One of the things that I have always found so wonderful in the bible stories is how God speaks in different ways to different people. It is never a “one size fits all” approach. God speaks to us using language or methods or approaches that we can understand.
 
However it’s also really clear that there are a lot of people who will sneer at this (Acts 2.5) and laugh and say that those who are different to themselves are wrong or (in the case in Acts) drunk, or stupid, or some other insult. “It’s my way or the highway” is the approach that many have taken down the centuries when it comes to interpreting the bible and God’s teachings.
 
Whilst not all will be convinced, and some of us will always miss the point, there is hope for all of us! If God can use St Peter, who had the gift of opening his mouth and putting his foot straight in it, then getting it wrong is just part of learning. If God can use St Paul, who makes his first appearance as, in effect, accessory to the judicial murder of St Stephen, and can transform him into one of the greatest of the apostles, then no one is beyond God’s transforming power. Free will still comes into it. When God speaks to us, we have to be willing to hear, to listen, and to let go of all the old certainties and securities. 
 
Sometimes however it still feels like we want to put faith (and God) in a neatly labelled box and keep it within certain boundaries – whether that be certain people / places / days. The thing is, living things don’t tend to stay awfully well inside their boxes. They tend to escape. Think cats in a box. Potentially cute and lovely, but unlikely to stay put for long once awake, and with a wonderful talent for turning the room upside down.
 
Pentecost feels a bit like that. The fire of the Holy Spirit is lit within the disciples, the cats come roaring out of the boxes like mini lions, and nothing is ever quite the same again.
 
The once-scared and frankly timid disciples speak to all who will listen, using every language in the city. More to the point, God speaks through them to others. God is not confined by boundaries, borders, language, method, or place. God speaks through the written and spoken word, in roars (occasionally), whispers (more often), and through the most unexpected people and situations.
 
I wonder if that is the particular challenge and consolation of Pentecost: God will not be tamed – in speech or style, or in who God chooses to use. We are invited not to control the message but to make ourselves available for it. The Church does not belong to those who are strictly careful or strictly certain; it belongs to the God who keeps finding fresh ways to speak to the world.
 
Listen! The language that is being spoken is Love.

Revd. Talisker

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