It’s Pentecost Sunday. 50 days after the first day of Passover was celebrated by Jews as Shavuot, the festival of the first fruits of the harvest, later commemorated as a celebration of the giving of the Torah, the Law, to Moses. An important feast in the Jewish tradition, the day found all the disciples gathered together, and many people from around the region gathered in Jerusalem. Still reeling from the death of Jesus and their experiences of his presence afterwards, the disciples, confused, weary and full of wonder, seek reassurance from one another on this important feast day.
Yet the story of Pentecost in the book of Acts will be quite a bit more confusing than a simple celebration, important as it may be, of the giving of the law. This Pentecost story is certainly about coming together. It mirrors in reverse the story of the tower of Babel in the Hebrew Scriptures, where the people were separated into different languages to confound communication. Today, somehow, miraculously, they are brought together by the Spirit – not only able to understand one another, but each hearing the good news of God’s marvelous works in their own language.
Now there were devout people living in Jerusalem from every nation under heaven, and at the sound of the wind they all assembled. But they were bewildered to hear their native languages being spoken. They were amazed and astonished. “Surely all of these people speaking are Galileans! How does it happen that each of us hears these words in our native tongue?”
Pentecost, that celebration of the breath of the Spirit that opened the ears and hearts of each hearer, is often considered the birth of the Christian Church. Yet over the centuries that followed that auspicious beginning, churches developed their own new language that defined and divided insiders and outsiders, believers and non-believers. Words like salvation, redemption, sacrifice, atonement. Words originally meant to bring people closer, to bring people into right relationship with one another and the divine, in time became divisions we are only beginning to learn how to overcome. While Liberation theology, feminist, womanist, inclusive and ecological readings of scripture are leading us to new understandings of our deep connection to the divine and new ways of hearing the Spirit, others within the Christian tradition are hardening the language of division, right and wrong, good and evil.
Language, as we all know, is more than words. Each language contains a worldview – just as the language we use, and the way we use language contains a worldview that shapes our thinking. My wonderful theological mentor and professor, Dr. Sallie McFague used to quote one of her own professors – “Be careful what you think. The world IS like that.”
But we can claim and reclaim our own words and traditions of relations and relationships – to one another and the Spirit.
One hopeful trend might serve as an example of how to begin. In the past few years, the teaching of indigenous languages in our local schools is becoming more common.
Education consultant Ted Cadwallader, Nanaimo/Ladysmith district director of instruction and indigenous learning from 2018-2021, says, “There is a well-known idiom that when people speak the same language they understand one another’s opinions, values and beliefs. And that that understanding in turn leads to greater respect.”
He believes that by getting people to start thinking in an Indigenous language, their interactions with not only each other but the world as a whole will change for the better.
“The language of the land and our animal relatives was here long before people came. The land taught Indigenous people. When we learn Indigenous languages we are better able to understand all our plant and animal relatives, and we learn to walk in this world with gratitude,” he says.
William Taylor, another language teacher says, “If students know some of the language, they know some of the stories… We can’t teach language as a thing separate from culture or land, they are intertwined.” (Kerith Waddington – Indiginews June 2022 reporting on Hul’q’umi’num language teaching in local middle and high schools in Nanaimo/Ladysmith)
What possibilities for the future might open up if our young people learn early that there are many ways of seeing the world, and that different doesn’t mean wrong? Where might we be in 50 years if our youth are able to appreciate the truth in Canadian anthropologist Wade Davis’s words, that “The world in which [we] were born is just one model of reality. Other cultures are not failed attempts at being [us]; they are unique manifestations of the human spirit.” Is a hopeful and inspiring thought.
As indigenous peoples and communities begin reclaiming their ancestral languages, they are also re-learning and reclaiming culture, tradition and world-views encoded within the languages themselves.
Of course, indigenous people are not the only ones reclaiming language. Women, queer and gender diverse people, communities of colour, environmentalists, differently abled communities, marginalized populations, as well as groups promoting hatred and disinformation are finding new ways to define themselves and the world through language. Claiming new pronouns and self-definitions, re-interpreting, decolonizing, reclaiming. Power-with replacing power-over in language can be the beginning of power-with replacing power-over in action.
