Our Scriptures speak of a time when the human race tried to “make a name for ourselves” by building a tower. God did not like this attempt, God’s reasoning was that if people could communicate well with each other, there would be “nothing impossible for them” to do; ergo, the origin of different languages.
The same Scriptures also tell us that when God sent the Apostles into the world to make disciples of all nations, God gave them the ability to communicate across different languages. It was an important tool in their toolbox. Why? Because if they were trying to make a name for themselves then their work would stay within their language group. However, if their work was not their own self-promotion but to invite people to Christ and make Christ the center of their community, then, it was important for them to look beyond themselves and invite the diversity of languages into their own community – yes, at the risk of losing their own identity as a people of a single language.
In history many different groups of people tried spreading the Gospel with missionary zeal. Some of these attempts were very successful. Some very successful but not what the missionaries intended. You see, the problem with missionary intentions is that they find their zeal to tell the other what they know best by relating how they know best. The “how” is often very contextual. Context comes with a language; so, even when doing it for the right reasons, the missionary zeal would end up insisting on the rightness of their language more than the message being communicated. Fortunately, and unfortunately, God is not interested in the rightness of the language, God is only interested in the rightness of the message. The rightness of the message is that God transcends the particularities of a language. Asian theologians, like C.S. Song and Kim Yong-Bock beginning in the 1970s brought to the fore the need to see the Gospel of Christ in context. The idea was simple, Christ was not brought to Asia by the European, Christ was already there, in the very context that the European saw in need of transformation because it was not his context. We miss this point when we insist on a language translation of the Bible more than what it seeks to communicate. We also miss the point when we insist one way to worship our Living God is better than another way.
So, what is the whole point of difference? The whole point is to transcend difference by focusing on the purpose of the mission to make Disciples of ALL nations. The point is not to get rid of the difference. The point is to celebrate difference and find in the midst of all our differences not a common ground, instead, a richness through which God makes the wholeness of God-self known to us. The Holy Spirit did not eliminate the different languages on the day of Pentecost, The Holy Spirit eliminated the Disciples’ inability to understand across differences.
Friends, that is why at the Lord’s Table we do not insist on one way of being as superior to the other. We only insist on making Christ the center of all our being. We do that not by eliminating difference, we do it by embracing it and learning to understand it. That is why we invite people to “Walk with Jesus” in as many languages as we possibly can. That is why we experience God in the freedom of contemporary style worship one evening and the next day we experience the same God in a more formalized language. The medium is not the message. And yet, for the message to be communicated, all mediums have to be equally embraced.
How are we building an appreciation for difference in our spiritual lives? Are we finding ways to eliminate differences or are we finding ways to make our life richer with the differences God has created? Are we self-promoting or are we Christ centering?