Our Customized Connection to God
Day of Pentecost (Year B)
Acts 2.1-21; John 15.26-27, 16.4b-15
St. Gregory’s, Long Beach
Live Streamed on Parish Facebook page (beginning at 28:00)
A number of years ago, I did some work with the Kaleidoscope Institute, an organization affiliated with the Diocese that focused on issues of diversity and helping congregations to live more fully into our Baptismal Covenant to “strive for justice and peace among all people and respect the dignity of every human being.” One of the exercises we regularly did as part of our training programs was to have groups study today’s reading from the Acts of the Apostles—the account of the Pentecost event and the coming of the Holy Spirit. One of the questions Eric Law, the director of Kaleidoscope, would always ask individuals and groups to consider was whether what occurred on that day in Jerusalem was a miracle of the tongue or a miracle of the ear. In other words, were people able to communicate because they were able to speak languages other than their own, a miracle of the tongue; or were they able to communicate because whatever language was spoken was somehow translated into their own, a miracle of the ear. Participants at the Kaleidoscope Institute training were to discuss this question, along with why they thought the miracle was one or the other—a miracle of the tongue or a miracle of the ear.
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