Latah Valley

Read Acts 2:1–4

 

The English word for LIKE has been evolving.   You’ve probably noticed this in the speech of teenagers and sarcastic characters on television.   But LIKE is no longer just way of comparing one thing to another thing, as in the Spirit of God is like the breath of Jesus or like the sound of a violent wind.   LIKE, according to linguists, has evolved into a signal that someone is about to be quoted.  

 

Like when the rugby player was like, “Get out of my way!”   Or when that waiter at the restaurant was like, “Do you want to order something or what?”    That nurse in the waiting room was so kind and considerate; she was like, “I am so sorry for your loss.”   But then her attitude changed and she was like, “I’m sorry.  My shift is over.  I’m going home now.”

 

You see, there are probably an infinite number of possible quotes, sayings or slogans that we might preface with the word, LIKE.   But another interesting nuance to contemporary English slang involves LIKE WOW, the way we want to emphasize what we’re trying to say.   LIKE, that’s outrageous!   LIKE, that’s really going to happen!   Or, LIKE dude, will you stop breathing on me with your garlic-breath?

 

So, let’s review.  The rules of grammar are actually changing to include the following functions for the word LIKE.  

1.  It’s a comparative preposition;

2.  It’s a signal that someone’s about to be quoted; and

3.  It’s a means of emphasizing content.

 

And what, pray tell, does any of this have to do with the passage from Acts 2, in which “A SOUND” comes upon the disciples in the courtyard of the temple LIKE THE RUSH OF A VIOLENT WIND?   Well, if the Holy Spirit inspires and indwells us so that we might communicate God’s deeds of power (as per verse 11), my premise is that the Spirit must also help us to hear that communication.

 

Every few weeks the boys and I will catch a program called, Monster Quest, in which scientists are set loose into various areas of wilderness.   These scientists camp out with their gadgets, collecting data like the size of a mysterious footprint, follicles of hair, dry bones and so forth.   But most of what they have to offer are these eye-witness accounts in which ordinary hikers struggle to describe what they’ve seen, heard and in some cases smelled.   And, of course, every report about Bigfoot or the Lock Ness Monster invariably bottoms out into sentences like, It looked at first like a bear, but it walked upright like a man… And yet, it had a head like this giant ape…  And I was like, Wow!  What did I just see?

 

Now, I do not believe that we can verify the attributes of God’s Spirit in the same way that these eye-witnesses make claims about Sasquatch.   But, I do want us to notice how much of the Bible is comprised of a struggle to communicate a reality or a presence that eludes our analysis.   And I do want to suggest that at Latah Valley we will have to enter that struggle if we truly want to hear like…

“Let anyone who has an ear listen to what the Spirit is saying to the churches.”   The Revelation to John repeats that sentence in Revelation 2:7; 2:11; 2:17; 2:29; 3:6: 3:13 and 3:22—and that implies that what God has to communicate isn’t simply written down on a page.   God’s Word, by the power of the Spirit, actually flies off the page.  

 

Philip Yancey explains how a local gospel choir had been invited to perform at the highfalutin Chicago Cultural Center for a group of well-dressed businessmen and shoppers from the upscale Michigan Avenue.   At first, he says, the audience applauded politely, almost as if they wanted to be politically correct.   But after about twenty minutes of passionate singing and bodies in rhythmic motion, one of the singers leaped backward from the last row of the risers and began hopping on one foot across the stage.   Moreover, he had broken away from the song the choir had been singing and began speaking in a strange language.  

 

 Yancey writes,

“Two silver-haired ladies in fur stoles grabbed their shopping bags and bustled out.  Men and women wearing office attire looked at their watches and fidgeted.  A sudden epidemic of coughing broke out…” (Reaching For The Invisible God, p. 173-4)    

 

And finally, at the culmination of the song, to “the faithful few who remained in their seats” the choir director said, “Well, you know how it is, you just can’t hem the Spirit in.”

 

In fact, you and I may find ourselves in the audience and not very comfortable.   That’s okay.   The point is like, something’s happening!   No matter what level of weirdness we feel, the point of the Pentecost encounter is that those who say that they believe in Christ stay in conversation about God’s deeds of power.

 

In southeastern Pennsylvania there’s a Latino congregation which is comprised of a lot of the people who pick mushrooms and do construction projects at an extremely low wage.   Our predominantly white church reached out to the pastor, Gadiel Gomez, and offered to support them financially.  Gadiel couldn’t speak English very well, but he had a member of the congregation who used to be involved in the drug cartel in Columbia.   This young Hispanic man did speak English and could often translate.   So, in front of a large crowd of Presbyterians in downtown Philadelphia, I invited Gadiel and his protégé to share about what God had been doing among them.   Well, after about five minutes of back-and-forth translations—about things like “We provide people with food who live beneath the bridge…  We help families with legal issues… We proclaim the love of Jesus…”  After listening to that I became worried about how long the speech was going.   People in the pews were nodding off, or reading other papers that they had brought to the meeting.   And just when I was about to step in and wrap up the presentation, the translator started to weep.  He explained how anxious he had been to stand before such people and how God had changed him inside and out.   “Dome La Mono,” I said.  Give me your hand.

 

You see, a good signal for the Spirit’s speech is LIKE when we find ourselves saying things we don’t ordinarily say to people we wouldn’t ordinarily meet about experiences over which we don’t ordinarily have much control.   Jesus once said of the Spirit in John 3:8, “You hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes…”   In fact, that fundamental lack of control or lack of total comprehension is the very quality which puts us on a level playing field with others.   No one personality controls the conversation or the relationship.  The Spirit overtakes all of us.

 

In one of the episodes of The Simpsons, Homer is having one of his conversations with God.   Apparently things are going very well, and so Homer prays that everything would stay exactly as it is, with no change.   He then asks that as a confirmation of the deal that God would provide absolutely no sign.   Then, of course, when there is no sign, Homer expresses his gratitude and prepares an offering of milk and cookies.   He wonders if God wants him to drink the milk and eat the cookies himself and that if he did God should let him know again by providing absolutely no sign whatsoever.   “Thy will be done,” declares the cartoon character before devouring the snack…

 

This, you see, is our relationship with God without the Spirit.   Without the Spirit we have pseudo-conversation, essentially with ourselves.  Without the Spirit, we generally will drink the milk and eat the cookies ourselves and nothing really changes.

 

By contrast, with the Spirit, it’s like the sound that a mother of two children heard while she sat on a bar stool, smoking a cigarette.   She’d been there, nursing a beer, all afternoon on September 11^th, 2001.   And while newscasters relayed the tragic stories about planes crashing into the World Trade Center towers and into the Pentagon, others in the bar rattled on about Armageddon and biblical prophecy.   Cynthia overheard this talk, but nothing on the television could explain the noise that she heard.   It’s was a sound like the voice of someone telling her to go home.   So she listened and went home and spent the rest of the day, reading the Bible, not understanding very much, but forcing herself to read into the night.   And then, while she nodded off to sleep, the sound came again, the sound like the voice of someone talking in her head, whispering words of love and peace and how things were going to change.  

 

Of course, when Cynthia woke up she did change.  Instead of going back to the bar she went to the church that had been started down the road.  She took her two children and her new fiancé.   She took them not because she wanted them to learn their Sunday School lessons or that she wanted to get married.   She came because of the sound like…  And when we worshipped that day, we all heard it.   Woohoo!   And I remember on the dinner that Crossroads hosted for us; there was her youngest child, Michael.   He stood up and said how glad he was that his mother listened to the sound because it’s like…   It’s like…  It’s like…