“What we’ve got here is failure to communicate.”
One of the great movie quotes of all times, from Cool Hand Luke 1967.
It was before my time, my Dad loves that movie.
I remember the Jackie Gleason version of the quote from the movie Smokey and the Bandit from ten years later.
I went on the internet to see all the different ways that quote has been rehashed and reused over the years, it has taken on a life of its own.
It seems to be a common theme that we can all identify with, failure to communicate.
Whether it is the violent and tragic use of communication by the chief, or Paul Newman in Cool Hand Luke, or a comical use of communication by Jackie Gleason, the disaster and the hilarity of the failure to communicate is something we can all identify with.
The story of the tower of Babel in the book of Genesis is one the earliest stories about the failure to communicate and the crazy things that happen because of it.
Then there are the many stories from my own life, the sad, the funny and the infuriating.
I imagine we all have these stories.
Communication is even a code word, often when we complain of poor communication what we really mean (if we are honest) is that we aren’t hearing what we want to hear, or that we weren’t paying attention. It is one of the polite ways that we attack the messenger. This is when communication becomes a four letter word and a weapon.
Whole careers and degrees now revolve around how to appear to communicate without actually saying anything, in order to avoid conflict or responsibility. Helping people feel communicated with rather than actually communicating.
At its root communication is about communion, about being in relationships, about sharing life with one another, about seeing the distinctiveness and difference in one another and being thankful for it, about knowing we are not alone, that we are noticed and loved, that we are able to notice and love others.
Ultimately communication is about communion with God, about relationship with God, and the failure to communicate in this relationship has led to the failure to communicate in all our relationships. So now communication is exactly the opposite of what it was meant to be, communication is now about avoiding contact with one another and how to control and harm one another.
Communication is a fallen creature.
As Dilbert would say, “Don’t step in the communication.”
The Gift of the Holy Spirit, the Lord the giver of life, is all about the redemption of communication, the restoration of relationships, the healing of broken communion, the ability to attend to and understand one another.
The abusive Babel of our failure to communicate has become the speaking in our native tongue, our natural language, we hear something worth hearing, we hear something we need to hear and we can share that experience with others.
What we hear is that all these dead bones are being brought together and growing flesh and coming alive, what was once a place of death is being filled with a people of resurrection.
Pentecost, the very power and life of God that creates life, that frees us from slavery to sin and that liberates us with forgiveness.
The Holy Spirit that is God has been poured into the frail and fallen humanity of who we are that we may speak and be heard, that we hear and understand, that we may attend to one another, that we may serve and love the world rather than destroy it, that we may create, that we may bring freedom, that we may bring forgiveness, that we may share in the fullness of God.
That we may communicate and share in God’s delight.
That Cool Hand Luke may sit in the shade and enjoy a glass of tea with the Chief, both set free from their respective prisons.
That Smokey and the Bandit can look under the hood of a 1977 Pontiac Trans Am, and Jackie Gleason with cigar in hand saying to Burt Reynolds, “What we’ve got here is not a failure to communicate. What we have is a work of community. And that is a miracle of God.”