From Self-centeredness to True Freedom

2 When Pentecost Day arrived, they were all together in one place. 2 Suddenly a sound from heaven like the howling of a fierce wind filled the entire house where they were sitting. 3 They saw what seemed to be individual flames of fire alighting on each one of them. 4 They were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages as the Spirit enabled them to speak.

5 There were pious Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. 6 When they heard this sound, a crowd gathered. They were mystified because everyone heard them speaking in their native languages. 7 They were surprised and amazed, saying, “Look, aren’t all the people who are speaking Galileans, every one of them? 8 How then can each of us hear them speaking in our native language? 9 Parthians, Medes, and Elamites; as well as residents of Mesopotamia, Judea, and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, 10 Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the regions of Libya bordering Cyrene; and visitors from Rome (both Jews and converts to Judaism), 11 Cretans and Arabs—we hear them declaring the mighty works of God in our own languages!” 12 They were all surprised and bewildered. Some asked each other, “What does this mean?” 13 Others jeered at them, saying, “They’re full of new wine!”

14 Peter stood with the other eleven apostles. He raised his voice and declared, “Judeans and everyone living in Jerusalem! Know this! Listen carefully to my words! 15 These people aren’t drunk, as you suspect; after all, it’s only nine o’clock in the morning! 16 Rather, this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel:

17 In the last days, God says,

I will pour out my Spirit on all people.

    Your sons and daughters will prophesy.

    Your young will see visions.

    Your elders will dream dreams.

18     Even upon my servants, men and women,

        I will pour out my Spirit in those days,

        and they will prophesy.

19 I will cause wonders to occur in the heavens above

    and signs on the earth below,

        blood and fire and a cloud of smoke.

20 The sun will be changed into darkness,

    and the moon will be changed into blood,

        before the great and spectacular day of the Lord comes.

21 And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.

Acts 2:15, taken out of its context and read strictly on its own, is the most entertaining scripture in the Bible: “These people aren’t drunk, as you suspect; after all, it’s only nine o’clock in the morning!” Peter accepts the strangeness of the moment- I mean, weird things, are happening in the streets of Jerusalem. But it’s way too early in the day to dismiss the weirdness as drinking. What time would be appropriate? I’m wondering what made the crowds so hostile to hearing the apostles’ teaching in their own language? Could it be that they feared the unity being exhibited? Language had always been a barrier between people- going all the way back to the Babel story of Genesis 11: 

“11 All people on the earth had one language and the same words. 2 When they traveled east, they found a valley in the land of Shinar and settled there. 3 They said to each other, ‘Come, let’s make bricks and bake them hard.’ They used bricks for stones and asphalt for mortar. 4 They said, “Come, let’s build for ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the sky, and let’s make a name for ourselves so that we won’t be dispersed over all the earth.” 5 Then the Lord came down to see the city and the tower that the humans built. 6 And the Lord said, ‘There is now one people and they all have one language. This is what they have begun to do, and now all that they plan to do will be possible for them. 7 Come, let’s go down and mix up their language there so they won’t understand each other’s language.’ 8 Then the Lord dispersed them from there over all of the earth, and they stopped building the city. 9 Therefore, it is named Babel, because there the Lord mixed up the language of all the earth; and from there the Lord dispersed them over all the earth.”

Until just the other day, I always thought of the Babel story as a metaphor for human pride. People come together to build a walled city with a glorious tower “to make a name for themselves”- to show off to God. The Lord responds to their hubris by confusing their language and dismissing them to live apart from one another. At Pentecost, the Holy Spirit reverses this action: people hear the gospel in their own language, but all of those diverse pilgrims are united in their hearing. Then I read a new interpretation (new to me anyway) that changed my understanding of both Babel and Pentecost. 

What motivates the people to build the city is fear–they are afraid of being dispersed, so they believe they can isolate and protect themselves inside of a walled city of their own creation. They are fearful, but also disobedient. When God created their ancestors, the Lord said: “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth with your descendants.” The citizens of Babel refuse. God responds to their fear and disobedience by giving them different languages- they lose their ability to communicate effectively- and this confusion forces them to pack up and settle in various places. Now humankind will fill the earth. It’s not so much a punishment as it is a nudging to find their security in God, not human made walls and towers. The name for themselves they desired at the beginning of the building project is found only in their relationship to the Lord.

Thousands of years later, the crowds in Jerusalem are shocked to hear Galileans speaking Chinese and Spanish and Russian and whatever else, erasing the barrier of language, so that the gospel of Jesus is clearly heard by everyone. Peter dismisses their initial reaction of drunkenness, but he goes on to fully explain what is happening. He draws from the Hebrew prophet Joel’s vision of a restored humanity: “17 In the last days, God says,

I will pour out my Spirit on all people.

    Your sons and daughters will prophesy.

    Your young will see visions.

    Your elders will dream dreams.

18     Even upon my servants, men and women,

        I will pour out my Spirit in those days,

        and they will prophesy.” 

19 I will cause wonders to occur in the heavens above

    and signs on the earth below (remember the name of the sermon series? Probably not, and it’s not on the cover of your bulletin today so i’ll help you out: Wonders and Signs). Pilgrims from all over the world come to Jerusalem for the harvest festival, hear the gospel in their own native language, spoken by a handful of students who had never been more than a few hours from home? Yeah that’s a wonder and a sign! 

