A sermon delivered on Sunday, June 8, 2025 by the Rev. Dr. Patrick H. Wrisley.

The Rev. Amy Allen, now Adjunct Professor of New Testament at Columbia Theological Seminary, tells of a time when she served as a hospital chaplain in Dallas, Texas. Although many of her patients spoke only Spanish, she did not. At orientation, she was handed an index card with basic Spanish prayers and sent off to begin her rounds. “You all go on out and get to chaplaining!” the supervisor said cheerfully. 

One day, a nurse paged her to visit a frantic elderly woman who was loudly scolding the staff in Spanish. Allen arrived, young and unsure, and did the only thing she could: she pulled out her card and began to read, “Padre Nuestro…” The Lord’s Prayer. Her pronunciation was poor, but the woman stopped. She bowed her head, smiled, and joined in. Words — even imperfectly spoken — had power to reach across fear and language.^[1]

Beloved, there is power in language. There is inherent power, dare I say, Divine Power, in the uttering of words! Words can cause tears, or they can bring joy. Words can cause war and words can bring peace. Words can bring confusion or words can bring clarity.  Words can tear down, or words can build up.  Words can segregate and words can unite and bring together. 

Let us now turn to Scripture and see how God uses the power of language to transform hearts and build the Church. The scene is Jerusalem fifty days after Jesus was betrayed, killed, and rose from the dead. The Festival that is taking place fifty days after Passover is called the Feast of Weeks. It is also known as the Festival of the First Fruits or Pentecost, and people have flocked to the city to bring their tithe, the first produce from their crops and herds to God for all of God’s faithfulness. Think of the Festival as a combination of a holy, religious version of our Thanksgiving Day combined with the culmination of the yearly stewardship campaign. We find the early disciples gathered for prayer while the rest of the city is enjoying the festival. Hear the Word of the Lord.

Acts 2:1-21

^2.1When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. ²And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting.³Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. ⁴All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.

⁵Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. ⁶And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each.⁷Amazed and astonished, they asked, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? ⁸And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? ⁹Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, ¹⁰Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, ¹¹Cretans and Arabs—in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power.” ¹²All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “What does this mean?” ¹³But others sneered and said, “They are filled with new wine.”

¹⁴But Peter, standing with the eleven, raised his voice and addressed them, “Men of Judea and all who live in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and listen to what I say. ¹⁵Indeed, these are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only nine o’clock in the morning. ¹⁶No, 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. ¹⁸Even upon my slaves, both men and women, in those days I will pour out my Spirit; and they shall prophesy. ¹⁹And I will show portents in the heaven above and signs on the earth below, blood, and fire, and smoky mist. ²⁰The sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood, before the coming of the Lord’s great and glorious day. ²¹Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.’ ^[2]

This moment in Acts is no less explosive than Genesis 1. The wind, the fire, the words — this is God’s Spirit doing a new thing, creating again. Think for a moment upon the opening chapter of Genesis when God created the heavens and the earth. We read how the Spirit of God was blowing over the chaotic nothingness but then God did what? God spoke, the Spirit moved, and creation began! The Word and the Spirit work together to bring new creation. This is what we have happening today in our Story.  

Jesus had instructed the disciples to stay put in the city until, “You have been clothed with power from on high”^[3] and they are waiting for that dressing and clothing to occur!^[4] While gathered in prayer, the Constructive Spirit of Creation blows in with hurricane force winds and begins creating the Church. 

The Christian tradition calls Pentecost the “Birthday of the Church.”  Just as the Spirit took the chaos of creation and formed all that is, so the Spirit on that Pentecost 2,000 years ago blew into a group of ragtag, anxious men and women and created the foundation for the new community of Jesus called the Church. And just exactly how did the Spirit of God do that?  The Spirit did it through the power of the Word brought forth in the early Church.  

We read in Acts 2 how the Spirit appeared to them in the power of language and the ability to speak the news of Jesus to other people. A literal reading of verse three could be, “Divided languages (or tongues), as of fire, appeared among them, and a language (a tongue) rested upon each of them.”  It is my contention that the language, the tongue of fire that rested upon the disciples that first Pentecost was the language of God’s salvific Story of Jesus. You see, Peter declares in verse 21:  Everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved and made whole!

