Being Heard: The Act of an Apostle

This morning’s first reading from Acts tells the Pentecost story. Remember that the Book of Acts, the Acts of the Apostles, is all about the church. It is about what became of Jesus’ followers after Jesus’ death and resurrection… those people whom Jesus sent out in this morning’s Gospel, about how they were formed into a community, the church, with an identity and mission. The Pentecost story is the story of God’s gift of the Holy Spirit to the church. Or more precisely, God’s gift of the Holy Spirit to those actual people who were becoming the church. The tongues of flame are how those people described that gift. Vibrant and vivid as the fiery language is, I expect the language is pale compared to what the experience was really like for the people who were there.

The disciples were huddled together inside somewhere in Jerusalem, probably immobilized by fear and uncertainty. That seems to have been their most common state, at least before Pentecost. And then suddenly they heard a sound like that of a tornado, or maybe like a raging hurricane, and tongues of fire appeared among them. A single tongue of fire rested upon each individual. Each individual. The Scripture is quite specific. A flame rested on each individual. No one was excluded from the gift. No one. And no one was exempt. No one had the opportunity to demure or decline. A tongue of flame rested on each individual. And in that flame was the Spirit’s gift, the ability to speak in other languages. And with their new gift, the apostles spoke! And all of those foreigners in Jerusalem—those Parthians, Medes, Elamites, residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome… all of those people from throughout virtually the whole known world at the time… All were astonished because they heard themselves being addressed in their own native languages.

Some of you may know the custom in some parishes of reading the Scriptures in foreign languages on the Day of Pentecost. In my parish in Houston some years we managed Mandarin along with the less exotic French, Spanish and German. It’s a fun tradition, but if you think about it, it completely misses the real point of Pentecost. The point of Pentecost is not that the apostles suddenly became linguists, speaking in foreign languages; the point is that people gathered from all over the world heard themselves addressed in their native languages. Pentecost is not about speaking in incomprehensible languages; it is about hearing in comprehensible languages. The visitors, the foreigners, heard and understood. Every one of them, evidently. No one of them was excluded; no one was exempt from hearing the apostles’ message.

The gift of the Holy Spirit was to enable the apostles to be heard and understood by people who otherwise would not have been able to hear or understand. The whole point of the church’s birth and formation in the fires of Pentecost was to make it possible for the stories of God’s great deeds of power to be heard by the entire world. Acts tells us that this is what the apostles were talking about, God’s great deeds of power. The gift of the Holy Spirit to the people of the brand new Christian church was a gift that enabled those people to share the story, to be heard and understood by the whole world as they proclaimed the wonder of God’s great deeds.

This is a powerful story for those of us who are the church today. First, it reminds us that the church is the people. We are today’s apostles. And if we are to act as apostles, our mission is to be heard as we share the story of God’s deeds far and wide. To be heard. To make ourselves heard. The Pentecost would be empty without all of those foreign visitors who were there in Jerusalem. The people who heard and were affected by the apostles’ words. For those of us called to act as apostles today our focus should be on those who need to hear us. Our mission is to them.

We have a baptism this morning. We will initiate a new member into this particular fellowship of apostles. Ruby is still just a baby, but as we welcome her into the church, we will tell her what it means to be a part of this community. We will say to her, "We receive you into the household of God. Confess the faith of Christ crucified, proclaim his resurrection, and share with us in his eternal priesthood." These are the acts of apostles. Confess! Witness to the faith of Christ crucified! Accepting and believing the faith are important, of course, but we are called to confess that faith to the world. Proclaim his resurrection! Proclaim. That’s pretty clear. And participate in Christ’s eternal priesthood. By our words and deeds, be a part of Christ’s reconciling work in the world today.

It is our job to help Ruby grow into her role as a Christian as she matures as a person. But it occurs to me that she might be able to teach us something about our mission, too. Children are usually quite skilled at making themselves heard. Making themselves heard in a way that impacts and affects those around them. Whether or not they have developed language skills yet, children know how to make themselves heard by others. Some of it’s volume, some of it’s persistence, a lot of it is desire. A desire to be heard. A compelling, insistent desire to be heard. What if those of us with more mature language and social skills had that same driving desire? The desire to be heard by others as we proclaim Christ’s resurrection to the world.

What if we were continually motivated by the desire to be heard… the desire to be heard as we proclaim the Good News? First, we would need always to maintain our focus on those to whom we were speaking. To be heard by others, we must speak in a language they understand (the Pentecost story), whether or not that language is our native or favored tongue. We must speak the Gospel in a language our listeners understand.

Another point to remember is that sometimes the first step in being heard is recruiting listeners. Surely if the message is a valuable one it is worth taking to others. Those who need to hear us may not always come to us. Often we must find them before we can make ourselves heard.

And finally, being heard is more than just talking, more than just volume. To be heard, we must proclaim the Good News in a way that is meaningful and relevant to those who need to hear it. Otherwise, no matter how much we talk, we will not be heard.

The primary gift of the Spirit to the church was the gift of communication, the ability to be heard in the world. That is how and why the church was born amid the flames of Pentecost. And that is our purpose still, to make sure the Gospel is heard in this sinful and broken world. As we pursue this mission, it helps to remember that the gifts of the Spirit were not given only back on that one day of Pentecost; they are ongoing. The First Letter to the Corinthians identifies and celebrates the Spirit’s ongoing gifts to the growing number of apostles who are the church. Think about it. The apostles’ message has been heard. Now there are apostles in Corinth, too, and other cities, not just in Jerusalem. First Corinthians also tells us that the ongoing gifts of the Spirit are more manifold than just language skills. Different apostles receive different gifts, but all gifts are from the same Spirit and given for the common good… that the community of apostles may continue to make God’s great deeds known in the world.

And now there are apostles well beyond Corinth. Surely that is testament to the miraculous power of the Spirit’s gift. There are apostles in Flossmoor. We are some of them. It is our mission to make ourselves heard in the world, to claim the Spirit’s gift so that we may proclaim God’s great deeds to others throughout the world.