Where's Your Accent

I can’t tell you how excited, relieved, and happy I am to be worshipping with you today.

It has been a long…almost six months since I first contacted you church with what seemed like a longshot question:

“Would you ever consider hiring a pastor from the States?”

I am so thankful that you did consider it!

And I look forward to getting to know you as we journey on the life of faith together.

All I ask is that you be a little patient with us…it’s been 20 years since Sharon and I lived in the UK, and as you know…Americans can be…different.

Americans drive differently…Americans think differently

(sometimes a little TOO differently)

Americans…talk differently.

As you can tell by my accent.

Interestingly enough…even though different parts of America have different accents, since I’ve lived in so many places around the States and around the world through the years…I really don’t have a specific American accent.

There's no real regional twang to the way I speak.

Whether I'm in New York, Los Angeles, the great state of Texas, sweet little ol' Georgia, or Chicago...

People can't really tell where I'm from.

And I always kinda prided myself on that.

Until I moved to the UK for the first time in 1994.

Suddenly, everywhere I went, people knew where I was from.

And I couldn’t hide it, even if I tried.

And I tried sometimes.

Back during that first time when Sharon and I were living in Scotland, and we discovered that our little family of two was going to become a little family of three.

We decided to try and keep it secret for a while.

It’s not an easy secret to keep.

Whenever we wanted to look at baby books, or pick up a parenting magazine, or shop for the nursery, we would travel miles away from our parish so we wouldn’t get caught. Even then, we would be a little nervous.

One day, I was out shopping, and I was acutely aware that if anyone from our church saw where I was and what I was buying, it was all over.

Suddenly, an energetic young salesperson appeared in front of me.

“Can I help you?” she asked, and I panicked.

Then my panic turned to paranoia, and I started thinking...

“She doesn’t look familiar. But maybe...maybe she has a friend, or a relative, maybe a parent...in our church. Maybe she’d heard of the American pastor they have. If she knows I’m American, she could put two and two together, and then the jig is up.”

So as I’m standing there overreacting, in my panicked state I did the only thing I could think of…

Knowing I could never pull off a realistic Scottish accent, I opened my mouth and said,

“Oh, yes! I’d like one of these here, thank you very much!”

The look I received was classic.

I'm sure she spent the rest of her day telling about the American who was trying to sound Cockney.

Accents give us away.

They reveal where we're from.

Maybe you remember Prof. Henry Higgins from “My Fair Lady.”

Here was a student of dialects who claimed he could pinpoint a person's accent to the specific street where they lived.

You and I probably can't do that, but we can listen to someone talk and probably make a guess as to where they're from.

And sometimes, even though we probably shouldn't, sometimes we also make a guess as to what they're like.

That's what happened to one of Jesus' disciples named Peter, As we heard in our Scripture reading.

Peter was a fisherman. A working class guy from an area called Galilee.

And one day, he made a decision to follow a rabbi, a teacher from a place called Nazareth...

A teacher named Jesus.

And over the course of 3 years, Peter comes to see that Jesus is no ordinary teacher...

In fact, Peter comes to believe that Jesus is no ordinary man, but is the Son of God, the Messiah, the Saviour God promised to a hurting world.

But just when it seems that things are really going to start happening...just when it looks like Jesus is going to be shaking things up in the world and establishing God's kingdom on earth,

Everything goes pear-shaped.

Betrayed by a man named Judas, Jesus is arrested and taken away for a sham trial on charges of blasphemy and sedition.

And as Jesus is led to the place where his charges will be formally pronounced, Peter follows from a distance.

Jesus is taken into the home of one of the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem, and Peter hangs out in the courtyard to see what's going to happen.

In a way…

You have to respect his courage. Jesus has just been arrested. The disciples have scattered, but here’s Peter in the courtyard of the high priest- just outside of where his rabbi is being tried.

He should’ve kept his mouth shut. But I can picture him, standing by the fire, chatting nervously, trying too hard to be inconspicuous.

The young servants are looking at him...”He looks familiar.”

Then it dawns on them.

“You were with him! You’re one of his followers!”

Twice he denies it, even swearing it by an oath.

By this time the crowd is involved, and one of them steps forward.

“You were with him! Don’t try to hide it- your accent gives you away!”

Your accent gives you away.

Peter’s accent was Galilean. Christ was from Galilee. It was a simple deduction, and one that was entirely true, despite Peter’s desperate denial.

Isn’t it interesting? He was singled out as a disciple of Christ by his accent.

That wouldn’t happen today.

Unlike that day so long ago, people today can’t tell someone is a follower of Christ simply by their dialect.

Today, thank God, Christians speak with not only with all sorts of accents but also in all sorts of languages: Scots, English, American…French, German, Chinese...every conceivable accent and language in the world.

