Texts: Genesis 11:1-9; Acts 2:1-21

Speaking in tongues! What do we mean by the phrase? Is it a curse or a blessing, perhaps, a little of each? Is it a phenomenon that divides Christians and, if so, are those divisions necessary? Are there ways to approach speaking in tongues that will, in the end, bring us closer together? Today we will consider two ancient texts that teach us much about speaking in tongues.

They had it all figured out, or, at least, they thought they did. At the heart of their magnificent city, they would build a tower that reached into heaven; they would establish a direct link to God; they would be able to negotiate face to face with God to insure that God would never again flood the earth. Look! Weren’t they a totally unified body, didn’t they all speak the same language, weren’t they growing in power daily? God would never again be able to wreak the kind of havoc and destruction that God had brought on their ancestors.

They had come wandering out of the arid Middle Eastern landscape into this valley, this fertile crescent, where two great rivers converge. The earth, with its inhabitants and all their handiwork, had been devastated by the great flood. Only these descendants of Noah had survived. They had wandered the earth seeking refuge. This seemed the perfect place. As their numbers grew and they prospered in this comparatively rich environment, they felt increasingly secure and self-assured. They were determined to defend themselves from the kind of terror and despair they had known in the time of the great flood and in the time of their wandering. They wanted to solidify for themselves and their children the wealth and power of their great city.

In Genesis, the mythical tale of the tower of Babel comes immediately after the story of the flood. More than anything, the tale is an attempt by one group of people to make sense of the observable phenomenon that other people spoke different languages, along with the other social and cultural differences they could see. If all of humankind traced its lineage from the same parents, created in the beginning by the one God, how could they account for this speaking in tongues? Some bright teacher decided to blame it on what eventually came to be labeled original sin, the problem of human pride. It makes a nice parallel to the tale of Adam and Eve, sneaking fruit from that forbidden tree so that they might have the same kind of knowledge that God had. These are classic tales of human beings overreaching their grasp and falling from glory.

Literally, the tower in the story was most likely a magnificent ruined Babylonian ziggurat. Here we have the writers of Genesis ridiculing the collapse of another religion’s attempts to reach God. To them, there were clear boundaries that humans were not to cross in relationship to God. Though God was present with God’s people, no one could actually see the face of God and live. So, another tale is told to teach the lesson of limits, to explain the lack of unity among human beings, to make sense of human babble, to account for many languages and speaking in tongues.

Though bringing about dissonance and confusion among the people of the earth hardly seems to be God’s intention for creation, it does make sense that some speaking in tongues is a natural and inevitable consequence of human willfulness and the failure to listen to one another, let alone God. That is, the tendency, often in quite individualistic fashion, to do it myself, to figure it out on my own, to do it my way, leads to such fatuous creations as the tower of Babel. The problem is not the creative capacity of human beings. God made us to be creative creatures, but we are also made to be co-creators WITH God. If we go off building towers in the sky, without any process of discerning God’s will, we will most likely end up crashing into confusion and chaos. This is not to say that we will not sometimes stumble on to God’s path while doing our own thing, but the process of our living is meant to be collaborative from the beginning. The guidebook, the blue prints, the instructions are readily available, if we’re interested. Noah and his family and the other animals were saved from destruction because they had eyes to see and ears to hear. They sought God’s will and followed God’s instructions in building the Ark and they were saved.

The builders of Babel were self absorbed. Build a tower to heaven. It represents false security, false hope, a failure to understand the way God works and the real needs of creation. A thing of beauty and a thing of ruin, like the tombs of the pharaohs, those magnificent monuments that were to serve as vessels for their journey to their own enshrinement among the gods, which now sit empty and plundered, eroding in the desert sand.

In the last presidential election campaign, there was an ad showing President Bush announcing plans to send a man to Mars (note a man, not a woman!) The footage of his announcement is cleverly intercut with footage of people expressing their basic human needs for healthcare, welfare and education. There is so much to be done, right here at ground level before we go building towers to heaven. I don’t mean this to sound as if I am categorically opposed to adventure, to exploring new frontiers or creating beauty for its own sake. This is more of a concern that we lay the foundation to whatever we build by doing justice and loving mercy, by loving God and loving neighbors.

