from Mike Kinman, Rector of All Saints Church

Now there were devout people living in Jerusalem from every nation under heaven, and at this sound they all assembled. But they were bewildered to hear their native languages being spoken. They were amazed and astonished. – Acts. 2:5-7a

What is the sound of home?
What is the sound that says you belong?
What is the sound that says, “This is for you”?

Growing up in Tucson, I would be awakened most mornings by the gentle cooing of a mourning dove. It was so familiar I took it for granted … like the fresh grapefruit off the tree for breakfast, or that after a rainstorm the whole outdoors smelled like creosote.

More than 30 years later, whenever I return, those birds still coo, I hear that sound, and my heart knows I’m home. That I belong. That this place is for me.

Home is not always a safe place or a happy memory. But there is something about where we are from – the feels, the smells, the sounds – that takes all the parts of our lives that feel unrooted and grounds them. That says whoever you are and wherever you are on your journey, this is where you are from.

On Sunday we celebrate Pentecost – the birthday of the church. We’ll even have cake! Pentecost tells us from the very beginning, church was the place where everyone heard the Word of God in their own language, where everyone heard something that said, “This is for you. This is your home.”|

In the year and a half we have been together, I have begun to use Spanish in small amounts in our liturgies and other places. We now print the Lord’s Prayer and some of our seasonal pew cards not only in English but in Spanish and Mandarin – the three most commonly used languages in the San Gabriel Valley.

For me this is a natural outgrowth of our core statement of welcome – “whoever you are and wherever you are in your journey of faith you are welcome to come to Christ’s table and receive the gifts of bread and wine made holy” and All Saints’ deep and historic commitment to being a place where all people of all races, languages, faiths, gender and sexual identities, abilities, social locations, etc. are made to feel at home.

I realize now and regret that I did not communicate nearly clearly or often enough why I have been doing these things. It is about living into the joy of All Saints’ identity as a radically welcoming, radically loving congregation. It is about giving as many people as possible the feeling of “this is my home.” It is about Pentecost.

A few weeks after we began printing the Lord’s Prayer in three languages, a longtime member of our congregation came to me with tears in his eyes saying that it had been decades since he felt he could pray this prayer in the language of his heart. That after all these years, All Saints felt like home in a new and powerful way. I have heard similar things from native Spanish speakers. That this Pentecost experience – hearing their own language in church – has made them feel that they are not just someone this community ministers to but an actual part of this community.

I am also hearing other voices – and I am holding all of them close to my heart. As with anything new, we struggle. Just as hearing our own language can make us feel at home, hearing a language foreign to us can make us question if this is still home for us. Especially in a world that is changing so much, that question can be painful. It’s clear to me that as we continue to live more and more into who we have always felt called to be as a radically welcoming and diverse community, I will have a lot more listening to do and we will have a lot more listening to do to one another.

And that’s the beauty of Pentecost. It is a feast of listening. We hold all the voices together. The voices that are rejoicing and the voices that are struggling. We ask what God means for us to be together. We are honest with one another about our experiences and we strive at the same time to own without shame our own feelings and listen and be moved and shaped by the feelings of one another.

So as some of us hear our own heart language for the first time and others of us hear different languages in church for the first time, let’s notice how we feel … and listen to each others’ feelings and stories. Together let’s dream of an All Saints where, more and more, everyone hears the sounds that assure us all that this is home.

Join us as we celebrate the Feast of Pentecost together on Sunday, May 20 with three services: 7:30 a.m., 9:00 a.m. and 11:15 a.m. (a combined 11:15/1:00 p.m. bilingual service). More details here.

This reflection was originally published in the May 2018 issue of Saints Alive.