How The Story Of Pentecost Can Change The Way We See
One of my husband’s most cherished friends is a man named Pierino who lives in Italy. They see each other perhaps once a year, text often and have video calls. Here’s the thing: my husband doesn’t speak Italian and Pierino doesn’t speak English.
Still, they manage to communicate, while sipping vino rosso, drinking a caffe stretto, or savoring a plate of risotto. The affection between the two of them when they are together is unmistakable.
I thought of this mainly wordless friendship as Christian churches across the world celebrate Pentecost, the coming of the Holy Spirit into the world.
In the Acts of the Apostles, St. Luke reports that Jesus’ disciples — a largely unschooled group of Jewish laborers and trades people — are suddenly able to communicate with people from Mesopotamia, Cappadocia, Asia, Phygia, Pampylia, Egypt and some districts in Libya.
“How does each of us hear them in his native language” St. Luke says a confused bystander asks.
We can imagine this scene. What if the event that took place was far less magical? What if it reflects something far simpler, something we can replicate in our daily lives still today?
I like to think that the disciples didn’t suddenly, miraculously, become fluent speakers of several foreign languages. I prefer to imagine that when they experienced the Holy Spirit, they learned the universal language of love.
And that allowed them to enter into communion with those whom they previously viewed as “alien,” and who viewed them as “other,” perhaps even a threat.
It isn’t surprising that the traditional representation of the Holy Spirit is a dove, a universal symbol for peace. What comes through is that Jesus’ followers communicated with warmth, with gestures of recognition and respect, a bit like my husband and his Italian friend do.
The foreigners in Jerusalem that day must have experienced being seen — truly seen — and heard. Both groups broke through to a new reality of what it means to be “neighbor.” One of the greatest gifts we can give to others is to let them know they are seen and they are heard.
Father Richard Rohr’s Center for Contemplation and Action recently aired a series of podcasts called “Learning How to See.” In the series, Rohr, pastor and author Brian McLaren, and New York theologian Jacqueline Lewis explore the ways in which we develop biases, and how we can work to shed them.
“How do we help cultivate a holy curiosity toward others?” Lewis asks at one point during the conversation. “Maybe it’s filled with wonder and maybe it’s filled with surprise,” she adds.
Whatever happened that day to Jesus’ followers was so powerful and so extraordinary that St. Luke reverts to metaphor to describe it. He says the disciples experienced “a sound like a strong driving wind” and “tongues as of fire.” Perhaps it was not literal wind or fire, but the kind of awe we too experience when our hearts feel infused with a spirit we can’t completely define.
Author Madeleine L’Engle writes, “The early Christians, then, were known by how they loved one another. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if people could say that of us again? Not an exclusive love, shutting out the rest of the world, but love so powerful, so brilliant, so aflame that it lights the entire planet — nay, the entire universe!”
Ths week, can we pay attention to the movement of the spirit within us? Can we reach out to people we don’t know well, who perhaps follow another faith or come from another culture? Can we speak with them, as my husband and his friend from Italy communicate, in the universal language of friendship and love?
