Superpower [Pentecost A - Acts 2:1-21]

The Rt. Rev. Jeremiah Williamson

Acts 2:1-21

 

Superpower

St. John’s, Troy

 

It was April of 2023, and I was sitting in St. Michael’s Chapel at Christ the King for the first, but not the last, time.  Where the congregation typically sits were the members of the diocesan Profile and Search Committee.  Before the altar, on high, backless stools, were those in discernment, those prayerfully considering a new form of ministry.  I was on one of those stools.

 

And, along with my fellow candidates, I was answering questions pulled, if I am remembering correctly, randomly from a hat, or from some similar utilitarian receptacle. 

 

The questions throughout this semi-finalist retreat had been probing and challenging and appropriately complex.  Those days we spent together were days of deep discernment.  The committee needed to leave that retreat with a slate of finalists to present to the public.  Each question along the way got us a bit closer to the election of the tenth Bishop of Albany. 

 

But as the retreat hit its cool down portion, the homestretch, the mood lightened and the questions took on an air of frivolity.  Someone on that holy stage was going to be the next bishop of the diocese.  It was important to get to know the person, not just their views.

 

“What superpower would you like to have?”  That was the question that was pulled from the hat.  Without preparation or contemplation, we were expected to articulate a clever answer.  Honestly, even the playful questions felt like they were being graded.  There are, of course, many good and worthy answers to the superpower question.  Often flight, strength, and invisibility quickly float to the surface: all excellent answers. 

 

But none of those more obvious choices escaped my lips.  Instead I said, “I would like to always know exactly the right thing say.”

 

That is basically the superpower that the Upper Room disciples discovered on the very first Pentecost.  The wind and flames get a lot of the attention of later audiences – and understandably so.  But it is the language skill that amazes the original assembly.  One might think the topic of conversation in Jerusalem that morning would have been all the people running around with their heads on fire.  Instead, according to Acts, all anyone wants to talk about is the impressive array of dialects.

 

What is interesting is that we don’t get to know what exact theological content the people found so convincing.  The author of Acts does not detail that morning’s message.  Neither do the quoted crowds.  But in one paragraph, the second of today’s reading, it is noted three times that the disciples spoke in the native language of each gathered individual. 

 

That was a choice, a divine choice: to speak in all of those languages.  The Holy Spirit could have chosen a different tactic.  The gathering was Jews from every nation.  A lingua franca, perhaps biblical Greek, probably could have communicated pretty well in that crowd.  But that is not what God chose to do.  On that morning, to spread the Gospel, the Holy Spirit spoke in the native languages of the people, the native language of each.

 

One of the reasons I named that particular superpower, from that stage, in April of 2023, is because it feels really good to be understood.  To always say the right thing and have it heard as the right thing, would be pretty amazing, I think.  I’m not sure if it was the right thing to say, but obviously I hope it was.  Inversely, I hate being misunderstood.  Which, of course, sometimes makes this a tricky vocation.  I often hear about things that “the Bishop said.”  Some I probably did say.  Some are at least in the ballpark.  And some are things that make me sigh and shake my head.  And remind me that my superpower wish has not yet come true.

 

This world has never been so inundated with so much communication – or so much miscommunication.  A million media and still no one hears each other.  Words get twisted and turned.  Words become weaponized to steal, kill, and destroy.  Two thousand years after Acts chapter two, words can be instantly translated into any language by the phone in your pocket and yet these modern times are still stained with the ancient curse of the Tower of Babel: the flood of words in this world of rhetoric mostly just drives people apart.

 

It is no wonder the first century crowds were most astounded by the miracle coming out of the disciples’ mouths.  In a world infected with isolation and misunderstanding, it is powerful when we find someone who speaks our language.  Perhaps it is even more powerful when that person finds us.

 

The guests in ancient Jerusalem were residents in an alien land.  They were used to being overlooked and ignored, misunderstood, and if history is any indication, probably mistreated.  They, very likely, were expected to leave behind the past and shed their home culture to fit in, to learn the language and lose their language.  And yet most unexpectedly, on a bustling Sunday morning, some simple Galileans, a hill people not known for their sophistication or education, spoke the words of God, directly to their hearts.  They understood because they were understood.  Nelson Mandela once said, “If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart.”  This was that.

 

Later in this same chapter of this same biblical book, we are told that on that day three-thousand people were baptized.  And while we get some excerpts from Peter’s sermon, we don’t know exactly what was said in the streets.  What we do know is that on that special morning God saw each person and spoke each language.  And the people were amazed.  And then transformed.

 

In this connected world, so many people feel disconnected and alone.  In this world of words, too many people go unheard and misunderstood.  Distorted versions of the Christian message have battered far too many people.

 

And yet, our story today is that in a sea of faces, God sees each one.  In this noisy world, God hears each prayer.  When no one seems to understand, God speaks each language.  And calls us to do the same.  I might never get a superpower.  I might spend my life stumbling over words that are never quite as perfect as I wish they were.  But there is something in the miracle of Pentecost that is still very possible.  Sharing the Gospel doesn’t require a superpower.  The Good News of Jesus is as gentle as a listening ear.  It is as patient as the gift of time.  It is as beautiful as an open heart. 

 

The Church grew when it met people in the streets, found them right where they were.  And each person felt seen and heard and understood and that felt like love.  Because it was.  And that was amazing because it is so rare.  And that love was so special that people couldn’t wait to let it into their hearts.