Sermon 05.23.10
“Speaking in Other Languages”
In this world today, there are approximately 6,500 living languages being spoken. That’s a mind-boggling figure and surprisingly, English is not at the top of the list. I want to take a minute to give you the run-down of the top 10 language and the number of people who speak them:
1. Mandarin 885 million speakers
2. Spanish 332 million speakers
3. English 322 million speakers
4. Bengali 189 million speakers
5. Hindi 182 million speakers
6. Portuguese 170 million speakers
6. Russian 170 million speakers
8. Japanese 125 million speakers
9. German 98 million speakers
10. Wu 77 million speakers
Curiously, French did not make the cut, which is why I took French classes in school for 5 years.
Speaking is the primary vehicle for communication, and after hearing these statistics, it should come as no surprise that we so often do not understand one another. And in addition to the tremendous quantity of languages themselves, we also have a set of language that cannot be labeled, such as the language of love and the language of power, the language of babies, and the language of politics.
In today’s reading from Acts, the traditional text for Pentecost Sunday, we have the situation of speaking many languages. Hear again the words of the passage describing this phenomenon: NRS Acts 2:3 Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. 4 All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.” The audience was incredibly diverse – Parthians, Medes, Elamites, residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappodocia Pontus and Asia, Phyrgia and Pamphylia, Egypt and parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene. And the reason that I was asked to read all of the lectionary this morning was a test on how well I could pronounce all these odd and unfamiliar names.
In my home church in Lancaster PA, as an enhanced portion of the worship service, the entire selection from Acts was read simultaneously at this point by 8 different members of the congregation, speaking 8 different languages. The result was sometimes overwhelming as words competed with each other, but it also provided a rich example of what occurred in the upper room when the Holy Spirit descended on the Apostles.
But I would argue that only one language was actually being spoken, and it defies a name, because it is the language of the Holy Spirit, which surpasses and transcends geographical areas and nationalities. The language of the Holy Spirit is not a dialect that can be set out and parsed. Rather than an act of speaking, it is a different way of communicating. While the Holy Spirit momentarily gave the Apostles the gift of tongues, a more perfect gift would be embodied in the ways that the Apostles acted, for they were destined to speak through the fruits of the Spirit.
The New Living Translation of the Bible gives us these words from Paul’s letter to the Galations: NLT Galatians 5:22 But when the Holy Spirit controls our lives, he will produce this kind of fruit in us: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, and self-control. The Holy Spirit does not fill us with a way to talk, but a way to act.
Most of us will not be speakers of many languages, and certainly not fluent in the ones that I mentioned earlier in my sermon. We can keep English as our first and only tongue, but adopt the language of the Spirit as our second. We must embody the traits, the gifts of our faith and then speak them to one another through these holy ways of conducting ourselves. The languages of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, and self-control are infinitely more important than being able to translate Sanskrit or print the Russian Cyrillic alphabet.
Let us as the body of Christ be filled with the Holy Spirit as the Apostles were on Pentecost. May we translate for others what we believe and how we behave. The good news is that we have an excellent dictionary at our fingertips through the Word of God. Speak loudly, speak clearly, and speak like tongues filled with holy flames. Amen.
Sunday, May 23, 2010
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
"God is in the Chaos"
Sermon 05.16.10
“God is in the Chaos”
The entire passage from the Acts of the Apostles is filled with the plot of a mini-series: there are riots, a demon possessed woman, people being thrown into prison, an earthquake, some singing, a mass altar call, a suicide attempt and a happy ending for everyone involved. It’s a bedlam at some points, confusion at others, and a wild and wooly Paul adventure, with Christ in the midst of the chaos. About the only thing missing is a character with amnesia.
Act one begins with Paul and Silas heading to the synagogue to pray, but they have to pass through the marketplace. Bad move on their part. They meet a slave girl, who by the power of a demon, has been given the gift of fortune telling. Her masters make a tidy profit from her abilities. She has taken a liking to Paul and understands his role as ambassador for Jesus Christ and keeps shouting her mantra. For some unexplained reason, Paul becomes exasperated (according to the New Living Translation) with this nonsense and exorcises the demon from her. This credits a cash flow problem for the woman’s owners, since she can no longer tell the future, and they haul Paul and Silas into the center of the marketplace. They begin to blame them for teaching the crowds ideas that were contrary to Roman customs. A mob scene follows and the situation quickly deteriorates into chaos.
