Litchfield Presbyterian

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Genesis 11:1-9

Acts 2:1-21

The story of the confusion of the languages at the tower of Babel is itself quite confusing.  I mean, what is the problem here?  Why is God displeased that “nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.” ?  The usual explanation points to the Promethean impulse among humans.

Perhaps you know the story of Prometheus?  It is from ancient Greek mythology.   Prometheus is a kind of lesser God who challenges the great god Zeus.  Zeus has withheld fire from humans as a punishment for the inadequacy of the sacrifices humans offered to him.  Not out of compassion for the humans, but out of spite for Zeus, Prometheus steals fire from Zeus and gives it to the humans.  The Promethean impulse among humans is therefore, the attempt of humans to achieve for themselves what they should receive as a gift from God.

Rather than allowing God to make them great, the humans in the tower of Babel story labor to make themselves great through their own efforts.  God is displeased with this self-promotion of the human race, and frustrates their project by confusing their languages.  When someone asks the perfectly reasonable question, “why are there so many languages among the human race?” The tower of Babel story provides an answer.

There is something for us to learn here, no doubt, but I want to take the interpretation of this story in little different direction.  I believe that the stories of Genesis – the stories of the beginnings – the stories of creation are not merely about what happened long, long ago.  These of stories, we may say inspired myths or legends, that help us understand how God is urging, drawing and calling us into our highest selves right now.  These are stories about our human becoming in our relationship to the source of being, the goodness of life that is God.  These are stories that are meant to help us become what God means for us to be – right now in our lives as we live from day to day.

It is in that light that I want to interpret the tower of Babel story, and the story of Pentecost in the second chapter of Acts will help me do this.  Something happens in the Pentecost story that sheds a great deal of light for us.  At first I was tempted to see the Pentecost story as a kind of reversal of the Babel story.  In one languages are confused so that people can not understand each other, and in the other the apostles ecstatically speak in a variety of languages so that people from all over the world heard in their own languages.  But as I thought about this, I realized that this is not really a reversal of the multiplying of the languages, is it?  I mean the languages remain separate and distinct so that people each hear the apostles speaking in their own language.  What happened is not that the diversity of language is removed, but rather that the diversity is embraced and the apostles are empowered by the Holy Spirit to bring a unity of understanding through the diversity of the languages.

The message of the Babel story, in the light of the Pentecost story is this: humans are constantly tempted to make themselves great by creating unity through sameness.  But God intends the richness, the greatness of humanity to be realized as we experience unity of spirit in and through our diversity.

Let me unpack this a little.  Humans are constantly tempted to make themselves great by creating unity through sameness.  Human history is replete with examples of the human tendency to enforce conformity, sameness and orthodoxy.  The thinking seems to be, “if only we could get everybody to conform, to think and believe and behave the same way then we could really be great, we could really accomplish something.  Heterodoxy, non-conformity, and differences or opinion and belief are seen as threats.  Power is understood as the ability the make people conform.  A few examples from relatively modern history will suffice.

In 1976 the communist Khmer Rouge un Pol Pot took control of Cambodia.  At the time, about 85 percent of the population followed the Theravada school of Buddhism. The country’s 40,000 to 60,000 Buddhist monks, regarded by the regime as social parasites, were defrocked and forced into labor brigades.

Many monks were executed; temples and pagodas were destroyed or turned into storehouses or jails. Images of the Buddha were defaced and dumped into rivers and lakes. People who were discovered praying or expressing religious sentiments were often killed. The Christian and Muslim communities also were even more persecuted, as they were labeled as part of a pro-Western cosmopolitan sphere, hindering Cambodian culture and society.

The Roman Catholic cathedral of Phnom Penh was completely razed. The Khmer Rouge forced Muslims to eat pork, which they regard as forbidden.  Many of those who refused were killed. Christian clergy and Muslim imams were executed.

In Ireland from 1695 through the middle of the 19^th century, the British enacted a series of penal laws specifically designed to subjugate the large Irish catholic majority.  Among other restrictions, Irish Catholics were banned from owning land, they could not own a horse worth more than £5, they could build no new churches and priests could not say mass without specific permission, parents were not permitted to educate their children at home, and it was made illegal to write or speak the Gaelic language.  All this was designed to force the majority into subservience to the British crown.

