Shoo!

Since this was Pentecost Sunday, my sermon focused on that story in Acts 2. But it also focused on the story of Babel in Genesis 11. Do the two stories have anything in common? Oh, my, yes! Read my sermon and find out how!

We don’t usually think of God as scattering people apart. In fact, most of the stories that we know show God bringing them together! God brought a group of slaves out of Egypt and formed them into a people who would all live together in one place, the Promised Land. When Judah was conquered and its people dragged off to exile in Babylon, God brought them back home to live together again. And Jesus called his disciples to live together with him during his public ministry so that they could learn from his teaching and his example. But in these two stories, God does something very different. God arranges for people to be scattered, first away from the city of Babel (Genesis 11:1-9), and then from Jerusalem after Pentecost (Acts 2:1-12). These two stories are like bookends. The first is a very ancient story; while the second, from several thousand years later, reflects the first one.

Most people know the story of the tower of Babel. In ancient times, people settled in a green, fertile plain between the Tigress and the Euphrates Rivers. Genesis calls that place Shinar, an old name for the area that is now southern Iraq. They put their heads together, and they figured out how to make bricks and mortar – a new technology for that age. They decided that they would use their new technology to make a great situation even better. With those bricks, they planned to build a tower that went all the way to heaven, so that they would be like gods and be able to control their own destiny. But in God’s opinion, that was a very bad idea. They were like toddlers playing with power tools! Nothing good can come of that! So one morning when Isaac said, “Good morning”, his friend Jacques heard “Shalom! Boker tov.” (That’s Hebrew, by the way.) When Jacques replied, “How are you today?” Isaac heard “Comment allez-vous aujourd'hui?” (And that’s French!) And when Jacques sneezed, Hans responded, “Gesundheit!” (I hope you know that’s German.) Nobody could understand anybody else; and things went quickly downhill from there. Fights broke out and fists went flying. In the end, the people took their new languages and scattered all over the face of the earth; which was exactly what God wanted them to do. They had become too comfortable in that green, fertile plain; and they simply got too big for their britches. So God said, “Shoo!” and sent them packing.

Now compare the story of Babel with the story of Pentecost. Pentecost is Babel held up to a mirror and reversed. Instead of beginning with a group of people who all speak the same language, it starts with a Jews who have gathered from “every nation under heaven… Parthians, Medes and Elamites, residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and Libya, visitors from Rome, Cretans and Arabs.” If we looked on an ancient map, we would see that those places comprise the majority of the Roman Empire – the entire known world at that time! Pentecost picks up where the story of Babel left off. Although all those Jews are gathered to celebrate one religious festival, they speak in a variety of languages. And what does God do with the coming of the Spirit? God enables the apostles to speak in every one of those languages so that all those foreigners can hear the story of Jesus Christ. When they return to their own homes, the story will go with them! Eventually, the apostles were scattered, too, to tell the story of Jesus Christ wherever they went. Paul started churches in Greece; Peter travelled to Rome; and Thomas – “Doubting Thomas” – went all the way to India spreading the Gospel. All that traveling – all that scattering – begun by the Holy Spirit who was poured out on Pentecost.

Now, we don’t much like being scattered. I don’t know about you, but I’d much rather stay in a green, fertile plain where life is easy than move to a strange place where I’ll have to learn a new language and new ways of doing things.  I like to rub elbows with folks who look and sound and act just like I do; and most people feel the same way. (Why do you think that the idea of building a wall between our country and Mexico is so popular?) We want things to stay the way they are now, and live with people who are just like we are. But I assume that God is pretty much of the same opinion as God was at Babel and at Pentecost. God doesn’t want us to stick together in safe little clusters where everybody thinks alike and talks alike. God wants us to go out and mix it up with people who DON’T think just like we do! God says, “Shoo!” and sends us to Mobile, Alabama, and Oklahoma City, and Brazil, and Nairobi. God scatters us to tell the story of Jesus Christ so that, in the end, all humanity will be brought together worshiping one God through the power of the Holy Spirit. So, when our worship this morning is finished, shoo! Go out and meet other folks. Hear their stories and listen to their concerns. And the power of the Spirit will give you the words to tell them the good news of the gospel. Shoo! Go celebrate Pentecost!