We all know the story. It is early in the morning. It is a holiday - the Feast of Weeks, seven times seven days after the Passover, the fiftieth day, the day when the first fruits of the harvest were offered in the Temple. Jesus' followers are sitting "all together in one place." There is a sound of wind, a vision of fire, and the followers are filled with the Holy Spirit and begin to speak in other languages.
A crowd soon gathers outside. Jews from other countries are in Jerusalem for the festival. They are amazed. "Aren't all these people Galileans? How is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language?"
Luke does not tell us what they hear, or whether it convinces them of anything. Presumably not, for Peter addresses them, no doubt in Aramaic, and only after he has challenged them do three thousand of them repent and seek baptism.
We must infer that it is the Holy Spirit who has been speaking. And that God spoke to the crowd "in their own native language", and not in some unrecognizable jargon. Each hearer heard different words. The message was tailored to the hearers' needs.
One of our problems today is to hear God's message directly, in our own language, in a way that we can understand. New translations of the Bible can help in this, though sometimes translators bring their own beliefs and emphases into their work. Even the Authorized Version was coloured by King James' personal instructions to use words like church, bishop and minister instead of assembly, overseer or servant. When, in the words of the 1611 version, Jesus said: "The time cometh, and now is," did he mean that the time was going to come, or that the time had already come? When we ask God to give us our "daily bread", does this mean our regular supplies from Migros, or does it perhaps mean the bread of life shared in the great Messianic banquet on the Day of the Lord?
There is a solution to this particular problem. We need to be open, and we need to read widely, to let one reading cast light on another, to escape from the proof-text approach to scripture. We may still hear a different message from our neighbour, but that only affects the details - underlying what we hear is the voice of the Holy Spirit.
Any Christian reading the first five books of the Bible is bound to ask, "How much of this is for me?" Do we need to offer God wine when there is a new moon (Num 28:14)? Must our beef be from cattle that have bled to death (Lev 17:10)? Must we ban from church those who are born outside marriage (Deut 23:2)? These rules were what the people of the time heard. It was their understanding of God's message to them. And because God speaks to all of us, in our own language, they gained an insight into how their own society should conduct itself.
In the Old Testament Law, this insight is set down as a series of commandments. But the prophets spoke of the day when the Law would be written in our hearts, and Jesus spoke of this prophecy being fulfilled in himself. Jesus reduced the commandments to two - love God and love your neighbour. At Pentecost, Peter asked his listeners to do two things - repent and be baptized. The Law was about actions. Some were clean, some were unclean. Repentance is about people: turning away from what we see as wrong. And baptism is about life - sharing in Christ's risen life.
We meet God in different ways, in the things we do, in our neighbours, in our prayers, in our worship, in our reading, in our listening. We are all different, and God meets us in different ways. The Holy Spirit speaks to us each in our own language, in a way that may astonish us and change our lives. Are we paying attention?
HD