Pentecost 200515th May.
Acts 2.1-21, Ps 104.26-36, 1 Corinthians 12.1-13, John 20.19-23.Language is a powerful tool. As well as being the form of communication, it can be used in social ways. In particular, it can be used to include and exclude people. Use the wrong language in a particular group and you risk being shunned, being ignored, or worse still, being humiliated.
The English reformation, apart from giving Henry 8th the ability to dissolve a troublesome and unproductive marriage, was about language. The Roman church had always done it’s liturgy in Latin. And the readings from scripture, the sermons, canon law, the shopping list, pretty much everything. Perhaps they thought that Latin was the only language God speaks. Anyway, with the reformation in the English church and its schism with Rome, the services were to be done in the vernacular, meaning the commonly used language of the people. In the case of England the commonly used language was deemed to be, naturally enough, English.
This had a big effect on the life of the church, although in places such as Cornwall where most of the people didn’t speak English either, (some would say they still don’t,) it was just another foreign language. The use of English in worship was enforced and caused quite a lot of trouble, including armed rebellions and uprising which were put down brutally. One might say that the idea of worshipping in the vernacular was subject to political use, a tool to change the local language.
But I’m not here to give a history lesson, or a critique of the motives and processes that drove the reformation. Rather, I wanted to set the background to a short exploration of the use of language, and how it relates to us as a church and our relationship with the world.
Every Pentecost, in a lot of churches, the Acts reading is dramatized and people who speak other languages read out a passage of scripture in their second language. What we seem to forget though is that even within a language there are differences that sometimes make it seem like a foreign language, and that there are languages other than spoken.
Have you ever listened to teenagers talking? How many of their colloquialisms do you understand? When they say that something or someone is gay do you think they mean that it, he/she is happy, homosexual or uncool? It will probably be either of the last two. The term ‘cool’. What is meant by cool? The sentence “we’ve had cool weather lately” could mean that the weather has been cold, or that the weather has been likable, in whatever form that may take. It works the other way as well. How many teenagers would understand the phrase “It is very meet, right and our bounden duty”? Not too many. These are examples of our language is used in particular ways by different groups.
Church language in itself is peculiar. We use terms in the church, in our liturgy and in our stories, that are not readily understandable in the secular world. It is especially prevalent in our songs and in the bible. The songs we sing, whether old or contemporary, contain language that is different.
So is our church language, the vernacular we understand in the church, the most effective way of communicating the Gospel to the world? Especially when the secular world has increasingly had little or no experience or formal teaching in religion? Where those who do have an understanding of the language of faith and belief can often be equated to pre Sunday school level? How then do we reach them to tell them the good news about Jesus Christ?
It’s a tricky one. Because it’s not so much a matter of changing the words we use, it’s about getting the whole culture right. But there’s a danger in this – that in adopting the language and culture of those to whom we are trying to communicate, we will end up looking either ridiculous or being totally patronising. Do any of you remember a show called Father Ted? I remember one episode there was a priest who was a youth leader, and he put on this act of constantly playing his guitar and singing and trying very hard to be groovy – too hard, perhaps. And the young people looked bored. This is how youth ministry is done sometimes, people trying to be cool and not really getting it. Because there is more to it all than just the mannerisms and the words used. Language is actually bigger than that. There is an attitude. Its an attitude of keeping it real.
Keep it real. A catch cry from a fictional TV personality, Ali G, whose own use of language is very interesting to say the least. It means being yourself. I would say that most of us can spot a phony a mile away. Those to whom we reach out will also spot a phony. So even if we don’t fit in, if we are at least honest about who and what we are, if we keep it real, than the language barrier is not so bad, even to the point where it might not matter.
That’s what the spirit empowers us for. The spirit helps us to keep ourselves real, real in a relationship with God, real whilst living in Christ, and real in telling others about that relationship. It’s the language that everyone understands – honesty. Its being yourself, the person you are called to be, the Christian you are, the bearer of Christ in the world. This is the person the spirit builds up. This is our native language, a language that not many people know how to speak, especially these days it seems. Keeping it real.
We are called by Jesus to tell others about His good news. He sent the Spirit to us specially to empower us for this job. We are called to include. And the easy thing about it all, but paradoxically perhaps the hardest thing, is that we only have to be ourselves. We only have to keep it real.