Paul and Silas are thrown into prison, where they immediately begin to praise God and sing hymns, with no rational concern for their predicament. The other folks in the prison comprise their audience. Suddenly, around midnight, there is pandemonium as an earthquake shakes the prison and all of the chains fall off the prisoners and locked doors are thrown open.
The jailor is so upset by what appears to be a grand escape that he is ready to kill himself, rather than face dishonor at the hands of the Roman guards. But in a surprise last-minute gesture, Paul and Silas assure him that all the prisoners are still around. The guard is saved, along with his entire household and all the prisoners. It’s a mass conversion following a long, difficult evening. From start to finish it’s a wild ride, mainly because everything with Paul is large screen Panavision, and the final ending is wonderful, because everyone believed in God. They were probably all holding hands and singing Kumbaya before it was all over.
Most of us do not have that much adventure in a lifetime, much less on a weekly drive to go to church. But we still find ourselves in morning messes, with afternoons of bedlam, and evenings that are filled with disarray. We experience all of the chaos that this encounter describes, but in modern day interpretations, and we need to remember that God is still there in the midst of our disorder.
God is the top priority in the story of Paul and Silas in prison. Rather than wallow in pity, they pray. Rather than bemoaning their circumstances, they sing hymns. Rather than condemning their jailor, they praise God. Because God is ultimately the one in control, the one who provides the earthquake, the one who brings about a change of heart for all of the prisoners and the jailer. Underneath and behind all of the chaos, God has been working through it. This same mentality is what we need to focus on when our lives become enmeshed in turmoil. If God brings you to it, God will see you through it.
It is easy to blame God when life hands you lemons, when there’s commotion in the workplace, when there’s the threat of anarchy in a family with teenagers. Seeing God’s hand at work is our hardest challenge when moving through difficult times. Paul and Silas trusted God, understood God’s presence in trouble and continued to have faith in the midst of the chaos.
Our lives are no different from Paul’s. We are still struggling to get to the church door each and every week. We have co-workers who badmouth us, family members who remind us over and over again about our mistakes. We live in prisons of our own making, thinking that everyone else has a better life. We find that there are little earthquakes from time to time, and sometimes one big crisis that flattens us in our walk towards holiness. And we still find ourselves being asked “How to be saved” by those around us.
Remember that there was great rejoicing at the end of Paul’s story. Remember that chaos reigned until the songs of the Lord were sung. Remember that there was madness until Paul said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus.” God can be counted on to arrive just when it appears that all hope is lost. But we need to speak out God’s name when we are in trouble.
I rarely end a sermon with a joke, but this seemed like a golden opportunity for me to emphasize that we must call out to the right God, to the one who can bring a surprise ending to the melodramas of our daily living.
It seems that after church one Sunday, a father noticed his five-year old son writing something on the Sunday School paper that he had brought home with him. “Dad”, the boy said. “How do you spell God?”
The father was very pleased that his son was still thinking about the lesson that he had received from his teacher. The father spelled out G_O_D, and the young boy wrote that on his paper. Then he looked up at his father and asked, “Then how do you spell Zilla?’
Remember to summon the right person. Call upon the God of power to be with you during the pandemonium, when you, like Paul, are struggling with situations beyond your control. Call upon the God of order, who separated the light from the dark, when it feels like you can’t tread water any longer. Call upon the God who calms the waves when you feel your boat beginning to capsize. Call upon the God of compassion and direction, who brings us through the darkness and gives us back the meaning in our lives. Call upon God, and remember that God will always call you back, with a voice that can be heard, even above the chaos . Call upon God. Amen.
“God is in the Chaos”
The entire passage from the Acts of the Apostles is filled with the plot of a mini-series: there are riots, a demon possessed woman, people being thrown into prison, an earthquake, some singing, a mass altar call, a suicide attempt and a happy ending for everyone involved. It’s a bedlam at some points, confusion at others, and a wild and wooly Paul adventure, with Christ in the midst of the chaos. About the only thing missing is a character with amnesia.
