There’s a cliché among Americans (I can’t speak for other cultures) that — when we’re trying to use a foreign language with a native speaker — we have a tendency to speak louder if our message isn’t being understood. It’s as if we don’t particularly care about whether we’re picking the right words, so long as we’re saying so emphatically: “I want to INSERT my friend to you, but he is too PREGNANT to wish you great EVENT!”
That emphatic loudness is not limited to strictly matters of language. Many people view Christians as those grumpy folks who perpetually tell others “You’re doing it wrong!” (where “it” is everything ranging from premarital sex to what you should do with your Sunday).
I understand both sides of the impulse to view Christians to be nothing more than Negative Nellies. For those who follow Christ’s message, the desire to emphatically say “You’re doing it wrong!” is the encapsulation of the certainty and clarity we feel; our disapproval rolls off the tongue quickly and easily as we proclaim the truth. For those who have yet to be open to Christ’s message, any flavor of “You’re doing it wrong!” feels judgmental and lacking in compassion; no matter how true the message, bludgeoning people with the truth is more likely to cause the listener to retreat like a turtle into the shell of their worldview.
We do not need to view our words as a hammer of truth that we and we alone have the power to wield, for we are not alone in proclaiming Christ’s message. Christ repeatedly said so Himself, including in today’s Gospel reading: But when he comes, the Spirit of truth, he will guide you to all truth. He will not speak on his own, but he will speak what he hears, and will declare to you the things that are coming.
Yes, the Holy Spirit is with us! One of the first gifts bestowed by the Spirit to early Christians was the ability to speak in tongues. The ability to articulate foreign languages is — at its most literal — the ability to say the right thing. This power is often one of the gifts we most recognize with the Spirit today; certainly when I’m teaching my kindergarten students, I’ve relied on the Spirit to provide answers when my own mind is not as nimble as I need it to be.
When speaking with a foreign language, it is not our vehemence that conveys our message. It’s saying the right thing. It is our words. It is our heart. So, too, when we are Christians, we should know it is our heart and our love that is our message . . . not our Bible-thumping certainty as we yell at those who do not yet believe.
For one of the most beautiful, clearest examples of the gift of the Spirit’s language in action, see today’s reading from the Acts of the Apostles. Here, Paul is conveying the message of Christ to the Athenians. However, he does not do so by raising his voice and telling them, “You’re doing it wrong!” Rather, he finds common ground. He reveals to them truths they already know, and places it within the context of the larger whole, so that they might understand the truth. I don’t normally do a line-by-line breakdown of Scripture, but this is beautiful.
“You Athenians, I see that in every respect you are very religious.
Immediately, Paul establishes a connection. “We have something in common,” he seems to say.
For as I walked around looking carefully at your shrines, I even discovered an altar inscribed, ‘To an Unknown God.’
Again, Paul establishes their shared interests. “I’ve admired your works. I found evidence that you all struggle to find the truth.”
What therefore you unknowingly worship, I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and all that is in it, the Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in sanctuaries made by human hands, nor is he served by human hands because he needs anything.
He challenges them to think. If God is so great, what are these shrines doing? What purpose do they serve? It’s a supremely logical argument, one that would have borne great fruit in Greece, birthplace of Western logic.
Rather it is he who gives to everyone life and breath and everything. He made from one the whole human race to dwell on the entire surface of the earth, and he fixed the ordered seasons and the boundaries of their regions, so that people might seek God, even perhaps grope for him and find him, though indeed he is not far from any one of us.
Again, Paul brings the entirety of the human experience and forges a connection. Who hasn’t groped in ignorance and frustration trying to find God? And yet, it has not been God who has been far from us, yet our hearts who have been far from God.
For ‘In him we live and move and have our being,’ as even some of your poets have said, ‘For we too are his offspring.’
Once more, Paul uses the Athenians’ own ideas, their own wisdom, their own certainty to draw them closer to the truth.
Since therefore we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the divinity is like an image fashioned from gold, silver, or stone by human art and imagination.
Again, the connection. Here’s the harshest language Paul has used so far in this speech: We ought not to think that the majesty of God is something we can encapsulate in a human construct and call it a day. It’s still so sympathetic, so beautiful.
God has overlooked the times of ignorance, but now he demands that all people everywhere repent because he has established a day on which he will ‘judge the world with justice’ through a man he has appointed, and he has provided confirmation for all by raising him from the dead.”
Finally, Paul connects the dots. Here is the conclusion. Here is the evidence. Here are the facts. You have the pieces yourselves; put them together.
The rest of this reading of Acts shows the results. No, not everyone believed . . . but some were open-minded, while others were swayed and became followers of Christ.
We have never walked the journey of Christ alone. The Spirit has always been with us, just as Christ promised. We need not rely on human anger, on human pride, on human certainty. We can use the foundation of our Father, the humility of the Son, and the language of the Spirit to get our message across. Thanks to the gift of the Spirit, we speak the language of Christ’s love. And with it, we can change the world . . . one heart at a time.