Just as the Spirit unified the disciples in their language and understanding about Jesus, now the Spirit drives them out and gives them the ability to speak that language of Christ in the specific dialect of those gathered in the Jerusalem’s busy streets during the festival.

Our English Bibles translates the word ‘tongue’ and ‘language’ interchangeably in our Story but Luke does not. In verses 1-4, Luke uses the general word for language, glossa, but he changes the term in verse 6. He uses the extremely specific word that we get our word ‘dialect’ from. 

I used to work with a wonderful pastor from Britain, Michael Bodger, who had this great accent. For example, one day we got to talking and Michael began talking about “veet-a-men D.”  I asked him, “Veetamens?  Do you mean vitamins?”  He replied back in his dry British way, “Of course, that’s what I said, “Veetamen!”  We both speak English, but we both have different dialects of English. Just like Amy Allen with the Hispanic patient who did not know English, once she began to pray the Lord’s Prayer in Spanish, the patient fully understood! The chaplain had to speak the patient’s dialect.

Brothers and sisters, the Church of Jesus Christ is called to speak the same language that in Jesus, there is salvation and wholeness for all and for God’s creation.  Our text also affirms that each particular church and each individual Christ-Follower is called to speak that same language of God’s love, grace, and justice in a dialect, in the language spoken of the people around us, so that they too can hear, be transformed and believe.

Some years ago, the late Pope Francis preached, “We keep the Holy Spirit as a ‘luxury prisoner’ in our hearts: we do not allow the Spirit to push us forward, to move us…(The Spirit) is the protagonist of the Living Church.”^[5]  I love that!  The Holy Spirit is the protagonist, the main character, of the Living Church! Beloved, the Spirit is a Spirit of power, of creativity, of movement, of action, of tearing down and reconstructing; the Holy Spirit is not a Spirit of the status quo! The Spirit gives you and me, the Living Church, the needed specific dialect to speak and act out the Good News of Jesus right where we live; the Lord wants us to move from our holy huddle inside the church building, from our small groups of familiarity and complacency, and get into the world speaking, living, and enacting the grace-full Story of Jesus Christ.  

The Holy Spirit of God is not a passive presence tucked away in our private prayers. The Spirit is the driving force of a Living Church — dynamic, courageous, ever-speaking in the language people need to hear.

So, what does that mean for us? It means we cannot be content to speak only within the dialects of our comfort zones — the language of “church as usual,” the vocabulary of what has always been. The Spirit is giving us fresh words — not new doctrine, but new expression. New courage. New understanding. The Spirit empowers us to speak God’s love in the dialect of a hurting neighbor. To speak justice in the language our community understands. To speak peace in the middle of polarized shouting.

Church, the world is not waiting for perfection. It’s waiting for us to speak. So this week — in your workplace, at the coffee shop, in the school pick-up line, over dinner, or in a quiet text to someone who’s struggling — speak the dialect of Christ. Speak mercy. Speak courage. Speak hope. And when you don’t know the words? Trust the Spirit to give you just enough. Even broken, awkward words — like a hospital chaplain’s stumbling Spanish — can become holy ground when the Spirit speaks through them.

May the Holy Spirit of God trouble us in our comfort and awaken us in our complacency. And may we be bold enough to speak and live the language of Jesus — until every heart hears and every life is made whole. So be it. Amen. Pray with me.

© 2025 Patrick H. Wrisley. Sermon manuscripts are available for the edification of members and friends of First Presbyterian Church, 8 West Notre Dame Street, Glens Falls, NY 12801 and shall not be altered, re-purposed, published or preached without permission.   All rights reserved.

^[1] Allen, Amy, “The Politics of Language – Acts 2:1-21”, Political Theology Today, May 9, 2016. Accessed on 5/12/16 at http://www.politicaltheology.com/blog/the-politics-of-language-acts-21-21-amy-allen/. 

^[2] New Revised Standard Version (NRSV). New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

^[3] See Luke 24:44-53.

^[4] See Acts 1:14.

^[5] “Don’t lock up the Holy Spirit in your heart, Pope Francis says,” The Catholic News Agency, May 9, 2016.  See http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/dont-lock-up-the-holy-spirit-in-your-heart-pope-francis-says-11868/.