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Heard and Understood
Pentecost
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| Dean Feldmeyer |
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The account of Pentecost in the Book of Acts is full of remarkable details that offer many directions for the preacher. In the next installment of The Immediate Word, team member Dean Feldmeyer notes that one of them is how everyone present instantly understood one another, even though they were speaking in many different languages. We live in a time when that often feels like a distant memory, as we're bombarded with so much information that it seems impossible to be heard and understood amidst the increasing cacophony. The sheer volume of words and images we must sort through on a daily basis is mind-boggling, and it's changing the way we communicate with one another. The internet and smartphones have transformed not only the volume of information available to us, but also how we process it and connect to one another. With instant wireless access to e-mail and social media, we are invisibly tethered to family, friends, work colleagues, and even the world at large 24/7 -- and the shortcuts we employ because of text messaging and Twitter's character limits are drastically affecting our linguistic style and usage. Yet at the same time, the increasing pace of technological innovation has also infused our rhetoric with more jargon than ever... something even we in the church are not immune to. So, Dean asks, how can we manage to talk to one another -- and more importantly, listen to and understand one another -- in such an environment? Our Acts text tells us that God's spirit allows the seemingly impossible to occur... for when God "pour[s] out my Spirit upon all flesh... your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams." Here's a preview:
Heard and Understood
by Dean Feldmeyer
Acts 2:1-21
dad@hvn,ur spshl.we want wot u want&urth2b like hvn.giv us food&4giv r sins lyk we 4giv uvaz.don't test us!save us!bcos we kno ur boss,ur tuf&ur cool 4 eva!ok?
Does that look like gobbledygook to you? Does the word "gobbledygook" look like gobbledygook to you?
The word "gobbledygook" means "nonsense or jargon: language that is difficult or impossible to understand, especially nonsense or technical jargon."
The jumble of letters above is actually the Lord's Prayer as composed for texting. Several years ago, shipoffools.com held a contest to see who could do the best job of sending the Lord's Prayer in text messaging format. This version was the winner. Even knowing what it is, I still don't get it.
This week's scripture lesson from Acts tells the story of the first Christian Pentecost and indicates that one of the noteworthy signs of the presence of the Holy Spirit is that those who are touched by the Spirit can all hear and understand each other, even when what they are saying may sound like gobbledygook to the rest of the world./p>
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