Summary: One of the greatest gifts of the Spirit is the gift of understanding revealed on Pentecost.
There's a story of a woman who went to a marriage counselor. "I want to divorce my husband," she told him.
"Do you have any grounds for divorce?" the counselor asked.
"Why, yes. We have almost an acre."
"You don't understand," explained the counselor. What I want to know is if you and your husband have a grudge."
"That we don't have," she said, sounding very sure of herself. "But we do have a carport."
The counselor shook his head and said, "I'm sorry, but I still don't see any reason why you should divorce your husband."
"It's just that the man can't carry on an intelligent conversation," she replied.
We could use more understandingUnderstanding. Now there's something we could all use a lot more of! How many times have you found yourself in a conversation, talking completely at cross-purposes with another person? It's the stuff of which great comedy routines are made. From Abbott and Costello's iconic "Who's On First?" routine to the famously thick character of Woody on the old Cheers sitcom, to Rodney Dangerfield griping, "My doctor told me to run five miles a day; I called him up and said, what do I do now, I'm 70 miles from my house?" comedians have gotten a lot of mileage out of misunderstanding.
I suppose we could all stand to laugh at misunderstanding more often -- if it weren't something that also drives us to tears. Misunderstandings have led to divorces, to wars and to all manner of human conflicts and miseries. If only we could learn to better read each other's hearts!
The story of Pentecost has something to say about that. The disciples are together in one place, trying to sort out the astonishing events they've just experienced. Their lives have been like a rollercoaster of late. From the peak of the Last Supper to the trough of the crucifixion; back up again, and higher, to the good news of Easter; then back down into the valley as Jesus leaves them. It certainly has been some ride! What could possibly come next?
They don't have to wait very long. Suddenly there comes upon them a sound "like the rush of a violent wind." Tongues of fire appear in the air, dancing over their heads. They feel an indescribable rush of excitement, then a feeling they can only describe as a presence in their midst -- surrounding them and enfolding them, and at the same time sending them out.
A crowd gathers -- people from every corner of the known world -- and they find, to their astonishment, that they're all able to understand these followers of Jesus. Even more remarkably, they're understanding them in their native languages!
It couldn't have been very organized or very genteel. This isn't high tea, with all the disciples sitting around and conversing with the gentility of diplomats. No, Pentecost is a little bit of heaven breaking in. And that surely is disruptive!
There's the rush of a mighty wind, and tongues of fire dancing around. There's screaming and sweating and running and embracing. No one -- not even Luke, who wrote the book of Acts -- could ever fully convey the experience in words. It's a joyous, chaotic, frightening moment. Confusion and bewilderment, and more than a little wonder -- that's Pentecost!
At the heart of it all is this remarkable experience of newfound understanding. According to the Pentecost story, understanding is a gift of the Spirit. And so it is for all of us are so prone to misunderstanding that it sometimes seems a miracle we can communicate at all!
Misunderstanding is a prominent theme in the very earliest events of the Bible. Adam and Eve misunderstand God's intentions, supposing God is keeping the best fruit from them. Cain murders his brother Abel, suspecting he's trying to one-up him on the sacrifice. The supreme biblical example, though, is the Tower of Babel. We human beings are an arrogant lot, yearning to build a tower to heaven so we can be like God -- only to see it collapse around us, in a riot of multilingual confusion.
Winston Churchill is said to have described his own nation and its neighbor across the pond, the United States, as "two people divided by a common language." If you doubt what he means, just try telling a British person you've found an awesome new apartment in a building with an elevator. Unless you say you've found a smashing new flat in a building with a lift, you may have a hard time getting your point across.
But language is only one thing that divides us. There are also differences of experience, of economic status, of gender, of age. Sometimes it seems we are, each of us, ultimately alone -- sealed up in our private worlds, never able to see into the heart of another.
The lesson of Pentecost, though, is that by the power of the Holy Spirit, communication -- and even communion -- can and does take place among Christians. And that happens with a fair amount of regularity.
Back in the 1990s, the heyday of the "church growth" movement, there were certain self-appointed experts in the field who insisted that the fastest way for a church to grow was to gather a group of people who are as similar to each other as possible. If churches are a voluntary association of like-minded people, then the more things your people have in common, the more likely it is that they'll be able to invite all their friends. Right?
It's a pretty simple formula, isn't it -- if it weren't for one problem. This kind of thinking flies in the face of Pentecost. A Pentecost church doesn't form itself exclusively out of like-minded people. If it conscientiously follows the example of that miraculous Jerusalem gathering, it will be a motley assortment of all types and conditions of humanity. There will be rich and poor, young and old, black and white and every color in between, the accepted and the rejected, the person who owns a big McMansion and the one who struggles to make ends meet in a run-down trailer.
There will be those who proclaim, "I've made it!" and those who lie in their beds after the alarm clock rings and pray, "Lord, just get me through another day." The mixed-ups, the up-and-comings, the down-and-outs and the down-to-earth all find a place in this remarkable and very human community that is Christ's church.
There is unity in the church of Jesus Christ, but not a whole lot of uniformity. In the Roman world, everyone knew where unity came from. It came from power. The tramping boots of Roman legions had brought to the world a sort of superficial unity. You could travel from the British Isles to the Arabian desert, and if Latin were the only language you knew, it would be enough to get by.
But that's not the unity of Pentecost. Parthians, Medes, Elamites and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, visitors from Rome, Cretans and Arabs -- That's Pentecost. In our own languages we hear them speaking about God's deeds of power!
In their own languages they hear them speak. In the unity of God, no language is elevated higher than any other. No one is cast out, set aside or put down. God comes and speaks to us, on our own terms.
God invites us all to the table of feasting that is the Eucharist. And we respond to that invitation in all our rich and ragged diversity. The table of the Lord makes us one. Around the table we understand each other. Heart speaks to heart. Around the table we know that in God's eyes all distinctions between people fall away. There we see ourselves and each other as we truly are -- sinners all, and equally in need of God's grace.
They say that, as the Titanic sank, some of the first-class passengers drowned because they insisted on going back to their staterooms to fetch their jewels. It was only those who leapt into the lifeboats with only the clothes on their backs who were saved.
This table is our lifeboat. There's no room at this table for barriers of race or income or gender or achievement. Here at this banquet, we transcend -- for the briefest wink of an eye -- the divisions that separate us one from another. Here we obtain a vision of what the truly redeemed life is like -- and what God's heaven, which none of us has ever seen, is sure to be like. In Christ, as the scriptures say, there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female -- for we are all one in Christ Jesus!
Come to the table. Here, by the power of the Spirit, let us celebrate the unity we can only discover in Jesus Christ!