May 23, 2010 Sermon

The Spirit Connection     (Genesis 11: 1-9; Acts 2: 1-18)

Rev. Sally Harris
    
Come Creator Spirit, come into our hearts
Come and unite all creation with the fire of your love. Amen

Once upon a time, a long, long time ago, the world was created. Like ancient peoples everywhere, the people of Israel knew their creation stories by heart. They told and retold them, and eventually, after many generations, some 3,000 years ago during the reign of King David or his son Solomon, someone began to write them down. These ancient people called their creator Yahweh, a divine holy energy who breathed life upon the chaos creating the diversity of creation.

The original manuscripts are long gone, but the stories are not. At least four of them can be found in the first eleven chapters of Genesis that were created by the priests of Israel who had been taken into exile by the armies of Babylonian about 600 years before the birth of Christ. There by the rivers of Babylon, some learned priest sat down, remembered Zion, and recorded the ancient stories so that they could remember who they were and so that they could hold onto the story, the narrative, the word that had created them. So despite their confusion, despite this unknown wilderness the storytellers wanted the people to be able to choose, not abandon, the God of their ancestors, Yahweh who had created them.

The priestly writer told the old stories the people knew, but with a bit of a twist. He added some snippets, which sort of connected the dots between the ancient stories. And came up with some brand new stories that would shed some light on the circumstances of Israel’s exile and give them hope that some day their captors would be defeated and they would be allowed to return home to Israel. So in the first 11 chapters of Genesis we have some really old stories of the first humans of creation overlaid by stories with marked political intent.

The tall tale of Babel is the last of the great pre-history legends. Now archeologists tell us that at least 5,000 years ago the rulers of that part of the world began building ornate ziggurats, tall pyramid-like towers made of brick, with their ‘heads in the clouds’. These ziggurats were not sites of public worship but were believed to be dwelling places for the gods. (In fact, the word Babel, as in ‘Tower of Babel’ means ‘gate of the god’.) Each city had its very own god or goddess who was believed to come down to earth through their community’s ziggurat.

Of course, the Israelites would look at such buildings with theological horror and outrage, so it’s no wonder that this story would have Yahweh terminate the Babylonian building project. The interesting piece is how it ends. It doesn’t rain for 40 days and 40 nights. There is no earthquake or fire or dust storms. No! Nothing nearly so dramatic. God simply “baffles their language!” God and an “unspecified celestial entourage” go down and baffle the people’s language. And because they couldn’t communicate, the people had to abandon the Tower project. From there the people scattered over all the earth, in search of others who could speak their language.

The story of the Tower of Babel is a familiar story. To be sure, it seeks to explain why there are so many languages in the world but the Babel story does more than that. It exposes a deep ache in the heart of humanity: We want to connect. We want a spirit connection, not just with a higher power or divine energy. We want to connect with each other. We want others to understand our unique perspective, our own way of saying things.

Which brings us to the story of Pentecost and the wonder of the Holy Spirit who arrived and helped folks connect with each other. People from a multitude of different lands, speaking a host of different languages heard the disciples speaking in their own language and they were baffled. There is just nothing more surprising than when someone who seems so different from you actually understands you.

Most of the time understanding is not simply about language. Most of the time the key to understanding is in your heart. Understanding is not about a cognitive function but about really listening. It’s about paying attention to each other.

The priests of the exile knew that listening was important business. They knew that when people don’t listen to each other, when we don’t pay attention to what’s really being said, the community begins to erode. A community that cannot understand each other and does not value listening not only is unable to build towers, it cannot believe promises, it cannot hold together. The key to understanding another person is not only to listen with open ears, but to listen with an open heart. For most importantly the community must value the spiritual connection that makes all things possible.

The story of the Tower of Babel is about the creation of languages but it’s also about the inability of a community to build something together when they cannot understand each other. The story of Pentecost is the promise to the church that if we truly want to build something together we need to listen for the spirit that connects us. On this Pentecost may the Spirit open our hearts so that we can really hear one another and understand each other and live our lives in true community, right here, right now.

May it be so! Amen.

(resource: Rev. Susan Leo)

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