Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful people and kindle in us the fire of your love. Send forth your Spirit and we shall be remade, and you will renew the face of the earth.

Last year at Pentecost I was invited to join the students of Peterborough School for their Pentecost Eucharist – it was a whole school event so was held, not in the relatively small Chapel, but in the Sports Hall. The Service was during a week of Celebrating Diversity and all the way through, we heard different parts of the service read and spoken in different languages. Peterborough School is proud to have such a large diversity of pupils from different cultures and backgrounds, with different languages and traditions.

Everyone there was also dressed in whatever way they wanted to demonstrate their identity – some were in cultural dress, some in bright colours, some in sports clothes, or uniforms. It was such a vibrant, inclusive and joyful service, where everyone was clearly feeling they belonged, individually unique and special, yet also part of a bigger whole. A rainbow gathering, representing a rainbow world – a multi-coloured community!

At Pentecost, the theme of different languages is significant.
The account of what happens to the disciples gathered in the upper room, who then spill out onto the streets of Jerusalem able to speak in ways that all can understand, is not just a dramatic spectacle, but shows how it is this Spirit-inspired power of speech which brings back together our shattered humanity. It reverses what is described in the story of the Tower of Babel – and enables us to understand one another.

The different languages of the world are all beautiful but are all different and this makes it hard for us to understand each other. Think of the experience of hearing a language we don’t know being spoken and how we feel cut off from each other. When it is translated, we get the meaning – it suddenly makes sense and we are connected again.

At Pentecost the coming of the Holy Spirit makes this possible despite the separation of language – I wonder – did the Spirit actually affect the speech of the speakers or the hearing of the hearers?

With the understanding of the words comes the power of what is being said…..no longer just clashing sounds, but something meaningful, creative, describing things of beauty and wonder – visions, dreams, miracles. God comes close and people are brought together in new ways.

It’s like falling in love – whether its sudden or gradual – you begin to realise that something has changed – the way you ‘see’ someone, the sound of their voice, how what they say seems like the most wonderful, beautiful thing ever, the way they stand, the way they move their hands – whatever it is, becomes entrancing.

Once it’s happened, everything has changed! Ordinary life might carry on, but everything can become extraordinary – our senses heightened, colours brighter, like things are outlined in light, life fuller, sweeter.

This is what love does – and when the Holy Spirit comes, well the Spirit is love – the very life force of God – the breath of life which creates all things in the beginning.

Actually, love brings us back to the problem of different languages again. You might know that there are five different languages of love. We each give and receive love in one of these five ways – either- words of affirmation, acts of service, receiving gifts, quality time, or physical touch and we each have one or two of these that are our preferred ‘love language’. It can be problematic if in our closest relationships we speak in different love languages! Working out between us which is our preferred way of giving and receiving love can strengthen our relationships and help us feel cherished and loved.

God’s Holy Spirit is able to speak in all these languages of love and more! It’s a universal language that can be understood by everyone – the silence of eternity interpreted by love, as the hymn ‘Dear Lord and Father of mankind’ puts it – the love of God which all can understand and which makes sense of everything, makes poets of us all.

This is the gift of the Holy Spirit that falls upon the disciples in the upper room – the Holy Spirit that births the church on the foundation of love and then like love always does, turns them inside out – sends them out of their comfort zone and sends them out dancing into the streets of the city where people of every race and language have gathered. Gathered for a Festival and yet all still separate – until the Spirit catches them up into the dance of love too.

Of course, some resisted, and sneered and didn’t want to join – well more fool them! Although love is such that we can’t carry on dancing if others are standing apart – we must invite them to join in again and again and hope that one day, they will fully hear the words of love that will open up the closed doors of their heart and free their feet and hands and tongues too.

This is the story of Pentecost and the power of the Spirit – it has an amazing effect on us – overwhelms us with love, joy and delight, full to the brim, bubbling with excitement, fizzing with energy.

Its purpose is to do away with those things that separate us from God and from one another – to set us free, and to bind us in unity as we will sing later as we light our candles and coming full circle to when we came in waving and singing Hosanna on Palm Sunday, we now go out singing and carrying the light, the fire of the Spirit, the power of love out into the streets of our City.

Maybe for today, that means just beyond the door!  But who knows, maybe, tomorrow, like the once terrified disciples, who through the power of the Spirit become adventurous apostles, we too will find ourselves sent out into all the four corners of the world to tell the good news of God’s love. Amen.

Service: Reverend Michelle Dalliston –28th May 2023

Readings: Acts 2.1-21; 1 Corinthians 12-3b-13, John 20.19-23