Surprise the World?

But First, Communion 3/3 | Acts 2:1–13

March 3, 2019
Commonwealth Bridge Worship

The Methodist Mess in St. Louis

I must begin with an update of what I brought up last Sunday — about what’s going on with The United Methodist Church (or the UMC in short). And it’s really painful to even bring this up because I know not everyone here comes from this denomination. We all come from various backgrounds, and some have just found out about this denomination only because of me.

But I’m sure most of you have heard the news already — either from the major news outlets or through social media. The decision-making body made up of 864 clergies and lay members have voted on the Traditional Plan, which strengthens the ban against LGBTQ+ clergy and marriages. This plan was passed with 438 votes in favor and 384 against. That’s 53% to 47%. That means when the result came out, half of the room was in tears and grief, while the other half was celebrating in joy and relief.

Does this sound familiar to you?

Again, this denomination is a global church, which makes this kind of decision-making process even more difficult. The selected 864 people with voting rights, whom we call delegates, represent many regions, many cultures, and many languages. Approximately 40% of the delegates are from outside the United States, with at least 30% coming from Africa.

I say this to you not to defend the decision, but to paint the complexity of this decision-making process. And I don’t even know who thought this was a smart thing to do in the first place — gathering 800+ delegates in one place for four days to make decisions that require both pastoral sensitivity and theological exploration.

There are still a lot of uncertainties. We don’t even know if the Traditional Plan will go into motion since parts of it are deemed unconstitutional according to our church law. This decision also does not change anything locally. This decision does not change who we are and what we are called to become as Commonwealth.

Just as it has been for many people, it has been a painful week for me. And I acknowledge that my pain does not fully reflect the degree of pain that the LGBTQ+ community is experiencing right now. This decision shook the core of their identity and calling once again. It crushed those who serve Christ through this church, while it reinforced the animosity towards the church for those who are not part of the church. It has been painful to witness their pain from close and afar.

It has also been painful for me because of what I witnessed through this decision-making process did not look so different from what I witness in our world. Christians are so-called a “set-apart” people; living out our life differently from the rest of the world, because we have God’s love to enjoy and to share with others.

Yet, what I witnessed was the exact opposite of that. What I witnessed was not the body of Christ called the church, but a broken human instruction called a church. As I’m reflecting on this, the words of Congressman Elijah Cummings ironically ring in my ears:

“We are better than this. We are so much better than this.”

So then, what is the church supposed to look like?

What should the body of Christ called the church be?

What’s better than to look at the passage that is described as the birth of the church (Acts 2:1–13)?

The Coming of the Holy Spirit

We are told that after the resurrected Jesus had ascended, the remaining disciples with “women and Jesus’ mother and brothers” got together constantly (1:14). And they were joined by another 120 followers of Christ (1:15). And when they were all together, they were “filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability” (v. 4).

Here, the term “other languages” or “tongues” signifies the tongues other than our own — our non-native languages. So, they spoke in some kind of languages other than their own. And this wasn’t due to their own desire, but the Holy Spirit gave them this ability.

Now there were thousands of people gathered in Jerusalem from different regions to celebrate the Jewish festival. And what happened was that the crowds were able to hear their own native tongues being spoken by this gathered group of Jesus’ followers. Have you experienced hearing your own native tongue when traveling overseas? You immediately recognize the familiar sound amid all the noises, and your ears are weirdly drawn into that sound. It’s kind of like finding an oasis in the desert.

And this was what happened in Jerusalem. When the disciples of Christ started speaking in languages other than their own, the crowds started to hear their own native languages and dialects. They started moving towards the disciples, slowly joining the disciples, and understanding the message of the mighty works of God spoken in a language near and dear to each. And they were bewildered, amazed, astonished, and perplexed. And this was how the church was born — if you look at the rest of Chapter 2 of Acts, you read about how three thousand people were baptized in the name of Jesus from this very incident (v. 41).

Tongues Other Than Our Own

So, what does this supernatural happening say about the church?

I believe what we often miss from this foundational text of the church is that God desires us to speak a language other than our own. Whether the Holy Spirit caused speaking in different languages in a literal sense or speaking in “tongues” in a figurative sense, the focus is that the disciples of Jesus spoke in languages other than their own.

But what does this actually mean? What does it mean to speak in languages other than our own native tongues?

To acquire and speak a language other than our own is a humbling experience. Oh, I know so much about it. I was born in the States and went back to Korea when I was about six. As soon as we moved, I went through this boot camp with my grandfather to learn Korean. To learn a language is to learn a culture. And to speak a language is to speak a people.[1] After intense training with my grandfather, I finally learned how to say hello in a proper way. Instead of waving my hand to say hi, I learned to bow and say 안녕하세요.

Our family decided to move back to the States when I was in 8th grade. And I had to do this all over again. I had to take the time to re-acquire English. Instead of enrolling in middle school as an 8th grader, I had to repeat 7th grade where I was put in a class with people half of my size. Again, learning a language is submitting to a people; and it required a stripping away of a lot of my ego, my pride, and myself. Soon after, instead of bowing to say 안녕하세요, I learned how to nod my head and say “What up.”

