June 5th, 2022: "You Might Be A Christian If"

 

First United Presbyterian Church

“You Might Be a Christian If”

Rev. Amy Morgan

June 5, 2022

Romans 8:14-17

For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God.

 15 For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, "Abba! Father!"

 16 it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God,

 17 and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ-- if, in fact, we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him.

Acts 2:1-21

When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place.

 2 And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting.

 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.

 5 Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem.

 6 And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each.

 7 Amazed and astonished, they asked, "Are not all these who are speaking Galileans?

 8 And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language?

 9 Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia,

 10 Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes,

 11 Cretans and Arabs-- in our own languages we hear them speaking about God's deeds of power."

 12 All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, "What does this mean?"

 13 But others sneered and said, "They are filled with new wine."

 14 But Peter, standing with the eleven, raised his voice and addressed them, "Men of Judea and all who live in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and listen to what I say.

 15 Indeed, these are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only nine o'clock in the morning.

 16 No, this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel:

 17 'In the last days it will be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams.

 18 Even upon my slaves, both men and women, in those days I will pour out my Spirit; and they shall prophesy.

 19 And I will show portents in the heaven above and signs on the earth below, blood, and fire, and smoky mist.

 20 The sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood, before the coming of the Lord's great and glorious day.

 21 Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.'

“You might be a redneck if all your four-letter words are two syllables.” Jeff Foxworthy comically bonded into a kind of tribe all of those Americans who identify with words like y’all, fixin’ to, aight, didju, and a host of other redneck-only words and phrases. 

But rednecks aren’t the only ones who have a tribal language. You might be a Democrat if you slip the word “intersectionality” into a casual conversation, and you might be a Republican if you dub pretty much every mainline news source as the “liberal media.” You might be a conspiracy theorist if you’ve ever said, “wake up, sheeple.” 

Christians have our own coded language, sub-divided into different types of Christians. Words like hymn, liturgy, and fellowship tend to identify you as a Christian generally, while you might be a Methodist if your heart has ever been strangely warmed. You might be an Episcopalian if you respond to pretty much any greeting with, “and also with you.” You might be an evangelical if talk about tribulation and the values of this world come up regularly in your conversations. And you might be a Presbyterian if “decently and in order” is your watch cry. 

Coded language isn’t limited to region or politics, however. Each generation has its distinctive language. Boomers know what it means to be “home by dark,” while Xers know what it means to be a “latch-key” kid. Millennials use the dismissive, “Okay, Boomer,” while Gen-Z just “ghosts” people they want to dismiss. 

If you say, “M-Go Blue,” you’re a University of Michigan Wolverine. If you know that a buckeye is a nut and not a piece of candy, you likely graduated from The Ohio State University. Each branch of the military has its insider language, as do different hobby groups, sports fans, and professional organizations. 

We use language to determine if you are part of our tribe, if you know the secret password to belong to our club. Language creates dividing lines that tell us not just where we’re from, where we live, or what ethnic group we’re descended from. Language tells us who our people are and, just as importantly, who is not one of us. 

On the day of Pentecost, we’re told, “there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem.” Now, there are several things about this phrase that should point us toward a sense of unity. “Devout Jew” implies a unity of genetics, culture and faith. And the fact that they are living in Jerusalem, in a metropolitan center of the Roman Empire, means that they also all shared a language. Anyone who lived and worked, who transacted business and interacted with Roman officials, would have spoken the Empire’s language of commerce: Greek. 

So those gathered in Jerusalem on Pentecost were Jews who could probably all speak and understand Greek. 

But the story also tells us they were “from every nation under heaven.” They are immigrants, we later discover, from at least a dozen different places. While they may have a religion and a language that unites them, they also have their own tribes and cultures and languages that identify not just where they’re from, but who their people are, who is part of their in-group. 