Act one begins with Paul and Silas heading to the synagogue to pray, but they have to pass through the marketplace. Bad move on their part. They meet a slave girl, who by the power of a demon, has been given the gift of fortune telling. Her masters make a tidy profit from her abilities. She has taken a liking to Paul and understands his role as ambassador for Jesus Christ and keeps shouting her mantra. For some unexplained reason, Paul becomes exasperated (according to the New Living Translation) with this nonsense and exorcises the demon from her. This credits a cash flow problem for the woman’s owners, since she can no longer tell the future, and they haul Paul and Silas into the center of the marketplace. They begin to blame them for teaching the crowds ideas that were contrary to Roman customs. A mob scene follows and the situation quickly deteriorates into chaos.
Paul and Silas are thrown into prison, where they immediately begin to praise God and sing hymns, with no rational concern for their predicament. The other folks in the prison comprise their audience. Suddenly, around midnight, there is pandemonium as an earthquake shakes the prison and all of the chains fall off the prisoners and locked doors are thrown open.
The jailor is so upset by what appears to be a grand escape that he is ready to kill himself, rather than face dishonor at the hands of the Roman guards. But in a surprise last-minute gesture, Paul and Silas assure him that all the prisoners are still around. The guard is saved, along with his entire household and all the prisoners. It’s a mass conversion following a long, difficult evening. From start to finish it’s a wild ride, mainly because everything with Paul is large screen Panavision, and the final ending is wonderful, because everyone believed in God. They were probably all holding hands and singing Kumbaya before it was all over.
Most of us do not have that much adventure in a lifetime, much less on a weekly drive to go to church. But we still find ourselves in morning messes, with afternoons of bedlam, and evenings that are filled with disarray. We experience all of the chaos that this encounter describes, but in modern day interpretations, and we need to remember that God is still there in the midst of our disorder.
God is the top priority in the story of Paul and Silas in prison. Rather than wallow in pity, they pray. Rather than bemoaning their circumstances, they sing hymns. Rather than condemning their jailor, they praise God. Because God is ultimately the one in control, the one who provides the earthquake, the one who brings about a change of heart for all of the prisoners and the jailer. Underneath and behind all of the chaos, God has been working through it. This same mentality is what we need to focus on when our lives become enmeshed in turmoil. If God brings you to it, God will see you through it.
It is easy to blame God when life hands you lemons, when there’s commotion in the workplace, when there’s the threat of anarchy in a family with teenagers. Seeing God’s hand at work is our hardest challenge when moving through difficult times. Paul and Silas trusted God, understood God’s presence in trouble and continued to have faith in the midst of the chaos.
Our lives are no different from Paul’s. We are still struggling to get to the church door each and every week. We have co-workers who badmouth us, family members who remind us over and over again about our mistakes. We live in prisons of our own making, thinking that everyone else has a better life. We find that there are little earthquakes from time to time, and sometimes one big crisis that flattens us in our walk towards holiness. And we still find ourselves being asked “How to be saved” by those around us.
Remember that there was great rejoicing at the end of Paul’s story. Remember that chaos reigned until the songs of the Lord were sung. Remember that there was madness until Paul said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus.” God can be counted on to arrive just when it appears that all hope is lost. But we need to speak out God’s name when we are in trouble.
I rarely end a sermon with a joke, but this seemed like a golden opportunity for me to emphasize that we must call out to the right God, to the one who can bring a surprise ending to the melodramas of our daily living.
It seems that after church one Sunday, a father noticed his five-year old son writing something on the Sunday School paper that he had brought home with him. “Dad”, the boy said. “How do you spell God?”
The father was very pleased that his son was still thinking about the lesson that he had received from his teacher. The father spelled out G_O_D, and the young boy wrote that on his paper. Then he looked up at his father and asked, “Then how do you spell Zilla?’
Remember to summon the right person. Call upon the God of power to be with you during the pandemonium, when you, like Paul, are struggling with situations beyond your control. Call upon the God of order, who separated the light from the dark, when it feels like you can’t tread water any longer. Call upon the God who calms the waves when you feel your boat beginning to capsize. Call upon the God of compassion and direction, who brings us through the darkness and gives us back the meaning in our lives. Call upon God, and remember that God will always call you back, with a voice that can be heard, even above the chaos . Call upon God. Amen.
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