Day of Pentecost: May 27, 2007.

Genesis 11:1-9

Psalm 104:25-35,37 [NRSV 104:24-34, 35b]

Acts 2:1-21

Romans 8:14-17

John 14:8-17 [25-27]

The story of the tower of Babel completes the primeval prologue's account of humanity's descent from life with the Creator into division and death. Genesis 1-11 pictures human beings as part of God's good creation but willfully sinking deeper into sin. The stories in these chapters conform to a pattern: Having received God's gift of life, humanity repeatedly rejects God's rule and experiences God's wrath. Each time, God acts in mercy to give another chance. The story of building Babel is the final story in the cycle, but the cycle is incomplete. The tower builders reject God's rule and as a result are divided and dispersed. In Hebrew, there is a play on words: The city was called Babel ([TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]) because God confused, balal ([TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]), their language. There is, however, no immediate sign of divine mercy. The reader must wait until chapter 12 to hear how God is beginning anew to reach out to a wayward humanity through Abraham and Sarah.

A key to understanding this story is hidden by the traditional decision to transliterate the Hebrew word [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] as Babel. Everywhere else in the Old Testament the name is translated as Babylon. This reveals why building the city and the tower is a sign of human rejection of God and why God responds in wrath. The tower builders are constructing Babylon, the city that represents (for the post-monarchy Judean faithful) the pinnacle of everything that is anti-God. Because the Babylonian armies destroyed Jerusalem, slaughtered its inhabitants, and burned the temple, the city of Babylon became a symbol of human evil that produces domination, death, and destruction. Although from the perspective of the story Nebuchadnezzar's empire is yet to arise and the tragic end of Jerusalem lies in the distant future, the reader already knows what Babylon will accomplish. It is this memory that supplies the emotional punch to the story.

In Acts 1:8, the risen Christ gave his followers a promise and a command: a promise that they would receive power from the Holy Spirit and a command to go as his witnesses to the ends of the earth. Acts 2:1-21 tells how God has fulfilled the promise so that Jesus' followers might fulfill the command. The followers of Jesus were together for the festival of Weeks, known among Greek-speaking Jews as Pentecost because it was fifty days after Passover ([TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] = fiftieth). God's Spirit filled the disciples with new life and power. They began to speak in other languages, announcing to the many visitors in Jerusalem God's powerful work of raising Jesus from the dead. Peter interpreted this mysterious event as the fulfillment of prophecy, citing Joel 2:28-32a. God has given the Spirit to all of God's people! The images of cosmic disruption refer to God's vindication of Jesus and God's victory over the established powers of this world. After Peter's sermon, the reader sees how the command has begun to be fulfilled. The 3,000 who welcomed the message and were baptized that day (v. 41) carried the good news of God's victory over sin and death as they returned to their homes--from Mesopotamia, Egypt and Rome, to the ends of the earth.

It is common to see in the gift of the Spirit at Pentecost a sign that reveals God's purposes to heal and restore creation, including overcoming the disorder and confusion of languages at Babel. The Spirit of God crosses over the boundaries of language and culture to create a new people of God, a human family renewed and made whole. This community is able to be a sign of God's healing purposes precisely because it is the Spirit of Jesus that shapes it. To be the community of Jesus amounts to being the anti-Babylon community. Babel/Babylon was built by human hubris on the bodies of the victims of its violence. The church, empowered by the Spirit, is the new and life-giving alternative to every empire that deals domination and death. Guided by the Spirit, the church is God's gift of an alternative to the sad history of human violence and destruction. The church is able to be such an alternative, and an anticipation of the city of God, insofar as it embraces Jesus' way of forgiveness, generosity, service, and peacemaking.

In Romans 8, Paul explores how the Spirit defines life for the people of God. In verses 14-17 Paul uses the image of kinship to picture the new status shared by those who belong to Christ and live in the Spirit. Believers are children of God, received by adoption into God's very own family. Paul's use of Aramaic, Abba, to call upon God as Father may reflect Jesus' practice and teaching for prayer. In a culture in which identity received through kinship was of supreme importance, what Paul says is striking. For believers, the benefits of membership in their family of origin and the claims of that family loyalty have all been surpassed by the new identity given by God. We are in fact not only members of God's family but also heirs of God's dominion. It is the presence of God's own Spirit in our lives experienced through a relationship of intimacy in prayer that confirms to us our identity as God's children.

Paul pauses to identify an important quality that belongs to God's children: suffering. Suffering is inescapable for those who belong to Christ and are led by the Spirit. God is delivering the world from the powers of sin and death, bringing a new world into being. Until God's work is completed, those who seek to live in the way of Jesus will be at odds with every empire. To live against the values of Babel/Babylon will inevitably bring grief for believers. But such experiences of sorrow and suffering must not be regarded with ultimate seriousness, because a far greater glory awaits.

In John 14 Jesus speaks with the disciples about the Holy Spirit on the evening of his betrayal. Jesus warns them that he is going to the Father but promises that he will send the Advocate, the Spirit of truth. The reading unfolds in typical Johannine style. Philip misunderstands what Jesus says about the Father, which provides the opportunity for Jesus to lead his followers into deeper teaching. Jesus speaks of his relationship with the Father, a relationship testified to by the character of the works Jesus has done. Jesus declares that those who believe in him will do even greater works, evidently because Jesus is going away and will send the Spirit for his followers.

The final verses of the reading are a thick web of significant Johannine themes. The one who loves Jesus is obedient to Jesus, abides in Jesus, and will receive the Spirit that Jesus sends. Jesus refers to the Spirit as the Paraclete, variously rendered as Advocate, Counselor, or Helper. The Spirit's task is to reinforce the work that Jesus has already done to lead his followers in his way of service and love. Jesus' last words in this reading are a profound source of strength for the community that would live by Jesus' alternative wisdom. Jesus gives peace and calls his followers to not be afraid. AJC