we, nor this building, would be here. So let’s celebrate!

Last week the disciples were waiting; they were waiting, if you remember, to see their Lord again. This is the day they were waiting for. A week after Jesus’ ascension they “were all together in one place”. And suddenly the room was completely filled with the sound of a tremendous wind - “gale force” Eugene Peterson says. Then “the Holy Spirit spread through their ranks prompting them to speak in different languages. A babbling, chaotic, confusing madness it must have been.

As was the custom for the Feast of Pentecost, Jerusalem was crowded with pilgrims - many of whom were devout Jews. The noise brought them running toward the gathering place. Arriving they heard their own native language, their mother tongue, being spoken. Have you ever travelled to a country where English was not one of the common languages spoken and suddenly overheard someone speaking English? How did it feel? For myself, at a time like this I felt `at home’, included, relieved even. It made no sense to these foreigners who kept saying Aren’t these all Galileans? How come we’re hearing them talk in our various mother tongues? They’re speaking our languages, describing God’s mighty works! Then there’s a list of the nationalities of the crowd; I counted seventeen different groups of people observing the revival meeting. Then, as is so often the case when we want to discount someone, someone pronounced, They’re drunk on cheap wine! You can just hear the guffawing, can’t you?

But Peter, as spokesman for the disciples, challenged the joker saying, everyone listen carefully and get this story straight. These people aren’t drunk – it’s only nine o’clock in the morning. He refers them back to the prophesy of Joel, In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on every kind of people.

If you continue reading the following verses you will find that Peter gets up on his soapbox and explains how what is happening was prophesied by Joel and tells them what they can expect.

He then gives them a little history lesson on Jesus: who he was, his ministry, his trial, arrest and execution. Peter takes the opportunity to blame the Jews, but today, we know better. As I said last week Holy Week was a life-and-death struggle between the empire that was Rome, and the Kingdom of God.

In the mid-1990’s I had the honour of being the Canadian representative to the World Council of Churches HIV/AIDS Consultative Team. At the previous World Council of Churches (WCC) global Assembly it was decided that such a team was needed to advise the WCC on strategies for addressing the issue of HIV/AIDS, and to prepare educational materials for its global churches use. As a former director of an HIV/AIDs agency and a United Church clergy person I was invited to be part of this team. The first meeting of the team was in Geneva, Switzerland. The team of about 30 people were from: Australia, Barbados, Brazil, California, Canada, the Caribbean, England, Fiji, Finland, India, Indonesia, Lebanon, Norway, Scotland, South Africa, Thailand, the United States, and Zaire.

Its members represented the Anglican, Lutheran, Salvation Army, Methodist, United Church of Canada, and Uniting Church of Australia, Church of Scotland, East Java Christian Church and Moravian Christian churches. Additionally, although the following churches are not members of the WCC - the Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox, Russian Orthodox, Syrian Orthodox, and U.S. Evangelical Church were also invited to participate in the discussions.

I was excited to meet all these wonderful delegates but wondered how we would communicate with each other. Looking around I soon saw that headphones were available for simultaneous translation in quite a few languages. The Archdeacon of the Russian Orthodox Church even brought his own translator.

Over the next three years we met in New Delhi, India and in Tubingen, Germany to work on the resulting study document, Facing AIDS: The Challenge, the Churches’ Response. It was an exciting and challenging time. As you can guess there were many different views on the AIDS pandemic and especially on how the global Christian churches might respond to the issue. At least the participants’ churches were agreed on the fact that our churches needed to respond!

Our standpoints ranged from extremely conservative to very liberal. On the committee as well were two Persons Living With HIV/AIDS – Haydee, an economist and Roman Catholic lay theologian from Argentina and Ernesto Cardoso, a Brazilian Methodist lay theologian, musician, composer and co-ordinator of the Latin American Council of Churches Liturgy Network. So, we could hardly remain distant from the realities of HIV/AIDS. Haydee and Ernesto kept us accountable.

While I could deliver many sermons from these days I want to just share one incident which, to me, was a Pentecost moment. We began each day with worship. Ernesto Cardoso had been given the task of leading us in Word and music. On this particular day when we walked into the room (which was in the New Delhi YWCA) we were faced with a dramatically colourful sight: our working table was draped with brilliant coloured scarves. Around the cross which stood in the centre were strewn injection needles and pill bottles – the daily regimen of Ernesto’s life. He was, in fact, quite ill at the time and died months after our last meeting. No words were needed to communicate the message. The Holy Spirit got it across as surely as on that first Pentecost day. We knew immediately why we were there and what we were being called to do.

Another community experience I’d like to share is the one Jan and I spent on the tiny island of Iona in Scotland. Three years ago we spent six weeks volunteering with the Iona Community there. By its own definition the Iona Community is:
• An ecumenical movement of men and women from different walks of life and different traditions in the Christian church.
• committed to the gospel of Jesus Christ, and to following where that leads, even into the unknown.
• engaged together, and with people of goodwill across the world, in acting, reflecting, and prating for justice, peace and the integrity o f creation. And, it is
• Convinced that the inclusive community we seek must be embodied in the community we practice.

Because the Iona Community is a dispersed community, what unites them is their adherence to a common Rule of Life, which they try to practice in their diverse context. While they don’t take vows of celibacy, poverty or obedience their Rule calls them to:
1. Daily prayer and Bible reading
2. Sharing and accounting for the use of money
3. Planning and accounting for the use of time
4. Action for justice and peace in society
5. Meeting with and accounting to each other.

