This is a scary weekend: everything seems to be about Her Majesty’s Platinum Jubilee. It’s virtually impossible to avoid stumbling upon all things royal. A couple of days ago I went to do my shopping and ordinary items are now being advertised as ‘Jubilee ready’. The mass media are oversaturated with documentaries, tributes, reports and the like. The prevalent mood is positive, celebratory and appreciative of Her Majesty’s extraordinarily long service. Well, playing devil’s advocate I’d say that Queen Elizabeth’s 70-year-long reign hasn’t been too successful. Since her ascension to the throne, the British Empire has ceased to exist and has effectively been reduced to this island and a bit of the neighbouring island of Ireland. Somehow ironically, the Queen continues to grant MBEs and OBEs; the honours of an empire that doesn’t exist anymore. I’m tempted to establish honours of Atlantis and grant them to those who are nice to me… But as I am not a devil’s advocate and – a bit like the queen – I avoid getting publicly into politics I’m referring to Her Majesty’s long reign because it offers a suitable analogy to the theme of today’s biblical readings.
The first reading’s depiction of the spectacular outpouring of the Holy Spirit is a potential trap for unfortunate readers who have to tackle a list of unfamiliar, strange names of places and nations. However, that list wasn’t given to test our readers’ abilities to read it out. It serves as the conclusion to the reading of when the hastily gathered multinational crowd expressed their astonishment at the incredible ability of some commonly low-rated Galileans to speak foreign languages: “we hear them preaching in our own language about the marvels of God.” In the run-up to the event in today’s first reading Jesus told his disciples: “you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” (Acts 1:8) The spectacular outpouring of the Holy Spirit fulfilled the first part of the promise, and it was a prelude to the latter. But there was much more to that miracle of Pentecost than the ability to use foreign words.
What is a language? Anyone who tries to learn a foreign language quickly realises that there’s much more to it than a simple switch of words. A language is the oral expression of a much wider culture, steeped in the collective, domestic and individual history, regional geography, multifactorial influences over time and space and many more elements we can’t even put a finger on. Although grammar and vocabulary are absolutely essential to learning a foreign language, without understanding its wider cultural context it’s very difficult to become a fluent communicator. I’m speaking from experience; only having immersed myself in Scottish culture was I able to convey my ideas in a bit more nuanced ways. Consequently, when it was said about the Apostles at Pentecost that “we hear them preaching in our own language about the marvels of God” perhaps it meant more than the fact that they used foreign words. The biblical book of the Acts of the Apostles is an excellent illustration of how the early preachers adapted their ways of preaching to circumstances and their respective audiences while they always talked “about the marvels of God.” The form of preaching was ever-changing and evolving while the message remained the same. The pace was so fast that by the year 50 AD, after the Council of Jerusalem (Acts 15), the Church had two distinctively different ways of practising the faith: one deeply rooted in the Mosaic tradition, kept mainly by Christians of Jewish heritage, and the other adapted for the non-Jewish believers. Such adaptability of form paired with the faithful adherence to the essence of the Christian faith has been at the core of the successful mission of the Church for over two millennia. It’s been a practical realisation of Jesus’ promise in today’s gospel: “the Holy Spirit […] will teach you everything and remind you of all I have said to you.”
That’s where I see the analogy with Queen Elizabeth’s long reign. In those seventy years, she’s seen the geographical and political decline of her empire and its eventual demise. It was a result of geopolitical and social changes well beyond her own powers. Instead of raging and moaning about such changes, she has kept reinventing the role of the British monarchy and herself as Queen. Instead of choosing the sullen splendid isolation of a dejected monarch of the past, she has played a discreet but active role in the world that was changing around her. The British Empire of the past ceased to exist but in fact, it was replaced by the Commonwealth, an organisation of countries and nations that voluntarily and willingly keep the bonds of common values and interests. When last year Barbados dropped Queen Elizabeth as its head of state, Prince Charles, represented her at the ceremony while “the Queen sent the country her “warmest good wishes” for “happiness, peace and prosperity in the future” and said the nation holds a “special place” in her heart.” (BBC) Worldwide respect and admiration for Her Majesty aren’t accidental. She’s won them by her flexible attitude and moving with times that – paradoxically – offered stability and constancy. This is particularly poignant now when we see in Ukraine what happens when people in power are too nostalgic about the past and are hell-bent on restoring it forcefully.
Pentecost is the day when we celebrate the birth of the Church as a community of believers filled and driven by the Holy Spirit. But the point of this celebration isn’t a commemoration of an event from a distant past. We are a new generation of the faithful filled with the Holy Spirit to whom Jesus addresses his words: “you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” We are a new generation of those who have to learn the language of the modern world, so people can repeat: “we hear them preaching in our own language about the marvels of God.”