What Languages Did You Hear? Pentecost, Refugees, and the God Who Welcomes Us Home

I’ve been thinking about what it must have been like to be there on the day of Pentecost.

You’re far from home, a Jewish pilgrim in Jerusalem. You’ve come from Libya, Egypt, Syria, Rome. The streets are full of people, but you feel disoriented. You carry the weight of displacement, diaspora, longing. You wonder if God still sees you.

And then—something extraordinary. A rush of wind. Flames over people’s heads. And suddenly, in the middle of the chaos, you hear your own language. The language of your mother. The sounds of your village--tree leaves rustling, kids screeching, grandmothers gossiping, dogs barking, engines murmuring. The accent of home.

And in that language: words of hope. Of God’s mighty acts, of promise, not made awkward in the hands of a translator, but instead spoken in your language, directly to you. As if God has been speaking your name all along.

Pentecost was more than a miracle of communication—it was a miracle of recognition. Of belonging. The Spirit didn’t ask people to leave their cultures behind to receive the good news. Instead, God honored the diversity already present, speaking through it—not around it.

This week, we celebrate World Refugee Day. A day we remember the 43 million people forcibly displaced around the globe today, and the billions of people who have been displaced throughout history—each carrying stories, languages, memories of home.

Pentecost reminds us:

The Spirit moves across borders.
The gospel speaks in every language.
Diversity is not an obstacle to the kingdom—it’s a reflection of it.

We are not called to erase our differences, but to embrace them. To become, together, a people made whole by the Spirit who unites without flattening, and gathers without assimilating.

To all who feel exiled—by war, by circumstance, by injustice, by grief—Pentecost speaks a word of hope: You are not forgotten. You are not alone. The Spirit speaks your name, in your language, even now.

Come, Holy Spirit.
Gather us in, in all our beauty and difference.
Teach us to listen well.
And make us a church that welcomes as we have been welcomed.