A Spirit of Understanding

"A SPIRIT OF UNDERSTANDING"

a message by Rev. Dr. Bruce Havens

Coral Isles Church, U.C.C.

June 1, 2025

Acts 2:1-21 selected verses   NRSV

1 When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. 2 And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. 3 Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. 4 All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.

5 Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. 6 And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each. 7 Amazed and astonished, they asked, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? 8 And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language?

16 No, this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel: 17 ‘In the last days it will be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams.  18 Even upon my slaves, both men and women, in those days I will pour out my Spirit; and they shall prophesy.

Communication!  Preachers are challenged to be great communicators. There are a lot of old sayings for preachers about that. One variation might be, “there is what I thought I said, what I actually said, what you thought I said, and what I actually said and none of those may be what I REALLY meant.”  All of the sayings remind us how difficult communication can be. 

Beyond church we can communicate around the world instantly, send messages to the far stars, but we don’t seem to be able to communicate civilly with each other, to understand each other any better than we did when the first humans grunted and bellowed at each other like animals.

The Bible has its own story about the difficulties of communication – the story of the tower of Babel. In Genesis 11:1-9 humans attempt to build a tower that would reach the heavens. Driven by pride and a desire to make a name for themselves, they unify under a single language and begin construction. God, perceiving their ambition as a threat, intervenes by confusing their languages, causing them to scatter and abandon the project.  The Bible itself is subject to widely diverse understandings about what it communicates and what it means, regardless of those who claim to read it “literally.” 

          The story from Acts that we just read serves as something of a tonic to this problem of communication.  It tells a story as fabulous as the Tower of Babel story.  While there are many different ways to read and understand any story, including this one about the Holy Spirit coming upon the crowd gathered that day, I want to focus on the positive possibility of it being a promise that God gives us a Spirit of understanding.

I want to suggest that the point of the story is that God intends us to find understanding, cooperation, and a hopeful future even in the face of daunting distractions, difficulties, and even dangers.

The early Christians faced many dangers, including arrest, imprisonment, even death.  The difficulties of life in first Century Israel, under Roman  rule were daunting.  Living faithfully and peacefully and justly as a follower of Jesus was difficult and even dangerous.

The story we read this morning tells us God sent a Spirit of Understanding.  Those hearing the believers speaking in many languages were diverse, from many different countries.  Yet, they heard, and understood.  It wasn’t what some Christians today refer to as “speaking in tongues.”  What happened on that day, isn’t what linguists call “glossolalia,” which is kind of like a fancy word for speaking what my mother used to call “gibberish.” Not to be too unkind.  The purpose of this episode was to say God intends for us to connect, communicate, and build community.

I have just started watching the TV series “Ted Lasso.” It is about a soccer coach.  And he has never coached soccer.  He was brought to England from the U.S.  While he may not know much about soccer, he teaches some pretty profound lessons.  In one scene he is throwing darts in a pub.  Apparently his opponent has scoffed at his possibility of being any good.  As he is about to throw his final darts, down by a lot of points, he says something to the effect of this:

“All my life people have been underestimating me.  Mostly that’s because people make the mistake of judging someone who is different rather than being curious about them.  See if you just judged me you would probably not think I was any good at darts.  But if you were curious about me you might ask, ‘Ted have you played darts much?’ To which I would have answered, “Yessir, I have!  From age 10 to age 16, hanging out with my dad in a bar throwing darts, so yes, I have played a lot of darts.”  And with that he throws the last dart right into the bullseye to win the contest, shocking his opponents. 

How many of our difficulties, divisions, and distractions in life are a result of choosing to judge someone rather than being curious enough to seek to understand them?

As I thought about Ted’s lesson on curiosity it led me to think, this is the way to understanding.  If we maintain an attitude of curiosity then we might come to a place of understanding and if we can live with that Spirit it can change things in our lives and in our world.        

It’s easy when we read all the outrageous things going on in our world today to become enraged and judgmental.  And let’s be honest there’s a lot of good reasons to be outraged and people on both sides of whatever the issue is certainly seem to be raging at a lot of the same topics for opposite reasons.  I suspect that a lot of our fears, anger, and confusion are driven by those who stand to profit from our division. I even suspect the large majority of people aren’t as angry, hateful, or divided as the headlines and internet click-bait want us to believe.

What if we chose to be curious enough to seek to understand each other more?  What if we chose to ask, what is the fear, the anger, the misinformation that is driving this person’s rage?  Maybe then we could communicate better, understand better, build community with one another and even find agreed upon solutions. 

I know it sounds rather far-fetched doesn’t it?  Almost as far-fetched as a bunch of people suddenly speaking in languages they don’t know and those who hear them who do speak those languages understand.  I don’t understand a lot of the hatred, fear, and anger of our day that seems to come from misinformation, ignorance, and a world view that seems very dangerous to me.  But I do believe in the power of God’s Holy Spirit to change things.

I believe God’s Spirit has the power to change ignorance to curiosity to understanding.  I believe God’s Spirit has the power to change hatred and anger and fear to love.  I believe that if we seek to be filled with a Spirit of understanding we can find ways to bring love, hope, and a new reality into being.

And by the way, that part about people of all ages and differences “prophesying?”  that wasn’t about being fortune tellers or predicting the future as we often have heard.  The prophets, remember, were the ones who spoke truth to power, who called for kings and priests to do justice and to protect the powerless, help the poor, welcome the immigrant, and love as God loves.  That was the communication God is still calling us all – old and young, male, female, straight, gay whatever – that’s the communication God wants to hear from us all.

Maybe this symbol of the communion table offers us a clue to getting there.  Maybe if we could find ways to symbolically or even actually sit down to eat with others, with a curiosity about each other, that could lead to understanding.  Maybe it could lead to real communication and understanding.  Maybe even lead to love and healing and peace and justice.   Seems to me that is what Jesus Christ came to lead us to.  AMEN.