Kai en tō symplērousthai tēn hēmeran tēs pentēkostēs ēsan pantes homou epi to auto. Kai egeneto aphnō ek tou ouranou ēchos ... [An alternative for those who don’t want to try the Greek pronunciation would be to begin by saying something like “If I were to begin this sermon by reading the Greek text from the second chapter of Acts, you would probably get frustrated rather quickly ....” Or the preacher could use some other language with which he or she is familiar. But one could also follow the general rule, “If you sound confident, 99 percent of the people will think you’re doing it right.”]

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            Makes you kind of frustrated, doesn’t it? It can be very irritating when you don’t understand the language people are using. “Why won’t they speak English?” we wonder. People get in fights over differences in culture and customs, and language is one of the things that shows those differences. Whole countries get divided over languages — think of disputes about the use of English and French in Canada. Conquerors try to impose their languages on subjugated territories. It’s a way of putting their mark on the territory, and to the extent that people learn to think in a language, it may affect their allegiance.

            But in our scripture reading about the Day of Pentecost, things seem to be different. We’re told that the apostles all spoke different languages, but nobody seems to get annoyed. Nobody says, “Why can’t they speak Latin?” — or Arabic, or something e

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