When I was in high school, I went to Hamburg Germany for three weeks as an exchange student. While we went with classmates and a teacher, we lived with families, went to school, and lived the life of German teenagers for a little bit.

Part of out trip was to visit Berlin. This was the summer of ’92, so it wasn’t long after the wall came down. My exchange family met up with us in Berlin, because their son and my student host, was a huge fan of American football. There was an exhibition game at the Berlin Olympic stadium. The place was packed and I was just with my host family. None of the other American students were with us and everywhere we went, all you could hear was German being spoken. Of course. It was Berlin. But I was homesick, being only 16 years old and it was exhausting to have my language skills stretched every day. I could muddle along in German, but every word was work. And I was a little overwhelmed by Berlin and being at the Olympic stadium we’ve all seen pictures of with Hitler presiding before WWII.

So, when a huge football-player-looking guy walked by and I heard just a scrap of him speaking something in English with an unapologetic American accent, I just wanted to follow him around. It was like honey to my overwhelmed heart to hear him speak. I have no memory of what he said, because it didn’t matter then or now. His voice just sounded like home. His speaking was a reminder that home was real, that there was a place in the world where I didn’t feel so on edge and stressed. That one half sentence I caught helped me remember that I was going to be OK during my amazing, yet sort of terrifying experience as an exchange student.

The people in our Acts story, the story of Pentecost, were traveling from far away to come to Jerusalem for the festival Shavuot. This is one of the three Jewish festivals during which the faithful were supposed to go to Jerusalem. We hear in the list of names that the Jews in this story lived in different countries with different cultures and languages. So, as you hear these names, it would be like saying Jewish people from Mexico, US, Greenland, Poland, Peru, and Thailand for example. So, even if they learned Aramaic or Greek to be able to travel and do their business abroad, these wouldn’t necessarily have been their native languages. They were travelers who might have been overwhelmed to be in a big place, a long way from home, struggling with a language or two that they didn’t really have mastered.

And yet, when they hear the Holy spirit in our story today, they hear it in their native tongues. They don’t hear the Good News in words they can understand. They don’t hear the Good News in the language of commerce or a language of politics and power. Maybe not even the language they maybe had to learn in order to succeed in life. What they heard the Good News in was the language that they learned at home from their parents and grandparents, aunts and uncles. It was personal and individual. And yet it happened for everyone, all at once. And what a miracle that is.

Jesus promises the Spirit, who will teach us everything and won’t leave us. The Spirit speaks to us in the language of our soul. Not in the language of how we are supposed to be, but in the particularity of who we are. The language of your soul may not even be words, but music, nature, or art. It might be the yearning of your heart, hidden in your wild and inspired ideas, or nestled in surprising coincidences.

Exactly what language the Spirit chooses to use when reaching out to you may change from day to day, moment to moment, as well. This is quite the job the Holy Spirit has to be our individual teacher, guide, and advocate. I think we could all imagine that to do this job well, the Spirit would have to always be showing up in different ways. One day, the Spirit may be wanting to soothe us. Another day, the Spirit might need to be sending some inspiration or perhaps even some urgency. We don’t need the same thing on any given day, because it is complicated being human. We got a lot going on in our minds, lives, bodies, families, and social groups. So, keeping us grounded, open-hearted, trusting, grateful, kind, and faithful is a task. 

For this reason, I love that the imagery of the Holy Spirit is so diverse. What are the symbols of the Holy Spirit? Dove, fire, and wind, right? That’s what I thought, but I googled it to see if there were more and found times in the Bible when the symbol of the Spirit is also water (in many forms), anointing oil, a pledge, and wine. This diversity is so apt, because we do need different guidance, different support based on the moment. We may not always need a “violent wind” to wake us up to a new reality. We may not always need a cacophony of voices with our particular native language being spoken to us amid the clamor. Sometimes we need the still, small voice. Sometimes we need the soft coo of the dove. And other times we need a little refining fire to help us shed the old parts of our lives that are no longer serving us or the world.

So, how do you listen for the Spirit in your life? In Adult Forum, we’ve been talking about spiritual practices that are designed to help us listen, such as Lectio Divina (sacred reading), Centering Prayer, and the Daily Examen. All three of these practices are practices of listening. Normally, people pray by saying words either aloud or in silence. This is also great, of course, but then how do you listen to the response? If the Spirit speaks to you in your native tongue, in the language of your soul, are you listening for that language? Do you expect to hear it?

One practice we can all do is approach Sunday worship with an intention of listening to the Spirit. We can come to Sunday with an expectation of Pentecost every Sunday and anticipate hearing the Spirit speak to us in our own native language. Every pastor I know jokes about how people will occasionally say at the end of the service, “I just loved your sermon, particularly when you said X,Y, and Z.” And while you’re shaking hands, all you can really do is smile, say thank you or whatever, knowing that you may or may not have said X, Y, or Z. But it doesn’t really matter. The person in front of you got the Word they needed. They heard the Spirit in the way they needed to hear it, like me hearing that scrap of English in a beautiful American accent in the middle of Berlin. He was a messenger to me, in a way, but really it was the Spirit speaking to me through this completely unaware American talking with his friend.

This is why I invited you to begin this service by identifying a need or worry. What would you ask God, if you had God sitting right in front of you? We can ask our questions. We an ask for what we need. Ask anything you want to ask, but then listen. God may not be a holy ATM machine. We’ve all figured that out, at this point. But God does answer prayers. God does acknowledge and meet our need. Maybe not how we want, but we do get what we need.

The Spirit is here, in this place, loving you in particular, nudging you in particular. And this is a universal thing, done for the sake of us all. The Spirit is a gift of our baptism. This is a gift promised by Jesus for his followers. That said, we do not need to claim to know the limits of the Spirit, as if we know all the contours of God’s love. We only have to know that the gift of the Spirit is here for us and we will hear the Spirit in our own native tongue, perhaps in ways that only we would know. So ask and listen for the Spirit that may come like a violent wind, a gentle dove, like water or wine, or in any form the Spirit wishes to take. However she comes, the Spirit is indeed with you always, now and forever.

AMEN