During the past 15 months, as a consequence of the pandemic, I have been part of more video conferences than I would have ever imagined … and I am over them. Although I can hear and see people, and often with great clarity, I would rather be in the same room breathing the same air. This is why I am going to Perth tomorrow week to conduct some interviews, because I would rather be speaking with people than looking at them on a screen. This is why I suspect there will always be limits to the digital experience and why old-fashioned ways of communication still have their place in the market. For example, where would authors be without printing presses that produce everything from magazines to books?
And we still want to hear some speak, to experience them preach, because the speaking and the preaching are interactive. You respond to me and I respond to you. Doing a sermon in my shearing shed while looking into my mobile phone does not inspire me to become very animated. In fact, it’s sterile and what you get is a bit stale – partly because it is recorded and then replayed. By way of contrast, when we read the four gospels and their accounts of Jesus preaching, we are struck by their response. No-one was indifferent to him. He drew crowds, not dispersed them. People didn’t have to be dragged along to formal meetings at which they were promised an uplifting message, they followed him and when the moment was right, he addressed them, and most of those who heard felt he was speaking directly to them.
In a world of sound bites, in which attention spans are limited, and most people either listen or ignore what they are hearing within 10 seconds, the speaker must be able to connect very quickly. I understand why this is so – there is so much being said – and I also despair because not everything can be reduced to a sound bite – a 20 second statement of the facts and their importance, or the idea and its relevance. I am confident no-one could accuse Anglicans of pandering to the sound bite. In fact, quite the reverse. Anglicans are known for being long-winded, somewhat wordy and occasionally obscurantist – they use words that most people neither use nor understand.
If you ever visit a Christian bookshop (although all bookshops generally are becoming rare) and seek out something Anglican as a baptism or confirmation gift, you will always find a copy of a prayer book. But you probably need a dictionary as well (or perhaps just a glossary) to explain what words mean … and what the services are trying to convey about what Christians believe and what is distinctive about Anglican faith. There are so many things in the prayer book that are not explained, words the drafters assume the reader would understand, phrases that presumably make sense – despite their odd construction. For someone new, without any exposure to what the Bible is or what the prayer book is intended to convey, the possibility of drawing near to God and having an encounter with Jesus is possibly lost.
I have been thinking about this recently as I work on my book about Special Forces misconduct in Afghanistan. What does the reader already know and what do I need to tell them, to help them understand the arguments I am presenting and the conclusions I am drawing. There is so much jargon and so many euphemisms and acronyms! It is no wonder that so much of what happens in public life is beyond the grasp of so many people; and little surprise that fewer people than ever before have any sense of the Christian message and why it is good news. They might be of a mind to reject it even if they did have it carefully explained … but I wonder how many don’t bother because the packaging is impossible to open, meaning the words don’t make sense or resonate with what they know or think or feel.
It doesn’t surprise me that people come to church but don’t feel the need to return – especially after baptisms. Perhaps it’s because church people love their terminology and appear to want to educate others … so they too can sound like church people. On one level, the desire to educate our friends and neighbours, to expand their horizons beyond the earthly and mundane, to enhance their appreciation of some timeless wisdom, sounds commendable. I suppose it is a form of outreach and connection but it is very different to Luke’s account of Pentecost with tongues of fire and speaking in unknown languages – which was no doubt meaningful and memorable.
When the flames came down on that Pentecost celebration mentioned in the book of Acts, two different things could have happened. The flames and the associated speaking in a new language could have settled on the apostles or just as easily on the Parthians, Medes, Elamites and other people who had gathered in the house. After all, nothing would have prevented God from giving the foreigners a chance to speak Greek. That would have been a vivid reversal of the Tower of Babel story; humans deciding to become like God being thwarted by different languages, God deciding to bestow divinity on human beings by drawing them together with a common language. Very neat.
But no, the divine flame and the Holy Spirit settle on the apostles. For the church to be alive, we are being told that it is the responsibility of the church to speak in the language of the stranger, the language of the visitor coming into the house, rather than for the stranger to be expected to speak in a language that the church expects and knows.
Today I am not focused on whether or not God wants us to use the word ‘stage’ rather than ‘sanctuary’ to describe this elevated platform within St Matthias, although a healthy congregation will make the visitor welcome and be unconcerned that they might not know or follow established customs. What I am talking about, and what the writer of the book of Acts finds important enough to record, is that the church is always being called on to be changed, to find itself made anew, to shape itself around the society in which it is placed.
I am not saying to conform or compromise but to be attentive and alert to the community in which the church is located. There is something holy for the church in finding common ground with people who have nothing to do with the church. There is something holy in showing the un-churched that we understand them and proving to the de-churched that we are willing to be changed for their sake—and for ours.
What happened on the first Pentecost was that the apostles were changed. The insiders learned to speak a new language; that of the outsider. The comfortable thing for the church, the easy thing then and now, is for God to change the outsider to be like us. The hard thing for the church and for the Christian is to be changed. Being mindful that it is Pentecost, we might say that it easier for the outsider to be purified by God’s fire, than for the insider who feels no need for purification … or has lost sight of what it might mean. The easy thing is for someone else to repent. The hard thing is for us to turn around.
It is a human trait that we want everyone to be like us. But one of the consequences of the resurrection is to see old, uncomfortable things in a new light. Seeing health where once there was disease. Seeing love where once there was fear. Seeing peace when the call to arms is so loud. Observing death but overlooking life.
One of the most powerful evangelism tools we have is to change how we view our families and friends, our neighbours and work colleagues, to name a few examples. Do we see Jesus in them? Do we find ourselves resurrected to a new life? Are we willing to learn the language of what it is like to be the bottom 10% of society rather than wherever we are? Are we willing to learn how to speak like someone who has no health insurance, no money for an interstate holiday, and who lives in fear that the loss of one pay cheque will be a disaster? Can we make connections with people who have always, and usually rightfully so, feared the affluence and hubris of Christian churches and their members? The church exists for those who are not yet its members but are they aware of that? What do I express by my actions, what do I exemplify by my deeds? Do I display any signs that the kingdom of God has come nearer?
If we are willing to reflect and to learn, then there is a chance for the church to bind up old wounds and heal them, to show the power of love to overcome animosity, to bring hope that the future for every person does not have to resemble the past. That is resurrection. Can we speak the language of the world in ways that makes the average person, standing on the edge of respectability or security or fear, find meaning and purpose … and even hope and joy? If we do, then it is Pentecost all over again, and this long-preserved biblical story from the book of Acts will once again occur. Amen.