This is one of the best readings in the entire Bible to hear from the front of the church, because it's always a terrifying time to have to read it. I mean no disrespect to any of our most excellent readers in our congregation, but it's a matter of incredibly difficult, unfamiliar words. Now, in the church, there are a great number of things that are unfamiliar, tunes that are hard to sing, names that don't come too easily, but the idea is to work through them until our weaknesses become our strengths. This doesn't work with the goodness that is the Pentecost readings, though. The pentecost readings are a different beast, given that they are words that sort of come up once and once only. And good luck getting used to those.
But the sheer difficulty with the words in the pentecost reading is ironic, given that the disciples' words were heard by everyone in their own language, presumably with the words not being overly complicated either. And this barrier being broken down is something that is of key importance for us as Christians, especially as Lutheran Christians.
You see, for a long time, the Bible wasn't in the hands of the people. It was only in the hands of the elite. It resided in the hands of the clergy, the rich, the powerful, and nobody else could get a hold of it, but that wasn't always the way. I was speaking with a member of the youth group not too long ago who (rightly) pointed out that a long time ago, the Bible was only available in Latin, which nobody spoke. Of course, we continued our conversation to work out why it would be that the Bible was in Latin in the first place. Here's a clue - the Latin Bible is called the Vulgate.
Vulgate. As in vulgar. As in common, everyday, base. The Vulgate was an attempt to get the Bible out of Greek into the language that more people would have been speaking and reading at the time. And the New Testament being in Greek was itself an attempt to get the Bible into a language that more people would have been speaking and reading at the time. Jesus would have been speaking Aramaic, but outside of his immediate environs, there wouldn't have been much call for it.
So, Greek was used to get the Bible out there as far as possible. And when Greek waned, the Bible was Jeromed into Latin, so that more people all over the Roman empire could read, mark, learn and inwardly digest it. No problem so far, right? Well, here we go, because after a while, the common language of the people changed. People were speaking English, Dutch, German, Portuguese and Spanish, but the Bible remained stubbornly Latin. The Bible was so stubbornly Latin, actually, that people were incinerated to keep it that way, instead of having it be translated into more commonly spoken languages. So what was the point?
We, in the church, we have a way of forgetting, and of applying an element of righteousness to something that was supposed to be utilitarian. The Bible was in Greek to make it more legibile, but the good people determined that it was intended by almighty God to be in Greek forever. Then in Latin forever. And all sorts of things that we do in the church, the things that we hold onto as being relatively important, a lot of those are things that were once for a good reason, a good purpose, that now we hold onto sort of just because. And that leads to a whole bunch of sound and fury signifying nothing.
It's the duty of those in the church to have our own new Pentecost every once in a while. It's our duty to look at where we are, at what we are doing, and to ask ourselves 'does this make things better, or does it make it worse? Are we getting our point across better, or have we been missing the mark a whole lot? And why?
For sure, some things will be a matter of scripture, about which Paul warns us in Galatians 'if anyone, even an angel from Heaven, gives you a gospel different from that which you have received, let him be accursed.' Okay, good to know. But that lets us change all the other things instead.
And here is the snag. We are under semi specific instructions to remove all the barriers to the Christian message as possible. We are charged to be 'all things to all people that we might win some.' To be a Jew to the Jews, a Greek to the Greek, to be all things to all people, but to keep the Gospel of the Lord intact. And yet, it is entirely our temptation to do the opposite. It's our temptation to keep the wrapper and to toss out the gift.
In this way, we're a little like children. You know how it is to raise kids, right? To have a teeny tiny one year old obsess over the wrapping paper, the ribbon, and completely discard the gift? You know what that's like. Well, that's us, not to put too fine a point on it. We're entirely like that. We love, we adore, the things that come along with the Gospel, the trappings, the ribbon, the outfits, the music, all that stuff, and we love it more than we love the core, the content of the scripture. Why is that? well, it's actually not that hard to figure out, you know. We love it because we made it. Unlike the Gospel, which was written by the Lord our God himself, the trappings, the bits and bobs that make up the service, or the church structure, or any of that, we claim ownership of that. That's ours. We made it, and we place it alongside the Gospel of God, and we say to the world 'these are your gods who brought you out of slavery!' Yes indeed.
Idolatry, at its source, always seems to end up with the person making the idol as the god that the idol represents. That's why idols aren't actually all that hard to work out. When it comes to gods, to the gods of the world, ask yourself how closely they reflect the character of the person who worships them. Interesting, isn't it.
But you stop me and say 'pastor Jim, surely most Christians would do the same, right? Most Christians would present to you a version of Jesus that looks an awful lot like them, right? Well, yes, they likely would. Now, that doesn't mean that Jesus, the God of the Bible, is an idol, far from it. That just means that we turn him into one.
Remember the great gift of Pentecost, where the Holy Spirit smashed through the masses of layers that the people of God had placed around themselves, the layers that they had made over the years, and reminded them, through whatever means that he had to, that the kingdom of God wasn't all about the things that they had made themselves, but was instead about the word of God. Smashing through those layers is awfully difficult, can be horrendously complicated, it's minefield where teasing out what you've added to it from what was there to begin with is a process fraught with problems, but that's what we are called to do, to present the word of God whole and unviolate, to present the word of God exactly as it was given, show it to the world, to all nations, and say to them 'here is where forgiveness of sins, life everlasting, here is where comfort for your conscience and blessed assurance are to be found, in Christ Jesus. He is the way, the truth and the life.'
That's all. No idols, no layers, no insistance on language or culture, no insistance on coming to me before you come to Christ, just Jesus, and nothing but. Paul says that he purposed to know nothing but Christ and him crucified, that the people may not see Paul, may not meditate on Paul (was Paul crucified for you?) but that they may see Christ, and know him only. It takes a lot to get out of the way of the Gospel, it's a heady dose of humility to be able to handle it, but that's what we are called to do. To echo the words of John in the wilderness.
He must increase, and I must decrease.
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