Christians understand Pentecost to be a festival celebrating the activity of the Holy Spirit. Going all the way back to the beginning of Genesis, we see the Spirit of God at work: “When God began to create the heavens and the earth— 2 the earth was without shape or form, it was dark over the deep sea, and God’s wind swept over the waters” (Genesis 1:1-2 ). The Hebrew word ruach can be translated as wind/spirit/breath. So at the creation of all things God’s Spirit was breathing new life into the chaos. The apostle Paul, in his magnificent Letter to the Romans, says “Now the way we live is based on the Spirit, not based on selfishness. 5 People whose lives are based on selfishness think about selfish things, but people whose lives are based on the Spirit think about things that are related to the Spirit. 6 The attitude that comes from selfishness leads to death, but the attitude that comes from the Spirit leads to life and peace. 7 So the attitude that comes from selfishness is hostile to God. It doesn’t submit to God’s Law, because it can’t. 8 People who are self-centered aren’t able to please God.”

The Spirit was an active Creator from the beginning, and the creative work is ongoing: “We know that the whole creation is groaning together and suffering labor pains up until now. 23 And it’s not only the creation. We ourselves who have the Spirit as the first crop of the harvest also groan inside as we wait to be adopted and for our bodies to be set free. 24 We were saved in hope. If we see what we hope for, that isn’t hope. Who hopes for what they already see? 25 But if we hope for what we don’t see, we wait for it with patience.”

“People who are self-centered aren’t able to please God.” “We ourselves… groan inside as we wait to be adopted and for our bodies to be set free.” Burdened as we are by the sins of wall building and self centeredness, it’s easy to see the brokenness in our society, made painfully obvious in recent weeks following mass shootings in Buffalo, Uvalde, Tulsa, and so many other places. If we are honest with ourselves, we modern folk are not too far removed from a Babel-like need to find security in other places, far from the love of God. Guns and other weapons, alarm systems, gated communities, one singular language spoken by everyone… you can probably think of other things sold to you with the promise of safety and security. When fear drives our behavior, the objects we turn to for protection quickly become gods themselves. We turn inward, away from the love of God, of neighbor, and of self, and become self-centered. We build walls to protect ourselves, but they quickly become a trap, imprisoning us inside and making real community impossible.

Pentecost, on the other hand, brings people together out of unity; it does not erase their differences- in fact, you could say Pentecost honors the differences between people. People have a common purpose and at the same time maintain their unique selves. God creates a new community of people from diverse backgrounds and languages- but these are not barriers that divide. The pilgrims realize their common humanity, united by the good news of Jesus, and the church is born. That’s why we say Pentecost is the church’s birthday. One commentator I read this week said it’s more like the church learning to take its first steps. One of those first steps is learning how to use our Spirit-empowered voices to spread the loving Gospel of Jesus Christ. We do not accept the violence we see in our hospitals, grocery stores, and schools; we unite in demanding a more just, peaceful way of life.

In her book Innovating for Love: Christian Social Innovation, Kenda Creasy Dean says: “One of the things hampering 21st century congregations, which have become obsessed with their many shortcomings, has been our insistence on asking, ‘How can we build a better church?’ That is the wrong question. The real question is, ‘Are we the people Christ calls us to be — human beings in communion with God and one another?’ We are not called to build better churches. We are called to be better at being human, better reflections of God’s love, formed in communities of people stumbling toward Jesus, squinting in the dazzling sunlight of new life.”

The people of Babel come together out of fear to build a fortress to protect themselves. God frustrates that fearful desire in order for them to fully embrace the freedom a relationship with the Lord God offers- remember as Paul said, the work of the Spirit is to move from self-centeredness to true freedom. The descendants of Babel came together every year in Jerusalem for a harvest festival, but one year was different. Something like “individual flames of fire alight[ed] on each one of them…” and a change happened. That change was felt in the heart of every individual on that day, and it’s felt every year when people of the church wear red on this day to remember the work of the Holy Spirit. At the ordination service at Annual Conference tomorrow night, I’ll wear this same red stole as the bishop lays hands on each ordinand, and says, “Lord, pour upon [name] the Holy Spirit for the office and work of a Deacon or Elder in the name of the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit.”

My prayer for each of us today is that we leave this place in the power of the Holy Spirit. I pray some of us sense the Spirit calling us to write letters to Congress and call for an end to rampant gun violence in our country. I pray some of us sense the Spirit calling us to the amazing gift and privilege of ordained or licensed ministry in the church. I pray some of us sense the Spirit calling us to serve in ways we– or even more exciting– no one ever imagined possible. I pray some of us sense the Spirit calling us to see and experience the wonders and signs of God in our community. I pray some of us sense the Spirit calling us to be better at being human, not building a church. I pray some of us sense the Spirit calling us to love each person as God loves us. I pray some of us sense the Spirit calling us to step out of the walled cities we build, isolating ourselves from one and another and God. I pray some of us sense the Spirit calling us to give away our need to find protection and safety in any form that is not the grace, mercy and forgiveness of Jesus Christ.

The Holy Spirit creates, blesses, sustains, guides, teaches, empowers. The Holy Spirit renews and brings revival. The Holy Spirit ordains each of us with gifts for the building of God’s kin-dom on earth. The Holy Spirit rebukes and challenges, lifting us from our complacency and indifference to human suffering. The Holy Spirit gives the people of God a voice, a vision, and a purpose. The Holy Spirit may well cause such a ruckus in our lives that folk outside the walls of this building may wonder what was in that bread and juice they shared in worship? Oh wait.. It’s only 12:00. Something else must be going on! In the name of the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit amen!