From Babel to Pentecost

May 15, 2016 - Pentecost

Genesis 11:1-9

 Now the whole earth had one language and the same words. 2 And as they migrated from the east, they came upon a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. 3 And they said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly.” And they had brick for stone, and bitumen for mortar. 4 Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves; otherwise we shall be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.” 5 The Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which mortals had built. 6 And the Lord said, “Look, they are one people, and they have all one language; and this is only the beginning of what they will do; nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. 7 Come, let us go down, and confuse their language there, so that they will not understand one another’s speech.” 8 So the Lord scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city. 9 Therefore it was called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth; and from there the Lord scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth.

Acts 2:1-13

¹When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. ²And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. ³Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. ⁴All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.

⁵Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. ⁶And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each. ⁷Amazed and astonished, they asked, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? ⁸And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? ⁹Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, ¹⁰Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs — in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power.” ¹²All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “What does this mean?” ¹³But others sneered and said, “They are filled with new wine.”

Sermon: “From Babel to Pentecost”

It was a cool, winter’s evening in July.  Winter because I was in the Southern Hemisphere.  South Africa, to be exact.  I was there for three weeks as part of a reconciliation project with Northern Irish Catholic and Protestant teenagers.  We spent 10 months building relationships, working on tearing down the walls between their communities, and then we went to South Africa, to learn that Northern Ireland isn’t the only conflicted space.  We heard their stories, and invited those teenagers to share their own.  And slowly, painfully, courageously, peace was born.

On that chilly, winter evening, I sat outside at the camp where we were staying, before a roaring campfire. Two Zulu women sat there as well, having a very animated conversation in a series of guttural sounds and clicks.  I stared into the glowing embers, doodled in my little notebook, and tried to understand them.  I couldn’t.  But then, all of a sudden, a familiar word emerged: “boyfriend.”  They used the English term.  And then, a few minutes later, another familiar word peppered their language, “computer.”  How bizarre and yet, comforting, it was to recognize a couple of words.  And I’d imagine, it was comforting for them to speak in their native tongue.

This is something we native English speakers don’t often think about.  You see, our language is the dominant language of the empire, like Aramaic or Greek in New Testament times.  We think nothing of the fact that we don’t need to learn another language to communicate with most of the world – it’s just an assumed truth that most people will speak our language.  And we conveniently forget the historical realities of conquest that have led to our language becoming the dominant one in the world. 

But language is never an accident: the stories of Babel and Pentecost remind us of that.  We begin with the Babel story, where humanity seeks to make a name for itself, building a tower into the heavens, speaking one language, and using that language for power.  God intervenes, confusing their speech, scattering humanity over the face of the earth.     

And in Pentecost, the sister tale to Babel, we find that God brings confusion once more, having people speak in other languages, and yet hear in their own native tongue, through the power of the fiery Spirit.   

As Catherine and Justo Gonzáles assert[1], “In Babel, God intervenes to confuse the unity of a rebellious humanity. In Pentecost, God's intervention confuses the unities that empire has built. What is new about Pentecost is not that they all speak the same tongue. They do not. What is new about Pentecost is that God blesses every language on earth as a means for divine revelation, and makes communication possible even while preserving the integrity of languages and cultures.”

The Holy Spirit brings the blessing of chaos and confusion.  And it’s really interesting to notice who recognizes that as a blessing.  Again, Justo and Catherine say,

“The miracle that is taking place is that God is taking all these people, whose native tongues and native cultures make them outsiders, and bringing them inside, making them insiders. They, the Medes, the Elamites, and the Phrygians, can understand that something extraordinary is taking place. But those who are already insiders, those who expect to hear their own language, those who are already at home, those who expect to understand, can do nothing but sneer.”

The empire builders, who might have been the ones to think a tower into the heavens to challenge God was a good idea, do not find Pentecost to be a blessing.  The Spirit doesn’t bring order.  She doesn’t baptize their institutions with authority, or keep those on the margins in their place.  The Holy Spirit makes everyone hear in their own language, something those who have had to speak a different language with their heart and their lips understand well.

Sometimes, the story of Babel is seen as God’s curse upon humanity, that God feared people’s potential if they all spoke the same language, and so limited them with a diversity of languages.  This makes one fatal assumption, of course: that God fears us, or needs to.  God doesn’t.  Babel was not a curse.  A curse would have been God taking out those tower engineers.  No, God didn’t “take them out;” God sent them out, with many languages.  And soon afterwards, God made a covenant with Abraham to bless all peoples of the earth. 

The blessing at Babel was fulfilled in the blessed language of Pentecost.  The foreigners and outsiders were baptized with fire, as were the powerful and insiders.  The former immediately were amazed and astonished, trying to figure out what it all meant.  The latter scoffed and labeled the whole event as some sort of drunken accident.  And their need to explain everything in their carefully constructed boxes means they missed it all.
I wonder what fresh work of the Holy Spirit we might miss because we think we already understand it all?  I wonder if our very language limits our ability to hear the Word of God with fresh ears and fiery hearts?

If we want Pentecost to be more than a nice fairy tale and a fun excuse to wear red, we will have to change our ways of empire.  We will have to pay attention to those who speak a different language from us, and understand that this is because of God’s blessing. 

We will have to stop our hyper-organized, overly-rational ways long enough to just sit by a roaring fire, and let the Spirit enflame our hearts with foreign words. 

We will have to stop that age-old exercise of making a name for ourselves through building our own little towers of achievement, and instead scatter ourselves into all the forgotten corners of our community and this world, and listen, not just speak. 

The Spirit who birthed the church at Pentecost is still on the loose, leaving holy, empire-challenging confusion in Her wake.  Are we listening to those who speak in new ways, or are we too busy sneering?  Are we speaking with courage, or are we too busy politely playing it safe?  Are we working with those on the margins of the empires of our time, or are we too busy tending to our old towers of pride? 

It really is one or the other, friends.  Babel or Pentecost.  Pretending we all speak the same language, even when that’s not good for us, or opening ourselves to the Spirit who speaks equally to and through us all.  Seeing diversity as a threat or the intended blessing of God.  Leaving when we don’t understand, or sitting by the fire patiently, straining to grasp even one word of connection.  Babel or Pentecost. 
Which will we choose?
Amen.

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[1] González, Justo L., and Catherine G. González, "Babel and Empire: Pentecost and Empire, Preaching on Genesis 11:1-9 and Acts 2:1-12," Journal for Preachers, 1993.