Speaking in Tongues

Today, my church spoke in tongues!  No, it’s what you think. ;-)

Today, the church year celebrates Pentecost, a festival that originates from our Jewish heritage.  Called Shavuot (“Weeks”) in Judaism, the holy day doubles as both a harvest festival and a commemoration of the giving of the Torah (the “Law”, or the first five books of Moses).  Many Christians either overlook, or are unaware of, this Jewish connection, and the story can still be intelligible without it.  But knowing its Jewish foundation makes the story richer and far more meaningful.

The book of Acts states that Jesus’ disciples gathered together this day, no doubt in faithful observance of Shavuot; no doubt still mourning the recent death of their Teacher.

“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.  Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them.  All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.” (Acts 2:2-4, NRSV)

People nearby heard the commotion and were surprised to recognize that “in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power.” (Acts 2:11, NRSV)  Many churches (like mine) will allow the congregation to simultaneously recite the passage in whatever other languages they know as a way to relive the power of the story.  You can hear what that sounds like here. Experiencing that still seems so new to me every time, and for a moment I forget that we read the same story last year.

But what does this story mean?  And can a story about speaking in tongues still speak to us today?  The key may lie in another story that the church calendar selects as appropriate for the theme of the day.

You may recall a similar linguistic commotion from Genesis.  At a time when, according to the story, everyone spoke the same language, the peoples of the earth said:

“Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves.” (Gen. 11:4, NRSV)

Upset at the people’s collaboration to reach heaven, the Lord confuses the languages of the earth and scatters the people.  The image of people suddenly dropping tools, unable to understand each other and finish the Tower of Babel, may enter your mind.

Someone close to me once admitted he was angry at God for punishing people who just wanted to reach him.  But nothing in the text suggests that they wanted to reach heaven out of love for God.  They gathered together for the selfish purpose of making a name for themselves.  And if that’s true, their collaboration must have been far from amicable.  Selfish collaboration rarely is, and we all know it’s completely possible to still get a job done with threats, ill-treatment, pressure, etc. without a ‘thank you’ or a ‘job well done!’

By contrast, Jesus’ disciples are gathered together in devotion to God.  They were recalling God’s wondrous gift of the Law to Moses, and waiting in faith for that same God to send the Holy Spirit, as Jesus had promised.  And because of this, they’re given the power to communicate in other known languages.  In this way, the story of the Christian Pentecost can be a kind of spiritual resolution to the confusion of languages at Babel - a symmetry that is powerful enough, but its power does not stop there.

For, the disciples receive this power solely to preach Jesus, whom the Christian faith confesses as Lord.  And what exactly is Jesus’ message?  True, he is often reported to have said things like “no one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6) or “I have not come to bring peace, but a sword” (Matt. 10:34, NRSV).  But when pressured to sum up the core of his teaching, he offered simply:

“‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’  This is the greatest and first commandment.  And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’  On these two commandments hang all the law and prophets.” (Matt. 22:37-40, NRSV)

Note that “the Law and the Prophets” is code for the Hebrew Bible.  Jesus sums up all the Scripture he knew as sacred with just two of its own laws, both of which begin with “You shall love”.  Do you now see how awareness of the Jewish roots of the Christian Pentecost make the message more profound and meaningful? That on the very day on which Jews recall God’s giving of the Law to Israel, Christians are to reflect on and preach Jesus’ summary of that same Law as being a message of love.

The message of the Lord is the message of love: love of God and neighbor.  By the way, this is not a new message, nor does the “old (Jewish) document yield to the new (Christian) rite”, as a famous Latin hymn declares.  Other contemporaries of Jesus (notably Rabbi Hillel) offered similar devotional “soundbytes”.  But, just like the yearly reading of the Pentecost story, making this realization can still feel new each time, precisely because it’s something so easy to forget.

It’s easy to forget that if we don’t exercise this kind of love, we, like the people of Babel, bring upon ourselves the punishment of confusion and alienation from our neighbor.  They decided to make a name for themselves instead of for the Lord - that is, instead of for love.  They decided to build a tower to heaven instead of building relationships with each other first.  They forgot how to love.  Haven’t you ever entered a beautiful house of worship (of any faith) only to realize that, no matter how marvelous on the outside, it’s utterly devoid of spirit and of love on the inside?  As the Psalmist once said “unless the Lord (unless love?) builds the house, those who build it labor in vain.” (Psalm 127:1, NRSV)  Centuries later, Paul echoed this, claiming that he is nothing without love, adding that love surpasses even faith(!) and hope. (cf. 1 Cor. 13)

But what if we forget how to love?  Many of us, knowingly or not, daily harm ourselves in so many ways.  How, then, can we love our neighbor when we’re not actually loving ourselves?  I think this is why Jesus offered advice so unique to his followers’ ears, that they willingly risked disobeying the ancient rule of not adding anything to God’s law (cf. Deut. 4:2) and called it the “new commandment”.  After humbly washing his disciples’ feet, Jesus is remembered to have said:

“I give you a new commandment, that you love one another.  Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.” (John 13:34)

If you can’t muster the energy to love someone as you love yourself, then try, as much as you can, to show them the same selfless, and indeed “radical”, love that Jesus, and so many others like him, have shown.  And trust that the action alone will eventually open your heart to the sincere love of self and neighbor.

I believe the message of this kind of love should be first and foremost - for everyone, no matter what faith or philosophy.  And for us Christians, Pentecost should serve as a loud wake-up call to proclaim the kind of love that Jesus preached, the good news of his message. And yet, despite how new this message of love feels, it isn’t really new at all. Despite the multitude of cultures and languages that are scattered around the earth today, hasn’t selfless love always been universally understood, no matter what language you speak?