Language of the Spirit

Acts 2: 1-21

May 24 2015

Pentecost

Now, long ago after the time of Noah

and his children, the people

had one language and they lived in one place.

And the people said to each other,

“Let’s make some bricks” and they made some bricks.

And then they said,

“Come, let us build ourselves a city,

and a tower whose top is in the heavens;

let us make a name for ourselves,

lest we be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth.”

That is the story that’s been come to be known as

the tower of Babel. Although it never mentions a tower.

The people wanted to band together

For their own glory, for their own power

and pride and ambition,

They thought they could be like God,

if they could just build an empire big enough to reach the sky.

But God knew that would not be good news for anyone.

So God made them all speak different languages,

so they couldn’t understand one another

and then they couldn’t build the city to reach the sky.

And the unfinished city was called Babel which means confusion.

And the people were scattered and separated

from one another.

  

Now this scattering can be seen as a curse:

God’s punishment for the human penchant

towards despotism and oppression.

It can be seen as a cure:

The separation of languages

has prevented one power from taking over.

And it can  be seen in the long run as a blessing:

diverse languages and cultures make

the world a more interesting place to be.

The richness of humanity is a gift from God.

But like it or not, language and culture

can divide people.

Try as I might, without education and effort,

I cannot understand Swahili, or Cantonese, or Spanish

or the other languages of friends that I have had.

It makes me sad to think,

There have been people that I know

I would have been close friends with

if only I could speak their language and they could speak mine.

If we could have gotten beyond translators

and hand signals, we would have had a deeper relationship.

Language has lead to suspicion,

misunderstandings, and hostility

between people and countries.

And in our time,

language has been used to dominate

to subjugate, to scold and control.

In the early years of our country,

Native Americans were not allowed

to speak their own languages,

or to teach them to their young

in an effort to “civilize” them make them American.

During the world wars, Germans in the US

were forced to hide their own language,

lest they be seen as the “enemy”

And today, although on one hand we claim

to be a proud to be a melting pot,

there is sometimes open hostility to those who speak

different languages than English.

Like that city of Babel,

we want to build our own empires  to the sky

and to do that, we try to enforce uniformity,

and make a name for ourselves,

built on our own pride and prejudices.

But whether some people like it or not,

We live in a multi cultural world

that God has provided.

And one day in the morning, we can be

in a place where everyone speaks English

we can hop on a plane and be somewhere

where everyone speaks French,

or Mandarin, or Hindi, or Arabic,

or any number of languages and dialects and,

there are infinite cultures that go with each one

of those languages and

frankly that symphony is beautiful.

But when the day of Pentecost had come,

they were all together in one place.

And suddenly from heaven there came a sound

like the rush of a violent wind,

and it filled the entire house where they were sitting.

Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them,

and a tongue rested on each of them.

All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit

and began to speak in other languages,

as the Spirit gave them ability.

God is doing a new thing in this era.

Some have said that Pentecost is an undoing of Babel,

but notice this, everyone didn’t speak the same language,

they didn’t all just start speaking English

or some majority language that was convenient

for the dominant culture.

The apostles didn’t make some new language

like Esperanto so that everyone could understand.

It says that they were filled with the Holy Spirit

and began to speak and be understood

in other languages.

No one lost their identity,

they weren’t a homogenous group.

They were all there: Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt, Libya, Romans, Cretans, and Arabs.

But their differences were no longer a barrier.

Pentecost is the sign that diversity is not division.

Pentecost is the sign that unity of humanity is possible.

Pentecost is the unity of the Spirit of all people found in Jesus.

Language and culture doesn’t need to dominate or divide.

We are one in the Spirit of God.

We are scattered over this world

to proclaim God’s peace, understanding and love

Instead of making a name for ourselves,

we build a servant community, to build up one another.

Instead of building a city as a homage

our own ambition and pride, we build a city of God.

And as we do that, we see that God will break down barriers.

When I was a pastor in Texas,

there was an elderly couple who did

ministry for the ELCA with all the churches

along the Texas/Mexico border for the last 25 years or so.

His name was Bill and he was a retired pastor, and his wife was Ann.

The funny thing about them was that

neither one of them spoke Spanish very well.

We asked him about this on a pastors trip.

He said that the language barrier made him try harder,

he had to really look at people and understand them.

He said that to do ministry,

the important thing was not to have the Latino tongue

To do ministry there, you just had to have a Latino heart.

The language is not important, it’s just the heart.

God is doing a new thing today.

God is opening our hearts and minds.

God is removing barriers.

God is pouring out God’s Spirit on all flesh

And with God’s love and grace,

we will all be saved.