Words and worldviews can be used to hurt or heal, divide or include, alienate or engage. It is up to us whether we choose to be Pentecost people – healing, including, engaging – or to continue to allow ourselves to be drawn into the death-dealing culture of hurting, dividing, and alienating.
In August of 2012, at the 41st General Council, The United Church of Canada, recognizing its failure and sins of omission, acknowledged the presence and spirituality of Aboriginal peoples in the United Church by revising the church’s crest, incorporating the colours often associated with the Aboriginal Medicine Wheel, which reflects respect for diversity and interdependence, and incorporates important teachings from the four directions, the four stages of life, and the four seasons…The crest changes also included the addition of the Mohawk phrase “Akwe Nia’Tetewá:neren” [aw gway– nyah day day waw– nay renh], which means “All my relations.”
As Richard Wagamese said… the phrase “all my relations”… points to the truth that we are all related… all connected, that we all belong to each other. And the most important word is “all.” “Not just those who look like me, sing like me, dance like me, speak like me, pray like me or behave like me. ALL my relations…every person…every rock, mineral, blade of grass, and creature…
It seems most indigenous languages have a phrase similar to “all my relations”, one that forms a central part of the understanding that all life is in some way one. In the Nuu-chah-nulth language groups it is Hishuk ish tsawlk, we are one and all interconnected.
For instance, Galakesla, the common greeting in Kwak’wa’lla, the language of the Kwakwakaʼwakw people, means, literally, “we breathe the same air”, a recognition that we all share something as intimate as breath, acknowledging the deep kinship and interdependence between all living things.
When Cree people gather, each speaker begins begins with a salutary statement kahkiyaw niwâhkômâkanitik (Kach-i-yow nu-wah ko-ma-kan-tick) for ‘all my relations,’ The statement ‘all my relations’ is the language of spiritual communication, an act of respect, a greeting, a prayer. It is the recognition of unity with the universe, of harmony, of balance, and of the invisible bridge that unites the diversity of our lives. Everything is related. With this perception comes the ideas of respect, kindness, patience, and sharing. This is not only with people of the same race but for all races, not only with people but with all else that is in our world: the four legged, the two legged, the crawlers, the swimmers, the flyers, the plant-beings, and the rock-beings.
For hundreds of generations the Haudenosaunee, or Six Nations have begun their days with the Ohen:ton Karihwatehkwen, a prayer of peace and appreciation of each aspect of mother earth and her inhabitants. Each life-sustaining force and creature is named and thanked for their gifts. In times past a young person would recite this blessing at the beginning of any important gathering. The recitation could go on for many hours or even days. The Thanksgiving address teaches mutual respect, conservation, love, generosity, and the responsibility to understand that what is done to one part of the web of life, we do to ourselves.
As the United Church has slowly begun to re-imagine itself to include all our relations, including indigenous, intercultural and queer expressions and experiences of life and spirituality as authentic and unique manifestations of Spirit, so too in this space you have begun to reclaim a wider, wilder Pentecost Spirit in words, in music, in art and spiritual engagement that invites a deep conscious relationship to the Holy interconnectedness of all things.
Ted Hicks, in his June 2022 “postcard” in the latest Denman Island United newsletter, had these wise words about remembering and reclaiming. He says:
It struck me from my reading that those of us who are Christians of non-indigenous descent also need to remember: remember what was raw and original and brilliant about the movement started by Jesus before the corruptions, divisiveness, and atrocities began to distort things. Ted also suggested attempting to form relationships with indigenous friends to covenant to compassionately listen to and support each other as we each try to remember something original and deeply true about our identity… including, for those of us from non-indigenous backgrounds, trying to remember who [we] were before the Christian movement became an agent of empire in those early centuries of its development…
A lofty goal, and one that might take generations. It is, however, something we can begin to take seriously together in this place – remembering, reclaiming and celebrating what is original and deeply true about our identity in the Spirit. Embracing the freedom of reclaiming spirit frees us to engage in the transformative actions of justice and peace our world so desperately longs for.
