further reflections on pentecost

Interpretation of Tongues

I have some background in Pentecostalism (Assembly of God late 70's & early 80's) which sometimes manifests in an Evangelical bent (although my immersion in Anglicanism since birth tends, I like to believe, to keep me grounded in reality). Thus, any thought or conversation around the gift of tongues links me into the early church experience and what is often referred to as "glossolalia". This Pentecost season has drawn me to the Genesis account of Babel, where God confuses language because a common language became a force for human communal self-interest. In the light of this the Acts reading takes on new meaning: it is the gift (lost at Babel) of being able to communicate with all people, restored in order to make God and his activities known, to glorify God and not human community - and thereby gifting us to fulfil the Great Commission.

"Language" Interpretation

Further, my insight this season, is that this gift is not primarily about "foreign" or "angelic" languages, but about interpersonal communication and helping people to understand each other. We often speak the same language but mean very different things, or even more confusingly, only slightly different things. Body language, tone, attitude, worldview, theological outlook - all confuse our communication with each other. This is specifically true in our African context where many of us use the English language to communicate, but because it is often our second, third or even fourth language, our communication is often torpedoed before we even begin. In today's increasingly global, multi and differently cultured environment we need the "Interpretation of Tongues" just to interpret what someone else is saying in the same language! Our backgrounds, experience, insight are all used by God in this particular manifestation of the gifting of God's people by God.

Sermons (click on the highlighted words below)

I have uploaded two sermons, one a more lengthy exposition on my first point above, and the other a briefer reflection shared at the evening Chapel Service at St Alban's College in Pretoria. that reflects more fully on my second point above, with specific reference to parent / teenager miscommunication!

Rennie D
1 June 2007

reflections on pentecost

My Ascension/Pentecost journey of the last two weeks has been an insightful one:

Power

In his closing comments to his Disciples at the Ascension, Jesus promises them “all power” from above. At our recent Clergy Day in Lyttleton we were challenged to be “power hungry”, and it strikes me the reason the disciples staggered drunkenly around Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost is that they were “drunk with power”. These are concepts of power we normally see as negative due to the inherent misuse, even abuse, of power by politicians and others in positions of authority in government and civil society. However, the dictionary describes “power” as “the ability to act”, which from a Christian perspective is a God-given gift. As a child of God I need to hunger for a greater ability to act.

Spirit

The Hebrew word for “breath”, “wind” and “spirit” is a single word: Ruach. In Genesis 2 God forms the primeval Adam who remains but a clay form until the “breath of God” gives Adam life, symbolic of humanity’s gift of eternal life. The eternal nature of life is wasted and then lost in the disobedience of “the Fall”, but restored at Pentecost as the Spirit, or “breath of God”, overcomes the disciples, and their drunkenness is symbolic of their abundant experience of life and relationship with God in that moment, and the restoration of eternal life as a gift to humanity.

Tongues

The Pentecostal movement and subsequent Charismatic response in the Anglican Church with its emphasis on the gift itself, has taken the focus away from the important symbolic content of the event, the restoration of what was symbolically lost at Babel: the gift of communication with all people - that God may be made known to the Nations!

Rennie D
4 June 2006