Sermon for June 8, 2025
Pentecost Sunday
Acts 2:1-21; Psalm 104; John 14:8-17,25-27
Rev. Karl-John N. Stone
“All of the disciples were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability…. Amazed and astonished, [they asked] how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language?… We hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power.’” Such was the scene on this day almost 2,000 years ago—the Day of Pentecost.
How precious it is, to hear the message of Christ and of God’s deeds of power in your own native language. What is a “native language”, anyway? We could take a wide view of it. If you meet someone who shares your interests—whether that be quilting or fixing cars, camping or going to the theater, music or mountain biking, whatever the case may be—when you meet someone who shares your interest you say “you’re speaking my language”. So whatever the “language” that you speak, whatever things you love to do that flow from your heart, the Holy Spirit works in them, to speak to you and to speak through you to others. And to be sure, your “native language” certainly does include the actual language that you speak, the words that come from your mouth effortlessly and that are understood by your ears affectionately.
During my Celtic Christian Pilgrimage to Ireland, I learned about their native language, and how people heard and spoke God’s deeds of power with it. It started with a boat ride, as we sailed through Dingle Bay, where the words of Psalm 104 came to life all around us: “O Lord, the earth is full of your creatures. Yonder is the sea, great and wide, with its swarms too many to number, living things both small and great.” As our ship went to and fro, the dolphins swam to keep up with us, and jumped to catch fish. Gannets—kind of like seagulls—dive bombed into the sea to catch their own fish. The captain even spotted a minke whale, and told us they are shy and hard to spot, but they’re known as “stinky minkes”—and we learned why when the whale let loose an odor I won’t soon forget as he reminded us that he was near.
Soon we arrived on Great Blasket Island, which had the westernmost village in Europe until 1953, when it was abandoned for the mainland because only 20 of the 150 islanders remained. The young people had mostly left for America, and the old people couldn’t survive the isolated conditions on their own. This place was so remote that it was one of the few places left where the ancient native Irish language was the only language spoken; it had not been supplanted by English as in the rest of the country. The park ranger told us, from the islanders’ point of view, English was the language of business while Irish was the language of poetry and passion.
Theirs was an oral culture, and they were master storytellers—stories about their own lives, and stories that stretched back generation upon generation. In the few decades before they evacuated their village, many of the islanders began writing their stories down, so that for the very first time the native language of their hearts could be read and translated by others. This, I think, had to have been inspired by the Holy Spirit—because these stories were then used in “re-seeding” the native Irish language throughout the entire country. A language that almost died out is now spoken by over 1 million people today. And it is used in everything from poetry and passion, to business and education, to worship and prayer. While there were no Irish speakers in Jerusalem on that very first day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit still found a way to speak of Christ’s presence and of God’s deeds of power in their native language, just as the Spirit continues to do for all of us in whatever languages we speak.
The park ranger on Great Blasket Island took us around and told us of the people who lived in the old houses that remained in the old village. With the ruins beside us and around us, she told us some of their stories. It was a holy moment, as the witness of past generations came alive—the islanders’ being raised from the dead, so to speak, through their stories. And as it happens, three groups of outer islands off the west coast of Ireland—the Blaskets where we visited, the Skelligs nearby, and especially the Aran Islands a little further north—were thriving centers of spiritual and monastic life in the early centuries of Christianity, where the Word of Christ crucified and risen took root among the people, and that message was then blown around the world by the Holy Spirit working through evangelists who were sent out from these monasteries—they went across Ireland, Scotland, Wales, England, and continental Europe to plant the seed of the gospel.
In the 6th century AD, Ireland gained the title “the Island of Saints and Scholars”. [https://www.quora.com/Have-you-ever-heard-of-Ireland-being-referred-to-as-The-Isle-of-Saints-and-Scholars] This is when the Roman Empire had collapsed and much of Europe had fallen into turmoil; and most centers of scholarship and learning had collapsed along with the Empire. But the isolated monasteries in Ireland, perched on what felt like the “edge of the world”, were untouched by the turmoil. Many Christians fled there as refugees, with copies of as many classical manuscripts and religious manuscripts as they could get their hands on. And on the islands, the Irish monks faithfully copied—by hand—these ancient Greek and Latin texts. When the monks left their remote Irish islands and traveled across Europe, they built new monasteries and brought their copied manuscripts with them—they were “re-seeding” Europe’s classical literature and scholarship, along with the message of Christ; kind of similar to how the Blasket Islanders reseeded the Irish language many centuries later.
That was another “Pentecost” event—as people were being met, through the power of the Holy Spirit, where they were, as they were, in ways they could understand, as they heard the message of Christ’s presence and God’s deeds of power among them.
It seems to be a pattern for growing in faith. You go away, like the spiritual centers of the Roman Empire went away and moved out to be with the monks on a small island. You go away, so that when you come back, you’re able to see with fresh eyes and act with renewed energy. Sometimes the going away takes the form of a pilgrimage—like it just did for me. You go somewhere “outside” the normal spaces of your daily life, maybe even to the “edge of the world”. While you’re there, time seems to slow down as you walk through life on equal footing with your companions. Physically being in a different place puts your heart and mind in a different place, as well; you begin noticing new things with joy and intention. Your senses sharpen, you listen, and perhaps hear a little more clearly what God might be trying to say to you. Then when you go home, you have fresh eyes and ears to help you slow down enough to notice Christ’s presence and God’s deeds of power in the places that are familiar to you.
But here is an important point. You don’t have to go to the edge of the world to cultivate a pilgrim mindset. You can do this right where you are, whenever you slow down enough in faith to notice Christ’s presence, and to listen for the Holy Spirit’s voice. The park ranger on Great Blasket Island told the story of local young men, years ago, who felt called to ministry. Their first goal was usually to go to Rome as soon as possible. But the monks told them, no. No, first you must spend some time closer to home, here on these islands; if you can’t find God out here amongst the elements, then you’re certainly not going to find him in Rome. The Holy Spirit, who spoke God’s deeds of power in people’s own native languages on that first day of Pentecost, is still speaking into our own languages, and lives, and places. Amen.