Some scholars have come to see the Pentecost event as a blessing of the diversity created in the Tower of Babel story, when God scattered the peoples and divided them with languages so they would cease their ambitions to try to be gods. On Pentecost, the Holy Spirit sweeps away those Babel divisions with the rush of a mighty wind. The disciples are empowered, not to be gods, but to draw people to God by allowing them to hear the gospel in their own language. Notice that the disciples do not share the gospel in the common tongue, Greek, the colonizing tongue. They speak in the native language of each. They unify through diversity, not conformity. 

Most of the people gathered marvel at the miracle of hearing the gospel in their own native languages. But some resist recognizing it as such, assuming that the babble of languages is the result of too many bloody Mary’s at brunch. 

Peter contradicts this assumption with the words of the prophet Joel, who also speaks to unity through diversity. The Pentecost event, in Peter’s interpretation, is the fulfillment of Joel’s prophesy that all people have a word from God, that only in our diversity can the fullness of God’s message be heard. Old and young, men and women, slaves and free – all these must speak and be heard together to witness to God’s deeds of power. All these must speak and be heard for salvation to be accomplished. 

But instead, we try to silence one another. When our coded language reveals that you are not part of our tribe, or that you are part of a rival community, we shut down, back away, or even show aggression. In the early 1990’s, historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. feared that the tribal interests of American society would unravel our democracy. He predicted that “unless a common purpose binds them together, tribal hostilities will drive them apart.”

And that is exactly what we are seeing take place today. What some call truth, others call “the Big Lie.” What some call “justice,” others call “canceling.” What some call “patriotism,” others call “nationalism.” What some call “social safety net,” others call “entitlement programs.” Our language divides us to the point where it doesn’t even sound like we’re talking about the same thing. 

But it is exactly into this divisive mess that the Holy Spirit arrives. One language is not elevated over the others. One language does not dominate. Instead, everyone is spoken to and hears the good news in their own native tongue. 

I wonder what that would look like in the church today. One place to look is in the 8^th chapter of Romans, one of my favorite chapters in the whole Bible. It starts with the words, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” No condemnation. That’s where we begin. As Christians, who know the grace and love and forgiveness of God in Jesus Christ, we must start with no condemnation. I think there is no more counter-cultural attitude than that. We are a culture addicted to condemnation, to scapegoating and exclusion, shame and rejection. To adopt a posture of no condemnation might be the single-most transformative thing we can do today. And that posture is a requirement for being able to speak to and listen to people who speak a different language, who speak the coded languages of “the other.” 

The 8^th chapter of Romans ends with “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. From “no condemnation” to “no separation.” 

And how do we get there? The Spirit of God bearing witness that we are children of God. That is what happens on Pentecost. The Spirit of God adopts all the children of God, creates one, human family out of all the nations under heaven. Not by uniting them in language, but by uniting them in God’s power and love.  

At Pentecost, the church was baptized to multilingual ministry. It was called to translate God’s love into every language, even, and maybe especially, those coded languages that divide us. 

So I invite us today to consider how the Spirit might empower us to speak of God’s deeds of power, to witness to the reality that we are all children of God. 

This morning, we will be commissioning our mission team for ministry in Mexico. Speaking and listening to our siblings in Mexico, we will truly be doing multilingual ministry. But the language differences are really only the beginning of the diversity we’ll encounter. We’ll also run up against American stereotypes of our neighbors to the south and assumptions we make about people with lower incomes. We meet people who live very differently from us but who are children of the same God, dream the same dreams, and carry the same burdens as we do. It will be a Pentecost experience, for sure. 

But we don’t have to travel to a different country to have a Pentecost experience. Those who serve at the Community Kitchen can tell you about the diversity of our neighbors on our doorstep, and each time they serve they are sharing a Pentecost moment. 

Each time we share a conversation, an experience, form a relationship with someone who speaks a different language - whether it is Spanish or Greek, redneck or elitist, Democrat or Republican, Boomer or Millennial, Broncos or Packers – each time we can have that experience with no condemnation and no separation, witnessing to the good news that we are all beloved children of God, that is a Pentecost moment. 

To God be all glory forever and ever. Amen.