Yesterday was the feast of Pentecost, commemorating the church's reception of the Holy Spirit. Our parish celebrates this day partly by a scripted act of speaking in tounges--which the book of Acts states the apostles did with no prompting except the infusion of the Spirit:
When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. 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. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.
Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each. Amazed and astonished, they asked, ‘Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? 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, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs—in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power.’ (Acts 2:1-11)
As our deacon reads the passage above (in English), people in the congregation who speak foreign languages will, at the start of the second paragraph, rise and begin reading along in whatever language they speak. A little gimmicky, I guess, but relatively few Episcopalians enjoy the charism of true glossolalia. In the past I've done German, though I forgot to pick up a cue card this year.
The resulting murmur is by turns fractured and intriguingly, beautifully blended. It offers fodder for interesting reflections on the event, though it also suggests to me something about religious experience more broadly. As I hear the same message delivered through diffferent words spoken in diffferent timbres and rythmns, I hear given voice a longstanding perception of mine about the practice of faith. People come to the gospel from different positions in life and different views of the world, holding different values and different notions of their relation to others. These people don't always fit together harmoniously. They disagree on how to worship sometimes, and they get frustrated with each other when they work together for some end they agree is worthy. Christians also understand the gospel they hear in different ways, and hold varied views on essential doctrines of the church. Some reject some of those things held to be essential. Others reject them for doing so. Yet even with these conflicts, people are drawn back again to the message again and again, sometimes in spite of efforts to distance themselves from it. Joined around something greater than themselves, they often find a unity in which they act (or which acts through them) to transform individuals, communities, and creation. Beyond the confines of ritual, it isn't always pretty, and it is sometimes marginally functional. But that unity and the force it projects can be far more powerful than any of its consitutents would have guessed.
Tags: Spirituality; Christianity; Pentecost
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