CAN WE TALK?

“What do you want for your birthday?”

How many times have you heard this?  And what do you say in response?  The answer probably depends on your age.  I think the older we get the more we tell people not to get us anything at all.  When we are young we might have a long wish list.  

What about someone else’s birthday?  How do you decide what to get someone?  It can be difficult, especially if there are no hints dropped and you are determined to get a good present.  

At what age do people get the most birthday presents?  I haven’t researched it but I think I know the answer.  I think we get the most presents at age zero.  This is because of something called a baby shower, which is a kind of birthday party before you are even born.  Just think of all the things you get at age zero:

diapers

clothes

bibs

a crib

strollers

car seats

a baby monitor

burp cloths

bottles

toys

etc.

Why so much stuff?  Because newborns need a lot of things to start out in life.  

Pentecost Sunday signifies a birthday as well, except this time it is the birthday of the church.  So what should you get the church for a present?  If you could talk to the “church,” what do you think the church would say about what it wanted from you?  What about a new church?  What does a church need that is just getting started?  Perhaps it needs a place for worship.  Perhaps it needs more people.  Maybe it needs more resources.  You can probably think of a lot of things for a newborn church.

Now let’s go way back, to the birth of the Christian church.  What does this church need as a birthday present?  What is the first thing it gets?  Here is the story:

Acts 2:1-12

2 When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. 2 Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. 3 They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. 4 All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues[a] as the Spirit enabled them.

5 Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven. 6 When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard their own language being spoken. 7 Utterly amazed, they asked: “Aren’t all these who are speaking Galileans? 8 Then how is it that each of us hears them in our native language? 9 Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia,[b] 10 Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome 11 (both Jews and converts to Judaism); Cretans and Arabs—we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!” 12 Amazed and perplexed, they asked one another, “What does this mean?”

So from this we see the very first birthday present given to the church:  communication.  The apostles were able to clearly communicate with anyone.  

How important is communication?  Maybe the best way to answer is to imagine what life would be like without it.  What if you couldn’t communicate with anyone?  What would your day be like?  People have tried this as an experiment.  They would be silent for a week and see what happened.  One woman shared a story of going shopping on day 1 of her silent week.  The cashier somehow interpreted her inability to communicate as an inability to function, and tried to help her with her credit card.  She also had people talk loudly to her as if she couldn’t understand them (and as if speaking loudly would help).  

When you don’t communicate well bad things can happen.  A classic example of this comes from St. Jerome, the patron saint of translators—yes the irony is not lost here.  His goal was to translate the Old Testament into Latin from the original Hebrew.  He made a mistake with the translation of the word “karan,” which means radiance.  This was the word used to describe Moses’ head after coming down Mount Sinai.  St. Jerome had misinterpreted this as “keren,” which has a much different meaning of “horned.”  Since his translation was used in hundreds of further bible translations this mistake proliferated.  As a result many paintings and sculptures were made of a horned Moses.  

The real reason communication is important to the Christian is that it allows for a relationship.  And Christianity is all about relationship.  If you can’t build a relationship with someone you have little chance of gaining their trust, or teaching them, or learning from them.  Without a relationship you’ll have a tough time sharing the Gospel at all.  

Of all the possible gifts the new church could have received, God chose communication.  Let that tell us something about how important it is in our lives.  To be a good Christian is to be someone who seeks to have good relationships with others, and communication is the first step toward making that happen.

God Bless