In scripture, the story of the day of Pentecost follows the ascension of Jesus after his death. I want to end with this lovely short poem by Rev. Steve Garnaas-Holmes that brings the two together and reminds us that the mystical invitation to be part of the body of Christ, part of the Spirit of all life, goes out to each one of us – and is for all our relations.
He was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. —Acts 1.9
The Ascension is not about Jesus’s body
rising above the earth,
but about Jesus expanding beyond his body.
He didn’t go up,
he went out.
Into all of us.
The disciples stand there,
almost ready to believe
(they won’t until Pentecost)
that the body is not there
but here: we are the body,
the body of the risen Christ.
Christ is not an individual but a community.
You are not an individual
but a member of that community.
When Jesus prays “May they all be one,”
it isn’t about opinions.
It’s that we’re all cells of one body.
See that way.
Act that way.
Love that way.
Weather Report
Heavenly,
as warm, light air rises,
raising us all
into the realm of light.
MAY IT BE SO.
Steve Garnaas-Holmes Unfolding Light www.unfoldinglight.net
Readings
Scripture: The first part of the book of Acts tells about Jesus’s death and resurrection and his teachings during the 40 days before he is taken up. It also tells about the experiences of the apostles who had followed Jesus, including his mother Mary, and some of his sisters and brothers in the early days after Jesus’ death. Now, on the traditional Jewish festival day of Shavuot (which occurs 50 days after the festival of First Fruits – Pentecost meaning 50 in Greek), a holy fast day when the giving of the Law or Torah is commemorated, the men and women who had followed Jesus meet together…
` `
Acts 2:1-21
When the day of Pentecost had come, they all met in one room. Suddenly they heard what sounded like a violent, rushing wind from heaven; the noise filled the entire house in which they were sitting. Something appeared to them that seemed like tongues of fire; these separated and came to rest on the head of each one. They were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages as she enabled them.
Now there were devout people living in Jerusalem from every nation under heaven, and at this sound they all assembled. But they were bewildered to hear their native languages being spoken. They were amazed and astonished. “Surely all of these people speaking are Galileans! How does it happen that each of us hears these words in our native tongue? We are Parthians, Medes and Elamites, people from Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia. Phrygia and Pamphylia. Egypt and the parts of Libya around Cyrene, as well as visitors from Rome- all Jews, or converts to Judaism – Cretans and Arabs, too; we hear them preaching, each in our own language, about the marvels of God!”
All were amazed and disturbed. They asked each other, “What does this mean?” But others said mockingly, “They’ve drunk too much new wine.”
Then Peter stood up with the Eleven and addressed the crowd: “Women and men of Judea, and all you who live in Jerusalem! Listen to what I have to say! These people are not drunk as you think – it’s only nine o-clock in the morning! “No, it’s what Joel the prophet spoke of:
“In the days to come – it is our God who speaks – I will pour out my Spirit on all humankind. Your daughters and sons will prophesy, your young people will see visions, and your elders will dream dreams. Even on the most insignificant of my people, both women and men, I will pour out my Spirit in those days, and they will prophesy…”
Reading
I’ve been considering the phrase “all my relations” for some time now. It’s our saving grace in the end. It points to the truth that we are all related, that we are all connected, that we all belong to each other. The most important word is “all.” Not just those who look like me, sing like me, dance like me, speak like me, pray like me or behave like me. ALL my relations. That means every person, must as it means every rock, mineral, blade of grass, and creature. We live because everything else does. If we were to choose collectively to live that teaching, the energy of our change of consciousness would heal each of us – and heal the planet. – Richard Wagamese in Embers: One Ojibway’s Meditations, Madeira Park, BC. Douglas and McIntyre (2013)
The world is too small and too crowded and too interdependent for us to indulge our incapacity to cope with difference. – John Rackley, member of the Iona Community. In Growing Hope: Daily readings, Glasgow. Wild Goose Publications, © 2006
Reader: Hear what the Spirit is saying to the people.
May our hearts be open to the Living Word.