There are obviously many more steps in between that are glossed over here — from learning the alphabet and listening repeatedly and carefully to the sound of the foreign tongue to physically training the muscles in our stomach and lungs to produce the sounds we want. But my main point is that learning to speak in a language outside of our native tongue is about letting go. It is about letting go of our first instinct, letting go of our first impulse, and letting go of our first desire. It’s letting go of ourselves.

And when we put it that way, why would anyone speak in languages other than their own? Why would we put ourselves through such an arduous task?

Perhaps, it is to survive — perhaps we are placed in cultures and regions outside of our home and forced to learn a language that is not our own. And while at first, this may seem the reason for my learning Korean and relearning English, But I believe at the core, it was and is because I wanted to be connected — connected with a culture I was not used to being in and connected with a people who were different from what I used to being around.

I suspect the same thing from today’s scripture. God desired for the people to be connected with one another. So, God, through the Holy Spirit, inspired people to speak languages other than their own. And the result was the joining of the people — three thousand different people being connected to one another and to the good news of Jesus Christ.

And please do not misunderstand me. I’m not belittling the charismatic expression of speaking in tongues. What I’m pointing out is the divine desire behind that expression. The gifts of the Spirit are for the upbuilding of the community. And as Paul said in 1 Corinthians, “If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal” (13:1). If I speak in tongues, but do not have love that builds up the community, I am nothing (cf. 1 Cor 12:7; 13:1–3).

The divine desire to connect with one another comes from love. And this divine love requires humility, submission, self-denial, and self-emptying (Phil 2:1–11). That’s what this passage is all about. The divine love uses language as a vehicle to connect different people together under one truth, that is Jesus Christ. And this is what the Incarnation of Jesus essentially represents: “God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him” (1 John 4:9). This Son came to us as fully divine and fully human; and learned to speak the language of humans, so that we may connect with the divine.

And the church was born out of this very same desire, for the Holy Spirit inspired the disciples to speak the language of others, so that we may connect with others and so that others may connect with God.

We Speak What We Love

None of us are new to this concept. We all practice this in our own unique way. If we really love something, we put an effort to learn its language.

If we really love a genre of music, we learn its own unique language and try to be fluent in it. If we really love this one particular video game, we take the time to learn its language thoroughly. If we really love this one particular sport, we put in an effort to learn its language however we can. And we are surrounded by so many different examples of this love — parents learning the memes of today’s youth so that they can better connect with their children; immigrant children learning the native tongues of their parents so that they can better communicate with each other; young children learning coding languages so they can develop apps they’ve been dreaming about.

And this is what the church has failed to do — both within the context of the UMC this past week, and outside of the UMC. The different factions within the church only speak in their own languages — the languages that are only comprehensible to their own “team.”

But, God’s desire is the radical joining of the people; and our call is to speak in ways that honor this desire.

The church fails to honor this desire over and over again; we hurt each other with our native tongues that express and embody only our own interests and concerns — and in doing so, we further divide the church and painfully wound our fellow brothers and sisters.

In the past week, in response to the UMC headlines, most of the reactions I got from non-church goers were, “Oh, I’m not surprised” — which is sobering, really.

If we really loved God, loved each other as ourselves, loved our neighbors, and loved our enemies, would this have been their response?

If we, the church, really honored God’s desire for us to connect with one another in love, wouldn’t their response more appropriately have been something like, “What does this mean?” or “Y’all have had too much wine.” Both reactions that come from surprises — one with fascination and amazement, while the other with skepticism and disbelief. Our life as the church should have surprised the world.

It’s not open hearts if we invite guests yet speak in a language that only we can understand. It’s not open minds if we simply set up empty chairs and twiddle our thumbs waiting for people to come. It’s not open doors if our hospitality doesn’t surprise the world.

Surprise the World

Dear friends, I truly believe that we at Commonwealth are called into this amazing journey to start a church that is faithful to God’s desire for the world. We are gathered here with our common longing for an authentic community of Christ. We are gathered here to share the good news of Jesus with people regardless of their age, race, ethnicity, socio-economic status, gender identity, and sexual orientation. We are gathered here with a determination to share God’s healing to our community — not because we are perfect people, but because we are imperfect people who have tasted God’s grace and mercy, because we too are recipients of Jesus’ self-sacrificial love. We are gathered here so we can be the church — the radical joining of different, but nonetheless divine and beloved, people.

So, I again ask you to join me on this journey — join me in honoring the divine desire, join me in being filled with the Holy Spirit, join me in learning the language of our neighbors and our community, and join me at this table, the table of our Lord Jesus Christ, whose life, death, and resurrection surprised the world like no other. Let us pray.

[1] Willie James Jennings, Acts: Belief, A Theological Commentary on the Bible (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2017), 81–87.

William H. Willimon, “The Methodist Mess in St. Louis,” Christianity Century, Feb 27, 2019.