A Sketch on Pentecost from Acts 2
Narrator: A warm night in Alexandria. A man is sitting on
the roof of his villa gazing out to sea beyond the giant pharos, lost in
thought. An orange glow is reflected in the water, silhouetting the rows of
ships at anchor in the harbour below. A woman’s voice calls him from his
reverie.
Phoebe: Jason! Jason! Where are you? (She comes in and sits
beside him). I might’ve known I’d find you up here.
Jason: (He takes a cup from her) Thank you my dear.
Phoebe: So, how was your trip?
Jason: I....I, well it...er....
Phoebe: Did you see Clement as planned?
Jason: Not exactly. You see there was a....
Phoebe: But I thought this business meeting you’d arranged
was most important. “Sorry, but I’ll have to miss your birthday party”, you
said. “He’ll be in Jerusalem for Pentecost so we can finalise the deal there
and then”. What happened?
Jason: You wouldn’t believe me if I told you
Phoebe: Let me be the judge of that
Jason: (Pauses) Well, that morning I was making my way up
to the Temple. You know, to see the priests offer the wheaten loaves to God as
the first fruits of the completed harvest, when I found myself in the middle of
a great commotion. A group of people were milling around, crying out in praise
of God’s wonderful works. One man near me joked they must be drunk, but I could
tell they weren’t. Their voices were so clear and steady.
Phoebe: What’s so remarkable about that? The crowds can sometimes
get a bit lively at Pentecost.
Jason: But here’s the thing. These people were speaking in
tongues from all over the world, but they were just simple country folk from up
North in Galilee. How could they possibly have known all those strange
languages from faraway places such as Parthia, Libya, Arabia....?
Phoebe: Are you sure you weren’t drunk? And how do
you know Arabic!
Jason: There’s a lot about me you don’t know. My father had
some slaves from Arabia when I was a boy. I picked it up from them.
Then this big chap appeared on the veranda and started to
address the crowd, his huge workman’s hands waving around. Firstly he talked
about the prophet Joel and how God would pour out his spirit on everyone in the
last days. Then he explained how David had prophesied that one of his descendants
would be raised up by God to be Lord and Christ.
Phoebe: Not another “messiah” to save us from the Romans!
Jason: A messiah unlike any other though. This descendant
was Jesus, a prophet and miracle worker from Nazareth who was crucified by the
authorities, yet God brought him back to life again and he appeared to his
disciples. He told them to wait in Jerusalem for the coming of the Holy Spirit
and this was what we were witnessing at that very moment!
Phoebe: But why would God choose a ragbag of uneducated
Galileans to reveal all this, people of little importance? Surely the priests
and elders should be the ones to do it?
Jason: Perhaps there’s a lot about God we don’t understand.
Knowing many languages helps me to oil the wheels of business of course, but
just imagine if there were no languages, no barriers between peoples.
Phoebe: Then this new spirit must be meant for everyone. I
can’t wait to tell the women in the synagogue. Prepare to be the centre of
attention! They’ll want to know all about this Jesus.
Jason: Anyway by now I’d lost all track of time. A lot of
people in the crowd wanted to be baptised with this spirit there and then and
by the time I made it to the Temple Clement had left. His secretary told me he’d
had to return to Caesarea on some important family matter.
Phoebe: Next time you go to Jerusalem on business you can take
me with you. I’ll make sure you’re on time for your meetings, no excuses.
Jason: Dearest, the crossing can be quite rough. You
wouldn’t want to be laid low with a serious bout of sea-sickness now would you?
Phoebe: My grandfather was a ship owner. I went on trips to
Crete and Macedonia with him when I was a girl. I love travelling by sea.
Jason: I didn’t know you were an experienced sailor!
Phoebe: There’s a lot about me you don’t know. Come on, tell
me what you think these Galileans are going to do next .....
(They leave arm in arm, smiling and chatting)
Questions for reflection:
1. But why
would God choose a ragbag of uneducated Galileans to reveal all this, people of
little importance? Surely the priests and elders should be the ones to do it?
What do you understand about the God of Pentecost from this question and what
is its relevance for us following such a God?
2. Why do
you think the God of Pentecost did not speak the languages of Hebrew
(Scriptural language), Latin (empire language) and Aramaic (native language)
and chose to speak the language of the then foreigners? What do we gather about
Pentecost? How do we celebrate multiculturalism in our context today by
speaking and understanding the vernacular of the margins today?
Concept
by Raj Patta and Written by Trevor Williams
image courtesy: http://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=48388