The Iona Community was founded in Glasgow in 1938 by George MacLeod, minister, visionary and prophetic witness for peace, in the context of poverty and despair of the Depression. Its original task of rebuilding the monastic ruins of Iona Abbey became a sign of hopeful rebuilding of community in Scotland and beyond. Today, the community consists of about 250 members (mostly in Britain) and 1500 Associate Members, with 1400 Friends worldwide. Together and apart they would say, we follow the light we have, and pray for more light.

The Iona Community is similar to our United Church training centres like Calling Lakes Centre, Five Oaks, Naramata or Tatamagouche in the sense that guests go there for week long programs focusing on a wide diversity of topics relating to their mission. Some summer weeks are more undirected and called “holiday weeks”. Programs run from March through October with a special program over Christmas Week. About 30 Resident Staff live there year round for periods of 1-3 years. During the program season they are supplemented by about 30 volunteers (like Jan and myself) whose work it is to provide hospitality for the visiting guests. The work is not easy – you work five and one-half, 8 hour days per week. Meal times are included in your hospitality work so there are few private moments. The majority of volunteers are assigned to kitchen or housekeeping details. Resident volunteers stay at one of two island centres, the MacLeod Centre - “The Mac” as it is fondly called - or at the Abbey. Jan worked in housekeeping at “The Mac” and I worked in the Abbey kitchen. Our day began and ended with worship at the Abbey demonstrating the fundamental principle that, “worship and work must be one”. So strongly does the community feel this that the morning worship service does not end with a benediction but with the direction, we remain standing to leave, the work of our day flowing directly from our worship. The benediction comes at the end of the 9 pm service as we leave to go to our rest. Everything is considered worship: peeling vegetables, washing dishes, scrubbing toilets, doing laundry - for it is all done “for the glory of God”.

Our experience at Iona was transformative. A participant at Iona has said, “People come to Iona to find peace and leave seeking justice.” While the Abbey and the island is a beautiful place it is not a retreat centre, though one can certainly experience moments of peace there. The purpose of being at Iona is to experience living and working in community. As the 12th century abbey was originally built as a Benedictine monastery the focus of “hospitality” remains highly significant to its modern day hosting community.

We lived in a little “purpose built” building behind an old stone crofter’s cottage. Our “wee house” had a small common kitchen and living room (with a tiny alcove for the one computer available to volunteers) on the main floor. The bedroom s upstairs housed 14 people. Essentially a monk’s room, our room had a bunk bed with storage underneath and a chair. The upstairs bathroom had two showers and stalls. The entire experience of working with staff and volunteers from around the globe was a Pentecost experience. In our wee house alone volunteers were from: Bolton, Northumberland and Renfrewshire in England, Glasgow, Germany, Palestine, the Czech Republic, Tunisia, Hungary and Canada. At that was only half of the vollies at that time. The other sixteen vollies were equally diverse in their nationalities.

You can imagine that, given this diversity, communicating was a challenge. In addition to the many `mother tongues’ of the thirty vollies there were also the various regional accents to try to comprehend. It was difficult enough for those of us who were English speaking to communicate with those who were not. I cannot imagine how hard it must have been for those with a different mother tongue. Just to give you one example: one day tensions were high in the housekeeping department - the result of the simple request for someone to replace the liner inside the garbage can. Seems easy? Well, for some this item was known as a `garbage’ bag, for others it was a `bin’ bag, for still others it was a `rubbish’ bag. Now, you might be able to figure this out pretty quickly but what if you were from Turkey or Tunis, Paraguay or Palestine or the Czech Republic? The British thought that we Canadians sounded the same as the Americans. What do you think? However I don’t think they could understand the Glaswegians any better than we could! And we are all English speaking!

Clearly we needed the Spirit’s presence to smooth these Scottish waters.

Another Pentecost moment was one of the highlights of our stay. We had the good fortune to be at Iona when the current Abbey Warden, Jan Sutch Picard had just completed her 3-year term. So, in true community fashion we had a party. And what a party it was! Many of the 90 island residents came as the Iona Community works very closely with them. These were joined by Jan’s friends from the Isle of Mull, and from the “mainland” (although Britain too is an island!) Women, men and children spilled out from the refectory into the hallways, the Chapter House and even into the cloisters. Everywhere little groupings of people chatted noisily, sipping drinks and munching on the wonderful food the kitchen staff had prepared. It was truly an ecumenical Eucharist! At one point I noticed two of our young volunteers speaking animatedly. I couldn’t understand them as they were speaking Spanish. The interesting thing was that Jenny, from Orkney was conversing with Rufino from Paraguay. As it happened Jenny was the person who was most fluent in Spanish at that gathering. True North-South dialogue!

My experiences of serving the Church on the WCC task force and with the Iona Community were two experiences that, for me, were like what that first Pentecost may have been like. I found myself in gatherings of strangers from different countries having different mother tongues. Usually such encounters would be a real struggle for us. Some of you have travelled globally and some of you have not. But it doesn’t take being in a different country to feel excluded. Sometimes it doesn’t take much. Whenever we don’t bother to listen to another person – for whatever reason – because he is a different colour, because she is differently abled, because he is gay, because she is from a different economic bracket, because either of them is from a different denomination or religion, we are not allowing the Holy Spirit in. May the Spirit of Pentecost bless each of us today, reminding us that we need to listen. And maybe, just maybe, we will hear. Amen.

Preached by Erin Shoemaker
Knox-Metropolitan United Church
Regina, Saskatchewan