Standing Under the Scriptures
May 11, 2008

Dear Fellow Voyagers,

Our readings for this week are:

Acts 2.1-17: The Holy Spirit descends on the gathered disciples, their speaking in tongues occasioning Peter’s explanation to the bystanders,

John 20.19-23: As we discussed five Sundays ago, this is St. John’s equivalent of the Pentecost event, also containing the elements of impartation of the Holy Spirit, empowerment, and commissioning.

Without derogating from the importance of Mothers’ Day I would note that Pentecost ranks with Christmas and Easter as one of the three great festivals of the Christian year. As the first marks Christ’s incarnation and the second his resurrection, Pentecost marks the inauguration of the church, Christ’s body in the world. For it was Peter’s adventitious explanation to the bystanders of the Pentecost hubbub that caused the disciples to become aware, to their probable surprise, that their gospel was powerful also for those outside their own circle. And it is from those who were converted at that time that the church has come down to us.

For me Pentecost has a personal significance as well. For the first seven years after my ordination it was given to me to preach on that Sunday. And the first chapter of my book To Restore the Church, is titled “Pentecost.”

The passage from Luke focuses on the strangely intelligible speech of the disciples under the impact of the Holy Spirit: “… people from every nation under heaven… heard them speaking in the native language of each” (verses 5 and 6). It goes on to name some dozen such. This aspect has long intrigued me. My hypothesis is that the list represents the places to which the gospel had spread by the late first century, when Luke apparently was written down. As such it conveys the ability of the gospel to be heard in terms of their own situations and experience, what was as close to them as their mother tongues---a still greater miracle. How I arrived at this theory, the support I see for it, and some of its implications are set forth in this first chapter of mine. I am attaching it; it is only a few pages. It is substantially as I first drafted it in 1970, in Korea soon after being transferred there from the Congo. I would not greatly change its emphases now.

Further, it is relevant to current concerns about communication of the gospel, such as reflected in the printed “Connections” for May These were put in terms of lines from T.S. Eliot’s “East Coker,” the second of his Four Quartets: “… one has only learnt to get the better of words/ For the thing one no longer has to say, or the way in which/ One is no longer disposed to say it.” And after citing the trouble that Christianity is in in the “First World,” the article spoke of a need to put the old, old story in a new way.

Let us stipulate that the problem is not with the Christian gospel itself. In itself it is fresh and new and inspires not fatigue but spiritual energy. This is shown not only by its amazing spread through the ancient Roman Empire but also by its reception in the Third, as distinct from the First, World today. (The Anglican Church of Nigeria has gone from 18 million members to 25 million just in the last few years, so as to approach half the Communion’s active members.) What is needed is to get back to the original gospel, removing distortions deriving from Western affluence and upper middle class sense of privilege, as in the stripping of layers of varnish and dirt from the painting of an old master. Such was the aim of the 16th century Reformation and of other church reforms as well. (Conceivably in some small measure we achieve it in our class.) For then, and only then, the way will be open to the expression and hearing of the gospel in terms of the native languages also of our time.

Last Sunday we did not meet and so I have no discussion to report. Still I might venture a few unvetted comments on the first reading, the Acts passage marking the end of the resurrected Christ’s appearances to his disciples (1.6-11). In the preaching the focus was on the disciples’ question: “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” (verse 6). This was interpreted as an attempt by the disciples to put things under their own control. And control is certainly a central issue. A recurrent concern of Karl Barth’s Church Dogmatics is the tendency of “modern Protestantism” to apply to God concepts derived from human sources rather than revelation and so to bring him under a measure of control. And Stanley Hauerwas, “America’s best theologian” (Time Magazine), throughout his writings remarks on our need “to feel that we are in charge.” He extends this to international affairs, as in our supposing that we have to make history come out a certain way. Indeed, Adam and Eve in the Garden may be seen as attempting to take on themselves the determination of good and evil, the supreme form of control. Still it could be that by their question the disciples were only attempting to sort out the implications of Jesus’ resurrection---something we have not entirely managed today. For their approach to this totally new situation had to be through concepts that they already possessed, like restoring the kingdom. In any case, their question was worthwhile in that elicited the promise of something far greater: “You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth” (verse 8). And this, together with the assurance of Jesus’ eventual return (verse 11), is perhaps what the passage is really about.

May this Pentecost be powerful also for us.

Faithfully, Fr. Ted