Many Bermudians are well travelled and many people from all over the world come here to support our economy as tourists or working here. If you ever went to a country where the majority does not speak your language, you know how challenging it can be.

When that happens, people have to find different ways to understand. When I came as an exchange student from Germany to Knoxville, I had a lot to learn. My school English was just that and it helped that people around me had patience and understanding and were willing to help me find my way.

I was able to enjoy and grow in learning to communicate with others. In fact, new friendships developed. Sometimes a smile was enough to create a feeling of understanding.

Love is what reveals who we are, what we stand for and hope for, a mindset of wishing well and wanting the wellbeing of all fellow people.

What if all language barriers were gone?

Tomorrow is Pentecost, 50 days after Easter. Christ’s death and resurrection happened on the Jewish Pass Over festival that actually lasts seven weeks (49 days) and then the next day is Pentecost (Pentecost means the 50th day) when the time of unleavened bread was over and the people in Israel were baking regular bread again, a reason to celebrate.

The apostles were together that day, when an unusual phenomenon occurred (Acts 2:2-6; NRSV): “And suddenly from Heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them.

“All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability. Now there were devout Jews from every people under Heaven living in Jerusalem. And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each.

Looking beyond the metaphoric language (note the words “like” and “as of”) we can say that even though they all came from different places and spoke different languages, there was a spirit of understanding among them that day.

Can you imagine how strange and at the same time wonderful that must have been? People felt understood by strangers. I think it takes a lot of positive energy to get to that point. They opened their hearts to feel touched by hope and understanding and deep acceptance.

Understanding is more than speaking the same languages

Understanding requires hope, goodwill, smiling, and friendliness. Then something can begin to grow and get better. Of course some were still negative and sneered saying the apostles were probably just drunk. The majority though felt a new way of being, feeling, and acting, which allows for something beyond words.

There was a new spirit and that spirit spread rapidly. Peter stood up and held a short sermon to the crowd, and verse 41 says (NIV): “Those who accepted his message were baptised, and about three thousand were added to their number that day.”

It was the beginning of what we call the Church. From then on the church grew daily. Thus on Pentecost we celebrate the birthday of the church. There should be a birthday cake.

The Tower of Bable

In the Old Testament there is a lovely story that wants to explain why there are different languages in the world even though all people after the big flood came from the family of Noah. It was an attempt to explain something people experienced (foreign languages) and it was done in a way that even unschooled peasants thousands of years ago could understand.

According to that story in Genesis (11:1-9), the people who were born after the flood did not want to fulfil God’s commandment from Genesis 9:1b: “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the Earth.”

They did not want to “fill the Earth”, but wanted to stay together as one people. They also were tired of moving around as nomads. They became inventive, building a city with brick and mortar, and a tower, which was supposed to reach the heavens, so they could see it from all places and find their way home.

While they thought they were making good progress with the tower, the story tells us God had to come down first to even see it (oriental stories love playing with images like that).

Then, in Genesis 11:6 (NIV) God makes a very interesting statement: “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them.” After that he confused their language, and people got frustrated with each other and one family after the other left the place which was later called Babel, as they could no longer understand what the others were “babbling”.

“As one people speaking the same language … nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them” means in turn that Christians who live in the Spirit of Pentecost can achieve everything they plan together. There are examples of that, right here in Bermuda.

I think of Christians like Philip Rego who started an orphanage in Haiti 15 years ago, and besides all difficulties with gang wars lately, the “Feed My Lambs” ministry grew the orphanage to be a home for 63 children. Meanwhile, in addition a school was founded for 700 students, a medical centre for the community, and a filtration system provides purified water to the community. Many churches and individuals from Bermuda support this ministry with money, supplies and volunteering.

Bermuda has so many churches and ministries helping seniors, youth, families, women and the homeless. There are food programmes, clothing services, shelters and so much more.

People who get involved in helping others often find new meaning in it. Their work is done in the Spirit of Pentecost, inspired to bring good news to the people, not only with words but also with deeds of love and understanding.

Those positive examples of finding common ground make me think. Those stories about languages in Babel and at Pentecost are symbols or metaphors for understanding each other. It stands for the willingness or lack of it to approach each other with the goal to understand.

Love and friendliness are the key to understanding

Language is just the vehicle towards understanding. Love and friendliness are the true communicators. It is about a climate of understanding without blame or shame.

Where there is understanding and love and friendliness, the church will grow because Christian love can overcome differences. People all over the world feel united in their faith as Christians, even if they speak different languages.

Today we have so many chances to overcome language barriers, from translator apps on the smart phone to interpreters. The Bible is translated into hundreds of languages and dialects to help all people to hear and understand the Good News of the risen Christ just like those foreigners in Jerusalem, who were “Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome (both Jews and converts to Judaism); Cretans and Arabs.”(Acts 2:9-11 NIV)

Here is a little challenge: read those names aloud and you may get a feeling how tongue-twisting some other languages might be.

Happy Pentecost to all of you, Bermuda.

• Karsten Decker is a German theologian with a double degree equivalent to an MTheol and MDiv. He studied in Marburg (Germany), Knoxville (USA), and Toronto (Canada) and comes from a united church of Lutheran and Reformed Churches. He was the pastor of Peace Lutheran Church in Bermuda from 2010 to 2017, and after returning from Germany is now the temporary pulpit supply at Centenary United Methodist Church in Smith’s