Babble Possibilities

 Then how is it that each of us hears them in our native language? (Acts 2:8)

“Careful about the telephone calls you answer” is a new byword, so it seems. Having long been an advocate for picking up the phone and talking with others rather than endless texts or emails, in the last while I confess I too becoming a bit cautious. I take a quick look at call display before I answer. This is because half of those displays are mysterious, either friends with new cell numbers or weird solicitations with strange accents from another country. The familiar familial ones come not with the telephone ring but via text or WhatsApp, Facetime, Messenger, ... Instagram? So what’s a guy to do? In the Old Testament (Genesis 11) also is a story about new styled communication - or miscommunication. God’s people resorting to ingenious plans to avoid the next destructive flood by building a high tower, got that idea messed up when God introduced many languages, a babble at the Tower of Babel by which even the engineers could not understand each other! Our New Testament, however, has the counter story. At Pentecost after the resurrection of Jesus a Holy Spirit language is introduced. 

Communication is possible in new ways and in many tongues, profoundly enabled by the Holy Spirit, God’s timeless universal language. Technology, including the recent insertion of artificial intelligence – with endless advertisements proffering new efficiencies and editing and stylizing help - is not the new ways I am thinking of. My enthusiasm is not in new technical possibilities. My enthusiasm is new possibilities in … yes, in religion.😊 It has a story, and as per usual, I can best communicate it via some recent experiences.

A week ago I participated with a group of Laotian Christians who were gathered for internment of the ashes of a pastor who had died two years ago, remembered for his ministry in this community many years ago before moving to the U.S. which is where he died. Fascinating to me was the heartfelt participation of the current minister of this immigrant group. Never having met the deceased pastor, with guitar and voice he facilitated opportunity for sharing, for singing, and a meditation spoken mostly in Lao with English interjections here and there, very helpful for all of us in this duo-lingo gathering. Also intriguing was the presence of a number of young adults who had made decisions for Jesus as children in those Sunday School classes of the 1990s. As the sharing continued I suddenly realized the testimony of these young adults was coming to us in English with nary an accent. The older members of this group still hard to understand when they faithfully show up in our church's worship services, while their children – the ones with the heartfelt faith testimonies – have never been in our church! This evening’s celebration, remembering a former pastor’s life well lived, became inspiration for all of us gathered regardless of original language and places of present worship! The theme of this gathering was life lived with Jesus as our Saviour.

This last weekend I visited a congregation of Mexican Mennonites near Two Hills, Alberta. The visit became important to me because of a tour I had participated in several months ago along with about twenty urbanites from Edmonton and Calgary to learn some things about these latest ‘Mennonites come back.’ These people have returned to the country they departed in the 1940s. At that time a group of the Old Colony from Manitoba and Saskatchewan departed for Mexico to get away from English school education and other perceived worldly requirements in this country which had welcomed them so amiably only half a century before! Now half a century later they come back because they need land ... and jobs!

Unbeknownst to me (as I learned years later), just before my birth in 1947 my parents had resolved that they could see no good reason to take their children and join with some of their siblings and fellow church members in the perceived need for auswanderung to escape public education. In the years of our growing up we would occasionally hear dad somewhat sarcastically “The devil can show up no matter where we live”. 😏 So it is that education was encouraged in my family, and accordingly kind of free-willed, some of us casting our lot with a more progressive Mennonitism and others the other option, no church at all!

It is therefore with keen interest I now observe some of these returning. The province of Alberta is providing a considerable welcome to these hardworking enterprising farmers, laborers, servants, contractors and business owners, most of them children and grandchildren of the earlier emigrants, probably quite in keeping with our current Premier Danielle Smith’s recent election victory speech, “Alberta is open for business.” In short order the historians and maybe even the sociologists and theologians will write about these Mennonites and their ever changing reasons to move. [See also an earlier blog “Solutions Outside the Lines”, June 17, 2023, https://jcfroomthoughts.blogspot.com]

Generations come and generations go, as illustrated perhaps everywhere these days. I spend some time at one of Calgary’s libraries, located alongside local YMCA and a Catholic high school. This is an environment with a super abundance of colors; white, black, and various shades of brown skins, beautiful tone mixes along with latest fashions and hair styles, the teenagers chatter just like teenagers will – in English with nary an accent. Similarly, one of my South Sudanese friends, he and his wife still struggling with English lessons, listen to their children, arguments and all, in their townhouse here in Calgary’s own English! And three hundred kilometers out of town we have these Reinlander Mexican Mennonites’ children already fluent in non-accented English, and parents still pressing a considerable plautdietsh.

My intent here is not merely to make observations about generational and cultural changes. My interest - fascination actually - is about something more basic. It is the eternal interest (thirst) very evident in all of these, in all peoples. Recent experiences are reminding me there is still a common communique – a need for basic values well illustrated by all, some of us now in the big cities, some from the villages of Mexico or Africa. Basic values include an invitation to a living faith, “But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God”, (John 1:12 quoted by one of the Laotian dads); to stay away from all the enticements of this world, “Come out from them and be separate, says the Lord, and I will receive you, (2 Corinthians 6:17 center stage for the Old Colony).In my previous blog I mentioned full churches in the Two Hills community, unlike urban Mennonite and most mainline churches. These rural churches with devoted but unlettered ministers, active youth groups, church life happening alongside land and business deals and education negotiations to provide for children’s religion needs even within the public system. In the past, sojourning Mennonites have moved for faith and/or lifestyle reasons. In those years they negotiated for privilegium (privileges) that would be forwarded in exchange for farming and business opportunities, to advantage of the hosts as well as the immigrants. That is still true; moves made only after careful negotiation.   

These Mennonites are here now for economic reasons, no genocide in Mexico to escape from! Also at this time refugees are entering Canada from other places to escape from desperate wars with neighbors or civil wars within, like our forbears when they first appeared on these shores. It seems to me those now returning to this country are well situated to reach out to present-day refugees together with those of us already settled here.[i] Here is a good bridge building opportunity for all of us, those who left and those who stayed,[ii] to humbly examine ourselves, perhaps to engage in new ways - colonialists, immigrants, and refugees. A good corporate read of 1 Corinthians 10:12 would be in order, So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall!

Things are different now than when our early ancestors departed from the European beginnings! My African and Asian friends are aware of this, understanding our early refugee status. They are keenly interested so it seems, to study and worship together with us especially because of our peace stance, which at present also needs review in our affluent lifestyles. What is a good and a faith-filled way to move perhaps from babblers to proclaimers, together giving thanks for this country which is in fact a good deal for all of us? These are new and important considerations, especially for a peace people in a peace church, going forward. 

Thinking about my dad's prophetic cautionary words back there, I am reminded of a scripture quite on-topic, Ephesians 6:10-11. Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. These days, even in our turmultuous world, including Israel and Palestine, the land of the faiths which claim One God, I'm praying for our one God's Holy Spirit to help us understand each other and to unite us in ever new peaceable possibilities.

---

[i] Note: Some of these farmers are already participating with Canadian Foodgrains Bank to assist in world hunger needs. 

[ii] And also those who have been here forever, the Indigenous. See Steven Charleston, The Four Vision Quests of Jesus (New York: Morehouse Publishing, 2015).