“Mother Tongue”

Sermon by the Rev. Caela Simmons Wood

First Congregational UCC of Manhattan, KS

Acts 2:1-12

Pentecost, June 5, 2022

Earlier this week I was scrolling through Facebook and a post from NPR caught my eye. It was an article from an NPR affiliate in Texas and the headline and entire post were in Spanish. My first thought was, “Well, that’s really neat to see.” And my second thought was, “Don’t read the comments.” 

Language is powerful. In the United States, many folks get pretty uptight about language. Despite the fact that Spanish was spoken here before English and despite the fact that numerous indigenous languages were here long before any European language, some people unfortunately still seem to think English is the only language that belongs here. 

And that’s why my heart warms when I hear a language that isn’t English used in public spaces. 

Because I want to live in a nation where we are all invited to expand beyond our horizons and pushed outside our comfort zones a bit. This was one of the things that was powerful about the recent remake of West Side Story. They made the conscious decision to NOT use subtitles to translate the Spanish dialogue. Even if you don’t know Spanish, it was still pretty easy to follow along using context cues, but they wanted non-Spanish speakers to feel what it’s like to be on the outside a bit….and they wanted Spanish speakers to have the joy of hearing their own language.

There is something sweet about hearing our own mother tongue. Those who have traveled extensively or lived in places where their primary language isn’t spoken know the sweet, sweet feeling of familiarity when the language suddenly comes with ease. Even beyond actual languages, things like accents and regional dialects make us feel at home. When we lived in Indiana I met a person and it took me a while to figure out why I always felt comfortable around him. After knowing him for several months, I finally figured out it was his accent and I asked him where he was from. Turns out he was born and raised about 15 miles away from where my father is from in northwest Oklahoma. 

He was speaking my language. 

On Pentecost Sunday, we join with Christians around the globe in remembering what some have called the Birthday of the Church. Soon after Jesus’s ascension his followers were gathered together in Jerusalem for the annual Jewish Festival of Shavuot. Fifty days after Passover faithful Jews celebrated harvest and the gift of the Law to Moses on Mt. Sinai. 

On this particular year, after Jesus’s death, his friends must have felt terribly lost as they gathered together for the festiva.. What were they supposed to do now? Jesus had told them that their job was to be his witnesses in Judea, Samaria, and the ends of the Earth, but he didn’t exactly leave detailed instructions on how to make this happen. 

As they were gathered together, a rush of wind came and filled the house where they were gathered. Whatever happened next must have been inexplicable because it’s hard to get a visual for: “Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them and a tongue rested on each of them.” They were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in tongues….sort of. 

If you’ve ever been in a worship service where people were speaking in tongues, you’ve probably heard Glossolalia - at least that’s been my experience. So that’s when people start speaking “in tongues” and it’s incomprehensible. It’s not a language that anyone knows. Some say that it’s the language of angels. But that’s not what happened in this story. 

In Acts, the followers of Jesus started speaking in other KNOWN languages. And as they did so, immigrants from other parts of the Roman Empire came to see how these Galileans were speaking their languages. These were “devout Jews” who were living in Jerusalem but were originally from other parts of the region - north, south, east, and west of the capital. 

And just like that - in an instant - those who were following Jesus had a new identity. The followers of The Way started to form an identity as multicultural, multilingual, diverse, global. When the Holy Spirit came, they began to understand what it meant to be witnesses in Jerusalem (the capital), but also Judea (the south), and Samaria (the north), and to the very ends of the known world. 

Sadly, of course, as Christianity solidified and spread, it transformed from a group of rag-tag underdogs to a global powerhouse. 

Over the years, the Church lost its way. We forgot our birth story - the story of the beauty of diversity of culture and language. The ability to speak in other people’s languages, so that they can really hear. The sound of the Spirit rushing past, opening our ears so we can really listen. We forgot that it is our call to be uncomfortable, vulnerable. 

Instead, the Church has helped create the mess we’re in today - a nation where hate crimes are committed daily. A place where far too many Christians sell this violent lie that “good people” should all look or sound the same. 

But the truth is right here in front of us: followers of Jesus speak every language. And the gift of the Spirit enables us to listen to one another across human-imposed boundaries. 

Biblical scholar the Rev. Dr. Margaret Aymer notes that when the followers of Jesus began to speak of God’s marvelous deeds, it’s important to note that they “tell of the glories of God, not in the language of the empire but in the languages of the people subject to empire.” [1] When the Spirit arrived, she didn’t speak the dominant language of the day.

Those who lived in the Roman Empire had a common language (“We speak Greek in the Roman Empire! Go back to your own country, you Parthian, you Mede!”). Greek was the language of commerce, the language of government. It was a language imposed by an occupying force. 

But even as this language knit people together across a vast global empire, they maintained their own identities. At home, in private, where it was safe - they spoke their own native tongues. Babies were sung to sleep in the languages of “Mesopotamia, Judea, and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia”. Words between lovers were whispered, not in Greek, but in the languages of “Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene.”

And when the Spirit arrived - when she blew in as a gust of holy wind and flame - it seems to me she had a choice. Would the holy stories of God’s power and might roll off the tongue in Greek or some other language? 

The Spirit did not choose to speak in the language of the Empire. She chose, instead, to come to the people gathered and speak to them in their own mother tongues. She chose to boldly, loudly, proudly proclaim God’s deeds of power in languages that the Empire had attempted to silence, tone down, erase. 

Holy One, may our ears be attuned to your voice as it arrives in tongues unknown to us. May we, who live in the shadow of Empire, open our hearts, our ears, our very selves to your arrival in the languages of those who have been marginalized. May those who have been tossed aside, told to “blend in, told to shrink, quiet down, calm down” boldly find their Pentecost voices - not just today, but every day. 

And may the Church remember our call to listen, sing, shout, dance, preach, laugh, share in every conceivable language. May we remember that your mother tongue - our mother tongue - is Love, Justice, Peace, New Life, an Ever-Widening-Circle of Creation. 

Amen. 

NOTES:

[1] Feasting on the Word: Year C, Volume 3, p. 17.