Today there’s nothing that makes a Christian stand out in a crowd, nothing like an accent which can give you away.

And if we're honest with ourselves, those of us who call ourselves followers of Jesus sometimes like it that way.

All to often, we find ourselves more than willing to hide our faith from the world around us,

Not wanting to be singled out, not wanting to be seen as different or strange.

Too often we treat our Christianity as a garment, a cloak hanging in the closet that we pull out and put on when it's convenient, then return it to its place when we're done, trusting it’ll be there next time we need it.

Perhaps it’s because we’re afraid people will jump to conclusions about us if they know about our faith...

Just like we jump to conclusions about people based on the way they talk...or the way they dress...or where they live...or what kind of car they drive...

But what kind of conclusions do we jump to about people who live life with a Christian accent?

In the States right now, that question is connected to a whole tonne of political and cultural baggage.

Because oftentimes it seems the more extreme element of the Christian community is the part that gets the most media coverage.

And so is it any wonder that Christians sometimes choose to keep quiet, to hide their “faith accent?”

They may not be facing arrest or even death like Peter did that night in the high priest's courtyard, but in light of common opinion, showing your faith is sometimes a difficult thing to do.

But friends, if you call yourself a follower of Jesus Christ, that simply isn't an option.

According to Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the young Lutheran pastor killed for his underground opposition to the Nazi regime, the hallmark of Christian discipleship should be “extraordinary visibility.”

He writes, the followers of Christ “...are a visible community; their discipleship visible in action which lifts them out of the world-otherwise it would not be discipleship.”

Discipleship visible in action- living life with a Christian accent--that's the call to each and every person who claims faith in Jesus of Nazareth.

But what does that look like?

What is discipleship visible in action?

Some people will tell you that living life with a Christian accent means shutting down your brain and believing anything you’re told.

Some people think it means sprinkling a few “Praise the Lords” here and there, and occasionally a “Thank you Jesus.”

I don’t think so.

But that’s sometimes what people do…maybe not quite so extreme, but it’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking that Christianity is all about talking the talk.

But in reality, having a Christian accent is more about walking the walk.

In other words, it’s not necessarily how we speak or what we say that reveals where we are on matters of faith.

It’s more about how a person lives.

Jesus talked about this.

Just a few hours before he would be arrested and handed over to the Roman authorities to be executed, Jesus met with his closest friends and shared with them some of his most heartfelt beliefs and hopes for them.

And one of the things he said that night was this:

John 13:34-35 (NIV)

"A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another."

By this…people will know you are my disciples, if you love one another.

Not, “if you say the right words…wear the right clothes…carry the right kind of Bible…avoid the wrong places and the wrong people…”

Jesus doesn’t mention any of those things.

He says people will know you are my followers if you love one another.

Love is the accent of the Christian faith.

And not some kind of surface, superficial love either.

Jesus also says, “Love one another as I have loved you.”

That’s a tall order, because the kind of love Jesus loves us with is sacrificial, costly love. That’s what we focus on during this season approaching Holy Week, isn’t it?

A completely selfless love.

It’s a love that puts the needs of other people ahead of ourselves.

It’s a love that helps when it’s not convenient, that keeps on giving even when it hurts, that pours itself into others’ welfare instead of our own, that absorbs hurts from others without complaining or fighting back.

Jesus intended for the church to exhibit a love beyond itself, a love so extreme, so sacrificial, so outwardly centered

That people would stop and stare and say,“That kind of love is not humanly possible.”

And it’s at that point the church has a chance to say, “You’re right, it isn’t…would you like to hear where it comes from?”

By this people will know you are my disciples…if you love one another.

Love is a magnet…it draws people in, far better than any program, any song, or even any sermon ever will.

Over the past few months, many of my pastor friends in the States have asked me a variation on the same question:

“Jack, how can we pray for you and your new church?”

And it really caused me to stop and think, “What is my prayer for this new journey at Gilfillan Memorial Church?”

And here’s what keeps coming to me:

My prayer for…is that God’s supernatural love will blossom and grow and pour out of this place in a way that draws others to faith in Jesus Christ.

My prayer is the prayer of Paul prays in the third chapter of Ephesians.

Let me read it for you, and as I do...listen to the richness of what Paul is inviting the people of God into.

And think about what a church that really leans into and embraces these things would be like.

For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

That’s my prayer as we begin this journey together my friends.

That you and I together might be strengthened with power through God’s Spirit.

That Christ may dwell in our hearts through faith.

And that we together, being rooted and established in love, can grasp how wide and long and high and deep Christ’s love truly is, becoming filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

That’s our accent, my friends.

My it be evident in our lives every day.

Amen.