*I often carry a manuscript or notes with me to preach. Sometimes the live sermon differs in some ways from the manuscript or notes. Here I have offered both.
Pastoral Prayer: Almighty God, accused of being drunk, Peter rose to confirm that all those declaring the Good News of the Promise of God are, in fact, in an altered state. The Gospel alters their view of others and the world. No longer do they see others as people to dominate. They see a world become new as God in Jesus Christ by the Spirit makes all things new. Keep doing that with us. Alter our vision by Your Grace and through Your Body, the Church, make our witness, our living together, an altered state of mercy and grace. May the words of my mouth and the meditation of all our hearts be pleasing in Your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. And all God’s people say, Amen.
The older gentleman, a retired missionary, led Randy into the sanctuary. Pam and a young lady followed. They neared the spot where they would seat Randy. Randy stumbled, almost falling to the floor, before the older gentleman steadied him up. In the near fall, a bottle hit the floor of the sanctuary. The three of them helped Randy to his seat. The older gentleman sat beside Randy. The two ladies sat with Randy on the other side. Josh and I discerned what the congregation already knew. Randy was drunk.
Luke tells us that 120 followers of Jesus gathered in the upper room. The Spirit of God overwhelmed them, and they filtered out among the pilgrims in Jerusalem, declaring the power of God in the languages of the travelers who had come to celebrate Pentecost. People from far and wide came to that one place. People from different languages came to Jerusalem for the festival. And the Gospel was given to and heard by people who had come from far and wide for the 50th day after the Passover celebration.
Confusion among onlookers ran at a high level. Some sought to quash any enthusiasm by alleging the group had broken open new bottles of wine and started day drinking, leaving them drunk.
In another story we find in the Scriptures, people came from the east and settled together in Shinar. There, in southern Mesopotamia, they found land rich in resources. The people learned to make bricks and mortar, the stuff with which homes, businesses, and cities are built. Language was not a barrier. Excitement over their newfound land and its rich resources left them not grateful but greedy. Armed with drive and independence, they began building - their goal was to reach the heavens, a euphemism for surpassing any deity.
Let us make a name for ourselves.
The short story is sandwiched between the genealogy of Noah’s family after the flood and the call of Abram. And it sets the stage for the narrative of Scripture that from the many, all together at Babel, came one, Abram, whose lineage would give us the One, Jesus, for the many, all of us. We know this transitional story as the Tower of Babel.
Against that backdrop, we hear Luke’s telling of that Pentecost Day that stirred both excitement and sneering.
In that story in Genesis 11 we find that God went down to see what the people were up to. This way of putting things is a way the narrator makes a distinction between those who want to be God and the One who is God. And we read,
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 will be impossible for them.
We read that as what could be wrong with such unity, such a display of togetherness? It is rightly described as powerful.
The problem?
Stanley Hauerwas, in a sermon for Pentecost Sunday, put it this way,
The problem at Babel is not human inventiveness; it is when our forebears used their creative gifts to live as if they need not acknowledge that their existence depends on gifts. . . . It is not technology that is the problem but the assumption that God’s creatures can name themselves - ensuring that all who come after will have to acknowledge their existence. They thus erect a tower, an unmistakable edifice, so they will never have to fear being lost in this vast world.
So the Babel story gives us the same language we find in Genesis 1,
Let us.
Let us make human beings in our image.
Let us go down and confuse their language.
The Trinity - Father-Son-Spirit - confuses the language and scatters the people.
In a turn we don’t readily see coming, Hauerwas offers an insight worth considering,
God’s confusing the people’s language, as well as his scattering of them, was meant as a gift. For by being divided, by having to face the otherness created by separateness and language and place, people were given the resources necessary to recognize their status as creatures. God’s punishment was the grace necessary to relearn the humility that ennobles.
Did you catch the insight? Rather than a world where difference and distinction collapse into uniformity and control, Babel was a gift to realize the value of the other, those different than us, such that we could live together learning from and with those around us as God’s creatures rather than as gods ourselves. I must tell you, this insight is as important today as it was that day. In fact, one could argue that the remainder of Acts gives us countless sermons and stories where the Gospel brings disparate people together despite differences and distinctions forming a community, the Church, that is made up of every nation, tribe, language and tongue - the very Promise God made to the one - Abram become Abraham.
All would be well had that been our response then or our response today. Instead, as Hauerwas put it,
But our parents refused to accept this gift and instead used their separateness as a club, hoping to force all peoples to speak their tribe’s language. Thus, at Babel war was born, as the fear of the other became the overriding passion that motivated each group to force others into their story or to face annihilation.
The sermon from which this insight and assessment come was offered in 1986. Not much has changed among people in the near forty years since it was written.
This description, that we refuse the gift, still fits the human condition.
We enjoyed an excellent week at Youth camp. Laura mapped out a camp that immersed our young people in stories, artifacts, and experiences related to Native American culture, specifically Chickasaw culture. The aim was not to discern how to make other people groups like our own, but to discover connections and appreciation so that we can find common ground to share the Gospel with anyone different from us.
It dawned on me watching our young people interact, taking in the various excursions and accompanying events. We had a bit of Pentecost. That is, the students came from different families, have different circumstances, attended four different schools, and have differences in themselves. They spent four days in close quarters. Over that time, they not only learned about the differences found in Chickasaw culture, but also about themselves. The week would not have gone as well without the Spirit among us all. If you doubt that, try gathering ten adults with different backgrounds, opinions, and experiences in close quarters for a series of days, all day. Why, for some, it isn't easy to do for a couple of hours on Sundays.
Youth camp is not a high. That is how we built it and have maintained it for such a long time. “You have to come down from the mountaintop experience,” we were told. A better way is to put it is that for a while, our state is altered. That is, for a season, our perspective is changed, as the emphasis is upon the Gospel and the Kingdom of God. We are spending time in community learning how to live together with grace and patience, humbly.
The late Dallas Willard described it as living in the reality of the Kingdom of God today, every day.
Church is God’s people sharing community as an altered state. When we gather we create a home where all are welcome.
Thinking back to Randy that Sunday. The congregation knew Randy. He may be classified as homeless. But Annandale opened their home to Randy. They do every week.
Too many look at Annandale and rather than assess Randy as a drunk, think the church must be drunk as they patiently and lovingly take Randy in as often as he comes.
Maybe that is the point at Pentecost. God is creating his people, a Body of Christ, that lives in an altered state willing to Gospel any and all despite differences and distinctions. It is indeed a different direction that our Nation State is heading. Maybe Jesus will garner their attention through the only Body He has on earth, as the world wonders how it is to be drunk by the Spirit when we open up bottles of grace for all people at all times.
love this sermon Todd. Thank you.