April 21: Empowering Others

All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability. Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each. Amazed and astonished, they asked, "Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? (Act 2:4-8 NRS)

This scripture comes to us as the Pentecost moment – the coming of the Holy Spirit that is many times referred to as the birthday of the church (though apparently I just missed that verse in the chapter).

What I think is very intriguing is that at its foundation the church was about responding to the needs of those who were “outsiders” rather than those who were “insiders”. The Holy Spirit does not make it so that all the diverse people’s present can understand the Galilean speaking their language… the Holy Spirit enables the Galileans (the Apostles) to speak the languages of the diverse people. The ways of the Galileans does not become the way it is done for everyone and that everyone else has to learn.

Similarly it is not that the church establishes who it is and figures out how to get new people to “understand” our language… but that we adapt our language to the people who we are reaching out to with the good news of Christ.

This is not a lesson the church is good at remembering. It is not a lesson that we – as Americans – are particularly good at remembering. There is an amazing power in the ability to communicate – trust me as one who has lived where I did not know the language… it’s a VERY powerless place to be. And yet as the internationally dominant people we have made communications issues easy – learn English!

That works in most places of the world… but what it doesn’t do is empower the people you are working with or honor who they are – and it doesn’t make them feel like they are in an equal relationship – and it doesn’t feel very inviting to a sense of community… certainly not diverse community.

What does this mean for us in the church? What does is mean for us as individual disciples and apostles? It means we are talking about more than the particular languages people speak – and we are talking about the church “language” and the ways that understand we can be and do church in our lives. It means we need to reclaim that at its foundational heart the church is about having the agility and grace to reach out to outsiders in ways that invite, honor, and empower them – and not simply make them fit into our cookie cutter image of “church”. It means that the beginning of our relationship it is not about what the church, or me – or you, will do for them… but what we will all do for each other, and with each other.

The Holy Spirit brings people together in a community that celebrates diversity and honors individuality. The Holy Spirit gifts us to move beyond ourselves and our own limitations. The Holy Spirit does not reduce us to the single common denominator – or require that we lose our individuality to some corporate monolithic look and feel. And so it is that we learn to “speak” the “language” of others… to reach them where they are – to honor their individuality – and to invite them to make our community a little larger… and a little more reflective of the life of God that will never be reduced to one way of doing anything.

Are you seeking to learn from others – even as you are teaching and shaping them?

Have you opened yourself to the Spirit to empower you to move beyond yourself and your own perceived limits?

Do you seek to empower others by honoring their gifts, their ways, their “language”?


Empowering God,
You do not ask that we adhere to one and only one way of being.
You invite us to know that you are always doing a new thing.
Encourage and empower us to move beyond who we are, to be – in community with others – the people you imagine us to be.
Amen.