A little humility goes a long way toward helping us bring our priorities in line with the will of God, who made us and desires to commune with us, who loves us and invites us to feast at Her own table. The arrogance with which our own nation wields power on earth is akin to that of other empires that now lie in ruin. The accumulation of wealth, the hoarding of resources, the neglect of the poor and disenfranchised, the stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction, the practice of preemptive warfare, the failure to listen carefully and respectfully to the voices of others, all contribute to an ungodly speaking in tongues that manifests in hatred, resentment, suicidal bombings, the cries of the tortured and maimed, of mothers and fathers and children; that breeds hunger, disease, homelessness and a culture of incarceration; that threatens the ruination of the great “American dream,” a dream which, in its very name, arrogates prosperity and power to the visions of a limited number among a select few within the borders of the United States of America, ignoring the dreams and even the right to dream of all the millions beyond who occupy the American continents. If we do not learn to walk humbly with God, may we be headed toward our own Babel experience in which walls come tumbling down and security so sorely sought lies in fragments at our feet?

The story of Pentecost offers us another perspective on speaking in tongues. In contrast to the confounding of communication in Babel, we find here a consummation of God’s purposes, as the Spirit empowers God’s people to speak. The city is full to overflowing. They are gathered from all over. This motley crew are the descendants of the builders of Babel, of those first constrained to speak in many tongues. Jerusalem is a crossroads, an international city and it is time for one of the three great feasts of the Jewish faith, the Feast of Weeks, in which the barley harvest is celebrated. The weather is ideal and the crowd is large. The followers of Jesus, here referred to as Galileans, are gathered with all the rest. Scholars are unclear as to how many of them there are. Was it the small group of Apostles or a larger group of followers? However many, as observant Jews they have come to the festival. It is 50 days after the Passover and the Resurrection. Jesus has appeared to them several times now and has finally ascended to heaven. Still, you can imagine there would be considerable buzz among them as they remembered and shared. Perhaps it had been some time since some of them have even seen each other. There remained a kind of quivering excitement about all they had experienced so recently.

Luke tells us that in this agitated state, with their lives vulnerably open to new possibilities and unusual experiences, “they were all together in one place” when “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.” This story may also have its mythic properties, as Luke insists that “All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.” This seems highly improbable, given that most of them are peasant folk, monolinguistic Galileans with little education or worldly sophistication. But whether or not it happened literally, as Luke recounts, something special occurred here and, as with all myths, we need to see if we can find its kernel of truth, its message for us.

Luke is undoubtedly trying to make a case for a shift in power and personality that clearly did occur among these simple people after their encounter with Jesus. One way that the early Christians had come to speak of this transformation was in terms of the Holy Spirit entering their lives, bringing them both comfort in the physical absence of Jesus and power to spread the good news of the Christ to the ends of the earth. There was indeed amazement and astonishment at the willingness of this little wing of a silenced and silent minority suddenly to speak out.

Because Peter has been in his own process of discernment and growth over these past seven weeks, he suddenly realizes he is ready to step forward to take on the role that Jesus assigned him as the “rock,” the spokesperson for the emerging movement. Whatever else has happened on this remarkable day, whatever tongues have been spoken, however this large assembly from all over the world has been touched, Peter now speaks to them, in the power of the Holy Spirit, with authority. “Remember the prophet Joel,” he asks his Jewish sisters and brothers? "When he says, ‘In the last days it will be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and daughters will prophesy and your young men [and women] shall see visions and your old men [and women] dream dreams[?] Even upon my slaves, both men and women, in those days will I pour out my Spirit; and they shall prophesy.’ Well, today that prophecy is being fulfilled among you.” He goes on to share with them the good news of Jesus, the Christ, and Luke says 3000 were added to the group that day. Not only could this be considered the first Christian sermon, it sounds a little like the first evangelistic crusade. Billy Graham, himself, would have been proud of old Peter. And so we celebrate this as the birthday of the church.

As we come to the table on this Sunday on which we celebrate the birthday of the church, what are your dreams and visions for its future? How may we truly be God’s people in this time and place? What is the good news that we have for our neighbor and our world? May we be open to the Sprit’s movement; may we look for tongues of flame that can empower us to do God’s will, may we learn to speak in tongues that speak to the whole wide world words of truth and healing, peace and justice, compassion and love; may we find ourselves together in mystic sweet communion with the God who made us and with the whole creation. Amen.