John 14:16-17, 26; Acts 2:1-4

As I was finishing this reflection yesterday, my best friend called me and said “I am bored in Ukraine.” I said “how could you get bored while you’re on vacation in Ukraine?? You are outgoing and I hear the people are friendly there,” he said: “true, but not many can speak English!” Languages could be restricting!

It’s been over a year now that I have been teaching English as a Second Language. I got to watch one of my students, once a stay at home mom in Syria, transition into another program and do really well, she now drives a car, does her own shopping and takes her kids to school. Another student from Mexico is now proficient enough to study for her GED test, and hopefully join college. A 75 year old farmer who always arrives to class before I do is now applying for citizenship. My favorite still is when a former student came to me once and told me that she could communicate with her sister’s doctor and she understood everything the doctor said! It feels great to see the impact we are making on students’ lives. When you deal with people who do not speak the language of the country they live in, you understand how empowering languages can be! I have certainly experienced that myself; I am grateful every day for the education I had that enabled me to be in this country and to do the things I want to do.

How often do we take for granted the ability to do the things we want to do, or even say the things we really want to say (this latter might not be always a wise). But what I and people coming from my world do not take for granted is the ability to publicly express one’s minds. I was reminded of this fact earlier this week.

Veronica and I have found a group of downtown pastors who meet for breakfast once a month; it’s a good opportunity for us to meet and get together with people with similar interests and struggles. Earlier this week, during our monthly breakfast, I had an interesting conversation with two pastors who serve emerging Evangelical communities and who are experiencing conflicts with their denominations’ beliefs. As I listened to the struggles they expressed with what they can and cannot say publicly to their church members, I never felt so privileged to be able to preach what I actually believe without the fear of being kicked out. And I must thank you for that, because that wasn’t the case before I came to Parkview.

I actually was once threatened to be kicked out of the Presbyterian Church in Lebanon simply for expressing my ‘not 100% orthodox’ beliefs.

Both of these abilities: the power of outreach and the power of speech were reported to be gifted to the first community of Christians. Put together, they tell us that the greatest gift of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost was liberation. Luke reports a liberating experience which transcended all barriers of nationality and language. There is something powerful that happened that day and they all experienced it as a community. The disciples’ passion and conviction conveyed the power of their message even to people who did not understand their language.

But they were not only empowered to reach a larger audience through the gift of communicating in other languages, but they also gained an inner power which made them unusually fearless. They stood up and said what they wanted to say, even though they knew that their words might mean death or threat. They experienced the power of liberation, the power to go forth, the power to go out and proclaim, the power to travel distances to talk about this man who died and rose, the power to be witnesses even martyrs for the sake of the message they are now bearing.

The advent of the Holy Spirit announces freedom of speech, but also liberation. Diversity of languages in today’s world can take different forms. If it is a coincidence then I think it is a divine coincidence that outside the doors of our church today as we talk about the Holy Spirit’s liberating power, there are voices supporting the diversity of sexual and gender identities right across the street from our meeting place. (Pride Parade in the Southside Park).

Back to my pastor friends’ story, the Holy Spirit is certainly at work in their personal and their churches’ lives and She is asking them to proclaim different truths than the ones they’ve been preaching all along. And that is not very comfortable for them, it is challenging, but it surely is liberating.

We don’t all have to be preachers -like my friends or ike the first disciples- to experience this liberating power, but we all have our different struggles and things that ties us and restrict us. The Holy Spirit is ready to free us if we let Her, and to move us in different and maybe challenging ways. May we listen to what the Spirit is saying.