This weekend I will be hanging out the red, white, and blue bunting ahead of our local Street Party for the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee. I will also be heading out to the village church of St Peter’s in the Woods in Appleshaw to share in their celebrations for Pentecost.
I have recently started following Sam AKA The Deaf Chef (@deafchefofficial) on Instagram: each day he teaches a new word or phrase in British Sign Language. Now, in addition to the alphabet, bus stop, and pink, I can sign ‘party’.
This weekend is one of the biggest parties that the United Kingdom has seen: never before have we celebrated a Platinum Jubilee. Never before has a British Monarch reigned for 70 years, in fact there have only ever been 2 other monarchs to have reached this landmark anniversary: Bhumibol Adulyadej (Rama IX) of Thailand was on the throne for 70 years, 126 days, while Louis XIV of France ruled for 72 years and 110 days. Queen Elizabeth II is currently in third place, due to move into second position by the end of the month.
Her Majesty is not only the Queen of Great Britain though, her full title refers to ‘other realms and territories’;
the full style and title of The Queen is currently: Elizabeth II, by the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of Her other Realms and Territories Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith.
Jess Ilse, http://www.royalcentral.co.uk
In Maori the Queen is known as Rare White Heron of Single Flight, and in Jamaican Patois she is Missis Queen or The Queen Lady, whilst her Canadian title is Mother of All People. I wonder how many different languages the Queen has used to greet people during her 70 years? I am sure she cannot possibly be fluent in them all, and of course as with all Brits, she is able to rely upon the prevalence of English as a spoken language across the world. The Queen though, is known for being passionate about her ‘other realms’, and of them being able to recognise a sense of belonging within her monarchy.
This weekend the Church of England will recognise the jubilee of it’s head, but along with our other Christian brothers and sisters (the sign for brother is rubbing knuckles together), we will be celebrating Pentecost too.
Pentecost, or Whitsun, is the time when we remember that Jesus’ Holy Spirit finally arrived upon his followers, just as he had promised. It was a rather dramatic event which include holy pyrotechnics and you can read it here. Alongside the tongues of fire, wind and empowerment, the disciples found that they could suddenly speak any language in the world.
Travellers from all over the world had gathered in Jerusalem for the Pentecost Harvest festival and had brought their native languages with them, it was quite the party! Yet when Peter and the other disciples, with the holy gift of encouragement and courage began to preach of Jesus’ death and resurrection, they found that they were doing so in languages they had never spoken before. Most of the disciples were not educated men, they would have been taught the basics that enabled them to take part in Jewish worship as men, and would then have been sent out to earn a living, which for most of them meant fishing.
Yet here they are, speaking, and being understood.
…we hear them speaking…
Acts 2: 11
All my life I have been blessed with the opportunity to hear Jesus being spoken about in my first language. I have been given so many different Bibles over the years, all in English whether that be the English of Shakespeare’s time or the English of the American Street culture; but what does it mean to truly hear Jesus?
As Peter preaches he quotes from the prophet Joel, who hundreds of years before had spoken God’s promise that the Holy Spirit would enable young and old, male and female to hear God. Now in Jerusalem, this prophecy is coming true. The prophecy, though is not just for the people of faith hundreds and thousands of years ago, but for all of us for all of time. This prophecy is for you, it is for me. So I question once again, what does it mean to hear Jesus?
For Adam and Eve it simply meant walking in the garden with God. Abraham and Sarah received messages from God via Angels disguised as travellers, and Moses was spoken to through a burning bush. As a child Samuel heard God when he was sleeping, Elijah heard God in the whispered calm after a storm and the gift of cake from a raven. For Belshazzar God’s words were written upon a wall by an abstract hand as he watched on. Mary was visited by an Angel, as was her husband, the Magi by dreams. God, it seems speaks to us in whatever way is most likely to grab our attention.
Wesley felt his heart ‘strangely warmed’ whilst listening to someone reading from Luther’s Preface to the Letter to the Romans. As a Spiritual Director I try to listen prayerfully to God’s presence in the conversation, and reflect that back to my guests.
God will speak to us through others, through dreams, through formal times of prayer and informal too. God will speak to our heads, our hearts, our guts; via friends and clergy, through sermons and worship hymns, through the time we spend reading the Bible and reflecting upon it.
God speaks, beyond doubt, but do we listen?
On that day of Pentecostal celebration, some heard God speak through the disciples, others simply laughed at the fishermen who they thought had drunk too much during the festival.
Our Queen has spoken clearly of her faith in God, and her love for God’s people, her own people. Perhaps it is not just good fortune, good food, good medicine which has kept her on the throne this long, but her faith in God and ability to not just listen, but hear what God is saying.
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