Summary: There's no better place to start a study of the Book of Acts than the account of Pentecost. Now, this is a moment we often identity as the birth of the church, that moment when God's blessings poured down upon us and the church tasted God's goodness. But what happened that momentous day, and what does it all mean for us today? The story of Pentecost makes us wonder about a different world. Wouldn't life be easier if we were all the same? If we all spoke the same language, wouldn't we avoid so many of the conflicts and rifts that destroy our relationships? If we all shared a common culture, wouldn't we all be much better off? I want to propose today that there are a number of problems with this line of questions. Initially, the question isn't as honest as it should be. The real question we ought to pose is: "Wouldn't life be easier if we were all just like me?" After all, that is so often what we really hope for. Too often, Christians have hoped for a time when our differences would cease, when in Christ we would all be indistinguishable. Such impulses are earnest but fundamentally misguided. Many such interpretations emerge from a fervent hope that the specters of racism, sexism, and myriad other destructive "isms" would no longer bind us to cycles of violence and hate. Such interpretations imagine that becoming Christians means becoming all the same in all ways. But, nothing could be further from the truth.
