All of them were filled with the Holy
Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability…
And at this sound the crowd was bewildered, because each one heard them
speaking in the native language of each. (Acts 2.4,6)
D&I
Not long ago I joined a group of HIV specialists for a
diversity and inclusion (D&I) workshop. A group of actors played out a
typical meeting scenario, where colleagues felt at ease with one another while
discussing business. We were asked to listen closely for “unconscious” signals
of inequities and assumptions based on gender, orientation, ethnicity, etc.
Some were glaringly inappropriate. But most were extremely subtle and many
seemed unintentional. “What we say matters,” the session facilitator told us.
“And if we truly want to foster a diverse, inclusive environment, we need to
use language that respects differences.” We all nodded in agreement—that’s the
perennial moral in D&I training. Yet this session’s emphasis on unconscious breeches left us uneasy. Is never offending possible if one doesn’t
always realize his/her language gives offense? As we wrestled with this idea,
the gentleman next to me sighed, “Sometimes I think this stuff asks too much.
As hard as you try, you can’t get it 100% right.”
Which brings us to Pentecost and why commemorating this
major event—often called the “birth of the Church”—is so essential. While the
gift of the Holy Spirit is, without question, the greatest miracle ever
bestowed on the Body of Christ, it comes in such a way as to remove all doubt
that God intends the Church to be a radically diverse and inclusive community. That
is the second Pentecostal miracle,
and it’s one we should celebrate to the full. When we revisit the extraordinary
goings-on in Acts 2.1-21, we see more than fulfillment of Jesus’s promise to
provide a Comforter to care for His followers. We witness a definitive
declaration that forever throws open the doors of the Church to all people. In
a gust of violent wind and fiery flashes, the Holy Spirit blows away every
thought of exclusion and burns up any presumption that this great gift belongs
to a select few. And how does the Spirit manifest this miracle? It uses language—unconscious language that speaks to everyone, believer and non-believer alike.
Above Their Limitations
Before we get to how this happens, suppose we glance around
the Upper Room to see who’s there. We find a group of regular folks with no
social or political agenda. We’d be hard-pressed to label them “progressives,”
as they have no voice in their culture and what we’ve observed of them in the
Gospels reveals decidedly shallow understanding of the world’s ways. What’s
more, they’re surrounded by uncertainty. Their Leader has vanished into thin
air. His recent execution puts them on the wrong side of history, leaving them
vulnerable to persecution and potential death. Once again, they’re behind
closed doors, just as they were after the crucifixion, waiting for something—who knows what, exactly—to
offer them guidance. They’re afraid.
And since fear is the root of bigotry and suspicion, we can safely say the 120
who faithfully anticipate the Holy Spirit’s descent are a diversity train wreck
waiting to happen. The barriers discouraging acceptance of outsiders are
seemingly insurmountable and if they’re to realize Jesus’s command to reach the
entire world, they’ll have to rise above their limitations. So the first thing
the Spirit changes is their language.
“All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to
speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability,” Acts 2.4 reports. This
phenomenon—glossolalia, or “speaking
in tongues”—becomes the Church’s calling card. Verses 6-8 tell us, “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?’” Verse 11 lists 15 different nationalities that are
present and hear the Upper Room believers “speaking about God’s deeds of
power.” And we should be very clear here. This is not ecstatic gibberish or personal “prayer languages” that the
crowd hears. It’s a linguistic miracle that simultaneously confesses and verifies the Holy Spirit’s presence
in the disciples’ faith community. It employs transformed speech to tear down cultural walls and overcome every
fear that prohibits inclusion. Now the apostolic commission is achievable just
as Christ said it would be: “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has
come upon you; and you will be My witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and
Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” (Acts 1.8) Not only does the Spirit
equip Christ’s followers to walk the walk; it empowers them to talk the talk.
Welcoming Witness
In no uncertain terms, Pentecost confirms that the Church is
born into diversity. The Holy
Spirit’s manifest presence in the Body of Christ erases all borders and rejects
any possible excuse for religious rejection. It enjoins us to abandon all
conscious reasoning for exclusion so we may speak
God’s power to “the ends of the earth.” It makes a welcoming witness available to every believer—a spiritual language
that resonates with people of every creed and kind. It is our Mother Tongue and
when we revert to insular, exclusionary dialects, we make a mockery of this
amazing communication skill that God has entrusted to us.
Pentecost unites us in a language of love that transforms
how we view others and what we say to them. It’s the antidote to “unconscious”
signals that defeat diversity and inclusion, as it, too, should be unconscious.
It should come so naturally to us that we embrace everyone we meet without
reservation. “If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not
have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal,” Paul writes in 1
Corinthians 13.1. And in Luke 6.45 Jesus says, “The good person out of the good
treasure of the heart produces good, and the evil person out of evil treasure
produces evil; for it is out of the abundance of the heart that the mouth
speaks.” The inexplicable clamor that ushers in the Holy Spirit isn’t what
Pentecost is about. Pentecost is proof of what happens when we yield ourselves
to the Holy Spirit’s enabling power to express God’s all-inclusive,
unconditional love to everyone who will listen.
When the astounded foreigners ask, “What does this mean?” (v12)
Peter explains that it’s the fulfillment of God’s promise to “pour out My
Spirit upon all flesh.” (v17;
emphasis added) And he wraps up his explanation by telling those who’ve
gathered to find out what’s going on: “The promise is for you, your children,
and for all who are far away, everyone whom the Lord our God calls.” (v39) All
flesh… you, your children… all who are far away… everyone. Sure sounds like radical D&I to me.
The second miracle of
Pentecost is manifest when the Holy Spirit transforms the disciples’ speech so
that diversity and inclusion barriers fall at the moment of the Church’s birth.
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