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Unity, Diveristy, God and Us
Sermon by Brigid A. Boyle May 30, 2004, Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill Genesis 11:1-9 Acts 2, selected verses
“From my childhood,” writes Peter Gomes as he reflects on one of the images he has for Pentecost , “I can remember attending the testimonial meetings in our little A.M.E. church ... where my eminently respectable elders would, as we used to say, ‘get happy,’ and shake and dance and wave, making worship with their bodies and making clear with them what their tongues could not say. It was, and still is, both frightening and fascinating.” For Gomes and probably for others, even the word Pentecost calls to mind those occasions when the Spirit brings about ecstatic experiences beyond what we Presbyterians would consider rational explanation. Be it with that image, or that created by medieval artists with “great gusts of wind filling up Gothic chambers, and flames of fire hovering above the apostolic heads like little gas jets,” or simply the mental picture of the chaotic crowd gathered from all places together in one place, so it is that we envision Pentecost. And so, in the church, when fear seems to win out over fascination, most of the time we tend to shy away from Pentecost. In theory, it ought to be a Sunday as hallowed as Easter and as popular as Christmas, yet somehow, because of it’s place on the calendar or because we are spooked by the Spirit, it doesn’t seem to be a draw for us. Look around! Even so, on this Pentecost Sunday, we look to what happened that day long ago, the giving of the Holy Spirit to the early followers of Christ. So this Pentecost Sunday, we consider the reality of the Holy Spirit in our midst, perhaps not inspiring the likes of us to launch into different languages or touching us with cloven tongues of fire, but how it is that the Spirits will and works even now as it has for so long. To do that, we turn to two stories often read on this day, to two stories which might speak a spirit filled word even to us. We begin with a story found as the primeval history of Genesis comes to a close, to the story of the tower of Babel. It is the story of humankind, created by God and charged “to be fruitful and multiply, to fill the earth,” now taken over by a fear of being scattered abroad the earth. In attempt to avoid what they feared, they begin to build a city to keep them together as one and tower to reach to the heavens. The Almighty, of course, looks down upon the city and emerging tower, and concludes that humanity is veering dangerously close to an existence inconsistent with his will and so descends to turn their one language into many, so that what they hear is simply as babble to one another, and to scatter them abroad, the consequence of their actions being precisely the condition which they were trying to avert. The message of the story seems evident. Traditionally, the story spoke to the undeniable human impulse to reach God and God’s punishment for such self-sufficient pride. It illustrated the human desire to be God rather than bow down before God and the punishment incurred when such desire turned into action. The judgment offered an etiology, a reason, for the diversity of languages in the world - what better explanation is there? It all seems so simple. End of story. Or not. For I think there is more to this story than yet another word which would challenge our sinful pride. With a bit more delicate of an assessment than history has sometimes provided, perhaps we might find a clue to the author’s more subtle intent, and so a clue to how we might understand things differently. Most obviously, the story of what took place at Babel has to do with the resolve of humankind being in conflict with the resolve of God. It is a recurring theme of scripture and of human history. This morning though, I would have us consider the content of those differing resolutions. I would have us consider the notion of scattering, of the spreading abroad which humankind fears and takes action to prevent, and the spreading abroad which God effects nevertheless. The Hebrew verb used for the word “scatter” can and does in many cases refer to exile, to being spread abroad and apart in a negative sense. This is most often how we read the scattering done by God’s hand in this story, as negative consequence and punishment. Yet we would do well, I think, to consider another sense in which scripture uses this little verb. If we look to the story which precedes this chaos at Babel, to the story of Noah, we find, at its end, and after generations and generations and generations are named so as to underline the abundant post-flood blessing of life, these words, “These are the families of Noah’s sons, according to their genealogies, in their nations; and from these the nations spread abroad on the earth after the flood.” Spread abroad, scattered abroad- it is the same word. In this case, spreading abroad, scattering, is not to be seen as negative consequence, but as a positive part of God’s providence. It is a consequence of God’s blessing and mark of God’s will being accomplished. Spreading abroad, scattering, is a part of God’s plan for creation and the fulfillment of the mandate of “fill the earth” given as creation dawned. At least in this context then, the notion of scattering, of spreading a broad, is not punishment, but rather God’s intent for creation. “Then they said, ‘Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves; otherwise we shall be scattered abroad on the face of the earth.’” The fear of scattering, this fear of being spread abroad, according to Walter Bruggeman and relying on the more positive meaning of scattering, is itself humanity’s resistance to God’s purpose for creation. By God’s hand of blessing, humankind should be scattered abroad to all corners of the earth, yet humanity wants nothing more than to stick together and stick to itself. “The people do not wish to spread abroad,” writes Bruggeman, “but want to stay in their own safe mode of homogeneity. Thus the tower and the city as attempts at self serving unity which resists God’s scattering activity.” Attempts at unity as a resistance of God’s activity? How could that be? Is not God’s “plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in him”? (Eph. 1.10) Does not God will for us to be “One in Christ Jesus”? The answer to those questions is the same and it is “Yes.” But such an answer, I think, is given only with clarification. This is the subtle point to which Bruggeman directs us, that there are two kinds of unity. One the one hand, God’s will for unity is that all humankind, in the end, in the fullness of time, should know him and be in covenant with him. This is a unity based on the gospel of God’s sovereign call. On the other hand though, and within that unity, or perhaps underneath that unity, there is, I believe and I think scripture tells us, a will for scattering, for diversity across the face of the earth. In the beginning, God willed that the earth should be filled with life of all kinds, that his children should populate and spread abroad. This is a God who delights in scattering and diversity. His will then is for both, at once, unity and scattering. These two seeming opposites held together in God’s plan, speak a deep truth. The story illustrates the purpose of God to be neither self securing homogeneity, keeping us all the same and centered on ourselves, nor the scattering of autonomous parts as though elements of humanity did not belong to each other and have no connection to one another. Quite to the contrary, God’s will for humanity is a unity that holds us together by an overriding allegiance to him and, at the same time, forbids us from abandoning our own God given identities. So we turn back to the scattering in Genesis 11 to find a scattering which comes as punishment, yes, punishment for holding on to a homogeneity that was not of God, but, by grace, a punishment which, in part, accomplished God’s scattering purpose for creation. There is, of course, a danger inherent in the proclamation that scattering is purposeful and providential. If misunderstood, it might appear as though a warrant for a scattering that is not of God. I think mostly of apartheid theology in South Africa, wherein according to one anti-apartheid theologian, “white theologians of repute ... earnestly assure us that Pentecost is in fact a confirmation of their theory of differentiation and separation based on the tower of Babel. Here indeed the differences between peoples their various languages (and thus also their habits, culture and the like) are not obliterated by the Spirit but are in fact confirmed ... And so our racially separated churches are lent divine sanction and apartheid is to be held within the biblical message.” Such distinctions, be they black from white or any other differences based on one group wanting to lord power over another or conclude supremacy simply are not and cannot be of God. That does not mean that this story provides no divine sanction at all for scattering and diversity, it means that is a warrant for a particular kind of scattering and diversity, one united under God’s power and supremacy. Even as human practice and human brokenness reveal a scattering not of God, so too can we see evidence of the desperate and fear driven search after a unity, a homogeneity, not of God. There is, if we are honest, the reality of our fear, our fear of the other, our fear that we might be scattered and so dispersed among the other, apart from the ones like us who make the world seem safe and secure, among the ones whose language is different, whose skin is different, whose sexual orientation is different. How terrifying. Such fear has brought us and brings us still to build towers, communities, churches, even families, with the conviction that unity in all those things is not only safer for us but some sort of divine imperative. And that takes us as far from God’s purpose as does apartheid and slavery. It is precisely is the sort of false unity which God does not will, for it is a unity based not on his grace but on our fear, and it is precisely what he works to correct, first as the story of Babel ends and then as the church begins with the gift of the Spirit. On that Pentecost day long ago the disciples were gathered in one place, anxiously awaiting a sign from their risen Lord, when God’s Spirit blew over the chaos once again and brought creation closer still to its purpose. With the rush of a mighty wind and tongues as of fire, the Holy Spirit filled the room and the disciples were inspired to testify to it. They spoke in different tongues, all of the different languages then spoken in Jerusalem so that all were able to understand. The bystanders were perplexed and amazed as these people were united in praising God, but still scattered as each spoke a different language. This new Spirit gifted community which was born regarded its differences as no threat or danger, quite in contrast to the fear found in Genesis, yet also sought no unity other than that found as together they praised God. To the point, John Calvin wrote of this text, “Although their language may differ in sound, they all speak the same thing, while they cry, ‘Abba, Father’.” The unity God wills and the scattering God envisions. This Pentecost story grants us a vision, I think, of such unity and scattering. It comes as challenge and as corrective to so much of the way we see and shape the world around us. And it comes, too, as promise, that as the Spirit granted understanding in the wind and fire filled room so long ago, still it does the same even now. But more, the story, these stories, invite us to ask not simply “What does this mean?” but to ask, with the disciples, “What shall we do?” What shall we do, we who sit in the pews of an awfully homogenous church, in the midst of a community the same? What shall we do, we who have heard, and by Spirit’s gift, understood this call to unity and scattering? What shall we do, we who still do battle with the Babel fears? The only thing I know to do, the only place I know to begin is with the One whose life was given for the sake of such fear. On this Pentecost Sunday, and by God’s grace, may we use this day not simply to imagine a room filled with tongues of fire and the rush of a wind, but to imagine a room filled with the scattered whom God calls together, of every color and race, of every land and tongue, the rich and the poor, young and old, gay and straight, married and single, ... There may we begin and there may we stay. By God’s grace may we be given grace enough to imagine that room, and then, by God’s Spirit may we invite the scattered ones who are missing from this room, and then, with diversity and difference, may we speak the same thing, saying, Abba Father. Thanks be to God. Amen. |