Repeatedly in the 1880s, the U.S. government required all instruction for Indians to be in English. Traditional Indian ceremonies, such as the Sun Dance of the Plains Indians, were banned. Students entering government boarding and day schools were reclothed, regroomed, and renamed. Locked rooms were used as “jails,” and corporal punishment was employed to enforce school rules that usually included a ban on tribal languages. In his autobiography, Indian Agent, long-time teacher, school administrator, and Indian agent Albert Kneale reported that Indian students in Indian schools “were taught to despise every custom of their forefathers, including religion, language, songs, dress, ideas, methods of living.” The alternatives for Indians were annihilation or assimilation.

These are just the tip of the iceberg of the many historic, and  I’m sad current instances of forced conformity.  All this in the name of achieving human, and often Imperial greatness by means of unity through sameness.  This is not God’s way.  It is impoverishing to the human race and destructive of the human spirit.

Sadly, tragically, the Christian religion has been one of the worst offenders on this score. Intolerance and suspicion of those who believe or worship differently has been the hallmark of many Christian groups from the beginning.  Catholics and Protestants alike have burned so-called heretics at the stake. The Pope burned John Huss in Germany and John Calvin burned Michael Servetus in Geneva. Anglicans persecuted Puritans in England and Puritans persecuted Quakers in New England. Everybody burned witches wherever they could including a few not 50 miles from here in Salem, Massachusetts.  Fundamentalists condemned modernists and vice versa.  On and on it goes.  This does not please God.

To be one people, with one language and one ideology and one religion, is not what God wants for humanity.  The ancient story of the tower of Babel makes this clear.  God wants people to be different – a rich and multi-colored mosaic of diversity.  But this does not mean that God wants people to be divided.  The message is clear.  God indeed intends unity, but not sameness.  Is this vision, this dream of human community impossible?  Is it beyond hope, beyond reach?

It may be for us, perhaps, but not for God.  The means of achieving unity in diversity is through the Holy Spirit.  That is one of the great messages of Pentecost.  When Peter interpreted what had happened on that day, he turned to the message of the prophet Joel.  The outpouring of God’s spirit on all people makes possible unity in diversity by causing people to re-think their understanding of humanity and to dream dreams and have visions – dreams of humanity as a race of loving souls – visions of the world as a community of compassion and inclusion.

Jesus had such a vision – he called it the kingdom of God. The reign of love.  It is a peaceable kingdom when reconciliation reigns.  In the world according to this vision, the outsider is invited in.  The ones who are different are cherished, not in spite of their differences, but because of them.  Strangers are welcome here, and the least of these are treated with the greatest honor.  In the vision of God’s reign of love, there is no gossip; there are no grudges. When one stumbles or falls, all hurry to be supportive.  Enemies won over by love.  Sinners are not condemned, but gently corrected and restored.   This is how Jesus saw humanity and how he lived.  His vision, his dream, his manner of life came from God.  It is God’s will.  And it is what the followers of Jesus proclaimed and how they sought to live.

In 1963 a young Baptist preacher stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and delivered a sixteen minute sermon.  He said, “I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.  I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today!”

That is the dream of God, that is the vision of Pentecost – that is the purpose of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on all flesh.  It is not a dream that we may all be the same, not vision that our differences will be eradicated, not a hope that we will conform to some fixed standard or be converted to one religion or one system of belief. No, it is instead a vision of common humanity.  It is a dream of mutual respect.  It is a belief that love is more powerful than hate, that hope is stronger than suspicion, that forgiveness is greater than sin.

Clearly we are not there.  We have not yet arrived.  But just as clearly we will never get there without a vision.  We can never arrive without a dream.  The outpouring of the spirit of God – the same spirit that moved Jesus in all he did and said – that is our only hope.  After Peter preached on the day of Pentecost, his hearers “were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?”  Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off—for all whom the Lord our God will call.” Let us also receive this forgiveness and open our hearts to the gift of the Holy Spirit – the gift or a dream, the gift of a vision.  Amen.

This sermon was recorded on  Sunday, March 28, 2010. To listen to this Sermon Audio recording  Click Here

This sermon was recorded on  Sunday, March 21, 2010. To listen to this Sermon Audio recording Click Here.

This sermon was recorded on  Sunday, March 14, 2010. To listen to this Sermon Audio recording Click Here.

This sermon was recorded on March 7, 2010. To listen to the audio recording of this sermon Click Here.