DATE: May 12, 2013 — Pentecost Sunday (one week early)
SCRIPTURE: Genesis 9:1-11; Acts 2:1-21
©Rev. Alison J. Buttrick Patton
Seabury Center
How often do we misunderstand each other? Mis-hear, mis-speak, mis-apprehend? How often do our assumptions, perceptions or perspectives color our communication in ways that make it hard for us to really hear one another? Have you ever thought you knew what someone was thinking or feeling, maybe even told them so, only to be proven very wrong? Have you ever heard one thing, only to be told, “That’s not what I said at all”? Like that game of telephone, where the message gets mangled as it travels from ear to ear to ear to ear. So the message “Pizza with peppers is my favorite dish” turns into “Pisa is hipper than flying fish.”… Sometimes, there’s static on the wire that interferes. But sometimes, we’re just a bit tone-deaf to the needs and views of others, particularly when those needs and views are markedly different from our own.
What if we could avoid those failures of communication altogether? What if our ears were tuned to the same wavelength, all the time? Rewind the clock for a moment. Go back in time, all the way back before the very first history book, back to a time we know only by the stories we tell. Stand on the muddy (fertile) banks of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, listen to the lapping of water and the whistle of wind in the reeds…
Once upon a time, a people gathered on the banks of those rivers, a tribe of families that spoke one language and shared one way of living. To preserve that way, they shaped bricks from the mud and built a city (brick upon brick upon brick) until it shone red and gold in the Mesopotamian sun: “Here we will stay,” they said to each other. “We’ll plant our favorite crop, sing our favorite song and raise the children to carry on our way of life. We will make a name for ourselves. We will be known as the People of This Place.
But then, the One they knew as Yahweh, Creator-God, the one who had plucked them from the great flood and set them on that riverbank, the Spirit of Yahweh moved among them, admired their handiwork and said to the members of the Heavenly Court – all those angels: “What remarkable people I have created, so full of ideas and abilities. It’s not enough that they should settle here, to raise one crop and sing one song. I will mix them up, turn them around and send them out in all directions, to discover new lands, build other cities, plant different gardens and sing new songs.”
Then Yahweh took a deep breath and blew…and the breath of God knocked the hat from the head of a farmer as he ploughed his field; he ran after it, toward the west. The same wind caught the hem of a woman’s tunic and turned her toward an east-bound trail she’d never seen before; she decided to follow it. The God-wind surprised a young couple as they kissed. It rustled their hair and made them laugh for no reason. They grabbed each other’s hands and ran off to the south to see where the wind might lead… Meanwhile, that same wind caught and filled the sails of a fisherman’s boat and turned his craft toward the north. With one big breath, God scattered those people, like so many seeds on a dandelion puff dancing across the landscape. Where each one landed, other cities were built, different gardens were planted, and new songs were sung. And that land where it all began, God called it Babel, because it’s where She stirred up the people.
Fast forward to that spring day early in the first century of the Christian era, to the city of Jerusalem where Jews from every nation were gathered – descendants of the very people who had been sent out to discover new lands and create new cultures way back at the beginning of time. Imagine the hodge-podge of voices; the confusion of colors and smells that would have permeated those streets: vendors hawking their wares: salty olives and cheese, lemon and pungent spices; devout Jews praying and shopping in every language; Egyptians hob-knobbing with Italians; Arabs bartering with Greeks. Again the God-wind blew, interrupting conversations and rustling sleeves… Then a handful of Galilean men and women began to speak to the crowd – and everyone understood!
When we talk about Pentecost, we often comment on the miracle of wind and flame, the astonishing in-breaking of God’s Holy Spirit. We get swept up in the pyrotechnics of the moment. But the true miracle of Pentecost may be what occurred after the wind ceased and the spirit-flames dwindled, when that handful of Galileans spoke and everyone, Asian and Libyan, Parthian and Mede, Egyptian and Pamphylian understood.1 That’s the gift of the Holy Spirit: Amazing, breath-taking gift of God’s Holy Spirit: to help us hear one another, not by erasing all those differences of speech and culture, or making everyone speak the same language, but by giving people the capacity to hear, each in his or her own language. That day in Jerusalem, the Holy Spirit blew through the crowd tuning ears and loosening tongues so they could understand each other right in the midst of all that difference.
Which makes sense when you remember Babel, when you realize that God scattered, not with an angry fist (as we sometimes assume), but with something more like a holy exhale, that ‘puff’ that sends dandelion seeds dancing across the landscape to land who-knows-where. Diversity is – has always been – a part of God’s design. “O Lord, how manifold are your works!” Sings the Psalmist. “In wisdom you have made them all; the earth is full of your creatures.” Maybe, when we struggle to understand each other, when we bump up against each other’s differences, it would help to start here: by remembering God’s good intention, God’s best intention, for all creation.
It’s right there in the words of Peter’s speech, his first public sermon, that morning in Jerusalem, in which he quotes the prophet Joel:
I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy. Your young will see visions. Your elders will dream dreams. 18 Even upon my servants, men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days, and they will prophesy. 19 I will cause wonders to occur in the heavens above and signs on the earth below…And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.
