Words Half Heard: God Speaks My Language

Argentinian empanadas are a comfort food from my childhood. I was sometimes invited to spend the weekend with my sister at her friend Violet Alejandro's home. My sister was three years older than me. Violet was even older. Neither had much interest in including me, so the real invitation was from Violet's mother, a lovely woman who made me empanadas, told me stories of Argentina, and included me in her weekend activities. Her English was not strong and my Spanish was non-existent, but those were fun weekends away from my often stressful childhood home, cooking and singing and laughing and eating.

Most of the churches I've attended have been rich with friends from other nations. And I'm thankful for the decades my husband Whitney spent in ministries that bridged national boundaries and invited us both into friendships with Christians from multiple nations. He's traveled to every continent except Africa, visiting prisons in some places, speaking in churches in others. We've hosted people from multiple countries for dinner, weekends, sometimes weeks at a time. And we've traveled together to regional or national meetings in Jamaica, France, twice to Greece.

My understanding of mission and faith have been shaped since childhood by interactions with Christians from other nations and languages. I've written about some in earlier blog posts:

Gene Denham from Jamaica: Voice in the Wilderness
A visit to France: An Altogether Different Language
Time with refugee friends from Uganda, Vietnam, Laos: Welcome the Stranger

This morning's Encounter with God reading was in Acts 2:1-11, an expected reading for Pentecost Sunday. One of the reasons I return again and again to that Scripture Union publication is that the notes with each reading are written by Christians from all across the globe, all with decades of ministry experience in a wide mix of cultures. Whitney is one of their regular writers and loves occasional Zoom meetings with the other SU authors.

The writer for today, and for two weeks in Acts, is David Smith, engaged in international ministry in Africa and Asia and author of some books I'm adding to my reading list: Liberating the Gospel and Voices from the Margins: Wisdom of Primal People in the Era of World Christianity.

I've read Acts 2 at least 60 times, given how many Pentecost Sundays I've celebrated. It's the story of the Holy Spirit empowering the disciples to share the story of Jesus and his resurrection in multiple languages. But Smith's reflections remind me: there's always more to see.

The miracle of Pentecost prompts two questions from those who felt its impact: how could they hear ‘the wonders of God’ declared in their own languages (vv. 5–11)? And ‘What does this mean?’ (v. 12)....

Pentecost did not reverse the linguistic diversity which resulted from human arrogance at Babel. By enabling the members of the audience to hear the message in their own native language it affirmed local cultures and vernacular languages as vehicles for the global spread of the gospel. As to the second question, concerning the meaning of this event, it is that all peoples on earth may now be able to say, ‘God speaks my language.’ Justo Gonzalez observes that the Holy Spirit might have enabled the crowd to understand the Aramaic spoken by the disciples, but instead gave them the gift of hearing about Jesus in their mother tongues.(Justo Gonzalez, Acts: The Gospel of the Spirit, Orbis Books, 2001, p 392)

As American Christians, we sometimes think the whole world should speak English.

We also sometimes think our interpretations are the correct ones. We resist learning from other perspectives, or listening to other points of view.

We think our own form of Christianity is the most accurate representation of God, his word, his work, his intent.

But God speaks in many languages. All imperfect. All colored by local context. All incapable of capturing the full mysteries of God's love, grace and grandeur.

We see in part, and we know in part.

God, forgive us for our arrogance, and teach us to listen better as you speak in languages other than our own.