DESERT PALMS PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH

Sun City West, Arizona

Vocabulary Of The Spirit

A Sermon Preached by the Rev. Dr. David S. Hodgson

May 23, 2010

Acts 2:1-13

When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. 2 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. 3 Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. 4 All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability. 5 Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. 6 And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them

speaking in the native language of each. 7 Amazed and astonished, they asked, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? 8 And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? 9 Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia,

10 Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes,

11 Cretans and Arabs--in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power.” 12 All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “What does this mean?” 13 But others sneered and said, “They are filled with new wine.”

Genesis 11:1, 8-9

Now the whole earth had one language and the same words.

8 So the LORD scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city. 9 Therefore it was called Babel, because there the LORD confused the language of all the earth; and from there the LORD scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth.

            From the Book of Genesis, Chapter 11, Verses 1, 8-9, in the Revised Standard Version:

“Now the whole earth had one language and few words, so the Lord confused the language and scattered the people over the face of all the earth.” The word of the Lord. 

            [As the piano plays “Spirit Song”, Pastor Linda signs.] Signing, in the presence of God; a language that is ‘spoken’ with the hands and ‘heard’ by the eyes. Among the advantages of sign language is that one never gets laryngitis, right? But it does put a lump in one’s throat. Thank you, Linda.

            Here at Desert Palms we have added signing to the linguistic variety of Pentecost because of a fundamental belief that God uses sign language to speak with us all the time, though most of those signs go unrecognized. Granted, it’s not the same kind of language that Linda just demonstrated. Nevertheless, it is a language of signs and of wonders, of symbols and of rituals, by which God tries to communicate with us through all of life. The problem, then, as the Bible explains it to us, is twofold. One, we need to look upon those signs with eyes of faith and two, we need to have a rich spiritual vocabulary in order in order to understand them. Let’s take the second one first, since that’s how the Bible addresses them.

            The passage I just quoted from Genesis tells of a time, early in our formation as a species, when all the peoples of the earth had one language and few words. I love that description. It’s the kind of language I could probably learn, as it had few words, but few words means few thoughts, because a word is a symbol that represents a thought and every thought must generate a word. If there was a language with few words, it represents a people with few thoughts. How could such a people ever begin to get their understanding around the mysteries of heaven with a language that only had few words?

            They were so shallow in their thinking, for example, that they actually thought, in order to experience God, they needed to build a tower from earth up into heaven so they could climb up and experience God. So God came down to have a look around. The Hebrew word refers to extreme contrast: God had to stoop very low to see this huge tower. Then with spirit hand God mussed it up, scattered the people and confused the language. God, sending them out to enrich their vocabularies. You’ve never heard that before. Remember where you heard it.

            God needed us to experience cultural variety in all of its splendor; ethnic diversity in all of its richness; to confront class distinctions and experience human suffering and human exhilaration until we had created such thoughts and such words that we would be able to begin to understand the mystery of God. Then, “in the fullness of time” … You know, when scholars interpret that phrase they use it to mean when God was ready, but I think it’s the other way ‘round. I think when we were finally ready, with enough words and a rich enough vocabulary, the word of God became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth, because at last we could begin to understand. 

            And so, in simple words that probed the depths of human experience we began to see in that life something of the personality of God, and to understand something of the wisdom of God and the purpose of God for our lives. Then he said, wait in the city after I’m gone until the Holy Spirit comes. The Holy Spirit came with a gift of vocabulary words. You heard them. Words for every occasion, words for every culture; the Spirit sending people out to this vast expression of humanity to share the good news that the mysteries of heaven are available on the earth. A rich vocabulary was the gift of Pentecost, as was the Spirit to interpret and to help us understand.

            So it is that we look upon life with eyes of faith, so that when we see the splendor of a sunrise we can also see the handiwork of God and the glory of God being revealed. When we look at the harvest of a field we can understand something of the generosity of God feeding us from the earth. When we see human love, one life touching another and transforming sorrow into joy, or when we see patience enduring in suffering and turning it into an adventure of spiritual expansion; when we know the gifts of hope, of faith, of love—all of them of grace: our ability to see the presence of God in our world is in large part because we have a vocabulary to understand and eyes of faith to behold. 

            In our worship this morning we are using some of the symbols that have been given to us. Water, the spirit, in which Linda began her signing, the symbol of bread, of wine, and momentarily we will use our hands for the ritual of ordination by which God calls forth and places the mantle of leadership on those whom God has called. All of it, sign language: a language of signs and wonders, of symbols and of rituals, by which God speaks to us all the time.   The message is simple: we don’t have to climb to heaven to be with God for God, in all of God’s grace and mercy, has come to earth to be with us.

            God bless you all. Amen.