Everyone. Which is, of course, what happened, beginning that very day: The God-wind blew. It blew through the public square, opening the ears and hearts of everyone there, until, according to the Book of Acts, 3,000 people chose to be baptized.
But Spirit-breath didn’t stop there. It kept on blowing. Remember Saul, who persecuted Jews who followed the Jesus-Way? Saul: who heard the voice of the risen Christ on the road to Damascus, was struck blind then found his way to the home of Ananias, who restored his sight? Ananias, remember, was a follower of the Way, the very sort of person that Saul had been clapping into irons. Were it not for the intervention of the Holy Spirit, those two would never have been caught in the same room together.
And remember Peter, summoned to the home of the Roman Centurion Cornelius? Who could have imagined that a Jew and Gentile would ever share a meal like that? Not the other apostles, who all protested. Only the Holy Spirit.
And what about Lydia! The first European to embrace the Way of Christ, Lydia who worshipped with the Jewish women down by the river; Lydia who embraced those traveling missionaries Paul and Timothy and welcomed them into her home.
Do you see the pattern? Again and again, the Spirit blows folks off their home turf and into the company of strangers, people who live, speak or believe differently than they. It’s ironic, in a way, given our common origin in that mythical city of Babel somewhere in the Fertile Crescent: that God scattered us, only to bring us together again. But here’s what I suspect: We’ve gained something since then – cultural diversity, yes, and the collective wisdom that comes with all our diverse perspectives. Now, we see from multiple angles; we sing countless songs. We are a People of Many Places. And the richer for it.
Of course, that doesn’t eliminate those failures of communication. But perhaps it helps us to remember, along the way, that our differences are by design; that God delights in all our diversity. Perhaps it helps, once in a while, to take a deep Spirit-breath and say to ourselves: This person, too, came from the same Source, same loving God as I. I may not understand her, but God does. I may not like him, but God treasures him. God knows why. But then, God knows why She treasures me…
And when that’s more than we can manage, well: that’s where the Spirit comes in: Breath of God, Holy Translator. When there’s static on the line, when we’re utterly unable to understand, when we find ourselves tone-deaf or tongue-tied, that’s a good time to pray: “Come, Holy Spirit. Help me to hear deeply. Help me to speak tenderly. Help us to find the song to sing.” Maybe that’s the prayer to pray. But then: Hold onto your hats. Because the wind will blow, our lives will be stirred up, and surely we will all be blessed.
Scripture Texts
Genesis 11:1-9 – Common English Bible translation
1 All people on the earth had one language and the same words. 2 When they traveled east, they found a valley in the land of Shinar and settled there. 3 They said to each other, “Come, let’s make bricks and bake them hard.” They used bricks for stones and asphalt for mortar. 4 They said, “Come, let’s build for ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the sky, and let’s make a name for ourselves so that we won’t be dispersed over all the earth.” 5 Then the LORD came down to see the city and the tower that the humans built. 6 And the LORD said, “There is now one people and they all have one language. This is what they have begun to do, and now all that they plan to do will be possible for them. 7 Come, let’s go down and mix up their language there so they won’t understand each other’s language.” 8 Then the LORD dispersed them from there over all of the earth, and they stopped building the city. 9 Therefore, it is named Babel, because there the LORD mixed up the language of all the earth; and from there the LORD dispersed them over all the earth.
Acts 2:1-21
1 When Pentecost Day arrived, they were all together in one place. 2 Suddenly a sound from heaven like the [rush] of a fierce wind filled the entire house where they were sitting. 3 They saw what seemed to be individual flames of fire alighting on each one of them. 4 They were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages as the Spirit enabled them to speak. 5 There were pious Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. 6 When they heard this sound, a crowd gathered. They were mystified because everyone heard them speaking in their native languages. 7 They were surprised and amazed, saying, “Look, aren’t all the people who are speaking Galileans, every one of them? 8 How then can each of us hear them speaking in our native language? 9 Parthians, Medes, and Elamites; as well as residents of Mesopotamia, Judea, and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, 10 Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the regions of Libya bordering Cyrene; and visitors from Rome (both Jews and converts to Judaism), 11 Cretans and Arabs—we hear them declaring the mighty works of God in our own languages!” 12 They were all surprised and bewildered. Some asked each other, “What does this mean?” 13 Others jeered at them, saying, “They’re full of new wine!” 14 Peter stood with the other eleven apostles. He raised his voice and declared, “Judeans and everyone living in Jerusalem! Know this! Listen carefully to my words! 15 These people aren’t drunk, as you suspect; after all, it’s only nine o’clock in the morning! 16 Rather, this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel: 17 In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy. Your young will see visions. Your elders will dream dreams. 18 Even upon my servants, men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days, and they will prophesy. 19 I will cause wonders to occur in the heavens above and signs on the earth below, blood and fire and a cloud of smoke. 20 The sun will be changed into darkness, and the moon will be changed into blood, before the great and spectacular day of the Lord comes. 21 And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.