Pentecost 2010 Gen. 11

 

When Saralyn, now graduated from college, was a baby, she was an early talker. Her mother and I could understand her sometimes, but we were the only ones. She called water "wahvap" and would be annoyed when it wasn't forthcoming. I remember feeling like Anne Sullivan in the Helen Keller story when I finally guessed that she meant water. The story of Babel imagines how a common language devolved into a confusion of many tongues. While we have the gift of speech, we often find it hard to understand or to be understood. Confusion remains the rule, especially amid the crowd noise of satellite TV and the Internet clamoring for our momentary attention. Babel is a symbol that our technology can be a cause of confusion as well as an answer. The push to instant communication puts us in the unenviable position of sending out unfiltered messages too quickly. I just recommended the book, Please Understand Me,  to a couple getting married to help alert them to the ways different personality types may affect the way we communicate, or fail to communicate clearly. We are not clear about what each other is saying, or really saying. We often guess by using our supposed reactions to something, and then we project it on to the person with whom we are trying to talk.

 

Pentecost preserves the diversity of many tongues, but it rediscovers the essential unity of us. At one level, the babble of an unfamiliar language would be heard, but each person had a Spirit-driven translator to make it plain in their own language. It was the opposite of the problem people have with a hearing aid being unable to pick up one thread of conversation amid the babble of voices at a party. At the national level, our church meets in general Assembly in a little over a month. I'm afraid that we divide too easily into warring factions and are uninterested in hearing voices that do not agree with our own. To a sad extent, we have adopted the rancor of talk radio politics and adopted it into our dealings with brothers and sisters of the faith. Pentecost is the announcement that God's spirit breaks down even the barriers of language for us to see ourselves properly as equal children of God. The Spirit moves us toward common understanding and common endeavors. the Spirit accepts differences; it does not command uniformity.

 

Communion is a clear communication from the hand of God. Even though we hold that words of Scripture and prayer are part of the participation in this sacrament, it is a wordless offering. All over the world, people of different languages are celebrating this sacrament. We are part of a great spiritual family meal on Pentecost. That does mean that is a complex, deep, and enduring; it is more than a simple hello saying I'm still here. It speaks to the whole of us: body and soul together. It speaks to God being with us in all of our lives, interpenetrating our thoughts, feelings, and actions. Just as we realize that the bread and cup become part of our being, so too does God. God doesn't turn away from us. God is involved with us. Pentecost is a feast day of holy clarity, where all the world gets to hear again that God's grace pours out on everybody, young and old, rich and poor, liberal or conservative alike. When we receive Communion we are not claiming special status, but that we arrive before God empty-handed, all of us thirsty for the life of Christ in the sign of bread and cup.