{"id":3105,"date":"2019-06-09T15:06:18","date_gmt":"2019-06-09T15:06:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pattinghamchurch.org.uk\/web\/?page_id=3105"},"modified":"2019-06-09T15:06:18","modified_gmt":"2019-06-09T15:06:18","slug":"sermon-9th-june-2019","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.pattinghamchurch.org.uk\/web\/information\/sermons\/sermon-9th-june-2019\/","title":{"rendered":"Sermon – 9th June 2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Sermons index<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pentecost \u2013 morning<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n

Sunday 9th June 2019 <\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Pentecost \u2013 morning
\nActs 2.1-21
\nJohn 14.8-17,25-27<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Revd Preb Maureen Hobbs<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n
\"Maureen<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

\nAnd\nhow is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nAs a\nlinguist in my earlier life, the story of Pentecost has always\nfascinated me. The coming of the Spirit is the grand finale to God\nreally ramping up his involvement with and commitment to humanity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nNot\ncontent with creating a wonderful world and populating it with\nplants, animals and then human beings, God incarnates godself in the\nperson of Jesus of Nazareth. God gets to share in our human life \u2013\nwhat it is like to experience the forces of nature and the forces of\nhuman emotion. God even shares in betrayal, abandonment and death so\nthat they can be defeated for all time. And then finally God sends us\nthe Spirit, to inspire, to enthuse, to comfort and disturb us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nAnd the\nsign that this should be so is marked with wind and fire, but also\nwith language \u2013 that great gift of God to humanity that marks us\nout from the other animals. All creatures \u2013 even plants \u2013 are\nable to communicate with their environment in some way \u2013 but only\nhuman beings have evolved language. Language that enables us to\ncommunicate in theoretical terms as well as concrete ones. That\nallows us to speak of our inner as well as of our outer needs and\npreferences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nIndeed\nthe Bible tells us in Genesis that not only did human beings get good\nat communicating ideas to each other, but they began to get ideas of\nrivalling God, and to the end they got together to build a tall\ntower, stretching to the heavens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nThis so\nconcerned God that he was forced to frustrate their means of\ncommunication by giving them different tongues to speak \u2013 making\nthem strangers to each other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nAnd now\nat the feast of Pentecost we remember a time when God seems to have\nreversed his earlier actions and allowed people from many different\nnations and cultures to understand each other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nOh, I\ndon\u2019t believe that the story of Babel and the story of Pentecost\ncan necessarily be taken completely at face value … \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nWho was\nit that said, history\ntake facts and makes of them over time a lie; myths take lies and\nmakes of them over time the truth?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nBoth\nstories have a mythic quality to them and are an attempt to explain\nsomething that seems \u2013 on the face of it \u2013 mystifying.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nMy\nrecent trip to Russia was fascinating as an exercise in seeing how\nlanguage changes over time. Now although I did try to do a little\nrevision of my language skills before we went, I need not have\nworried too much. Partly thanks to the recent Football World Cup, the\nwhole of Moscow is peppered with signs in English as well as Russian,\nand the announcements on the metro and in busses are made in both\nlanguages too. So it is now very easy for foreigners \u2013 particularly\nEnglish-speaking foreigners to get around the city.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nWhat I\nfound even more astonishing was to realise how many English or\nAmerican words have now passed into Russian and seem to be preferred\nto using their own perfectly good word.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nIt is a\nbit like the language of a \u201cClockwork Orange\u201d for those of you\nwho remember that film(?) taken in reverse. So now, for example,\nthere are many instances where the word market is used in Russia.\nFood market, Hypermarket, Supermarket etc is used in preference to\nthe Russian term rynokh.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nMany,\nmany brand names are transliterated into Russian Cyrillic script \u2013\nyou will have heard of the spread of Macdonalds and Burger King and\nmultiple pizza chains … They are even busy building a Moscow\nDisneyworld would you believe?! As I have already told one or two of\nyou \u2013 this could lead to some confusion on my part as I saw strange\nnew words written up outside shops and could not work out what they\nwere, until I pronounced them in my head and realised they were\nEnglish… Flat white,(flet ouite) outside a coffee stall being one\nof the best!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nSharing\na language does not always help with understanding a culture of\ncourse … just think about ourselves and Mr Trump!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nThe\ngreat achievement of the Spirit was a spreading of the Gospel message\nof Jesus\u2019 life, death and resurrection accomplished for the benefit\nof all<\/strong>\npeople. Not just the Jews; not just the Jews and the Greeks; not even\njust the Jews, Greeks and Romans \u2013 but for all people. It has\nproved a message that crosses boundaries of state, of language, of\nculture..<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n75 years\nago thousands of young men and women were fighting on foreign soil\nfor the freedom of all. Many of them could not speak French. Probably\nfewer still could speak German. But the message they fought for and\nstill represent for us today is understood by people of every nation\nand language. Political freedom is a precious concept and one that I\npray we do not lose sight of.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nSpiritual\nfreedom however, is priceless. Nothing short of our eternal life\ndepends on it. Thanks be to God for his anointing Spirit. Amen.<\/p>\n\n\n


\n
\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pentecost \u2013 morning Sunday 9th June 2019 Pentecost \u2013 morning Acts 2.1-21 John 14.8-17,25-27 Revd Preb Maureen Hobbs And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? As a linguist in my earlier life, the story of Pentecost has always fascinated me. The coming of the Spirit is the … <\/p>\n

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