Beating Babel
Stories
Lectionary Tales for the Pulpit
Series VI, Cycle B
Object:
Once upon a time, in the dim and distant past, a little Jewish child asked, "Mommy, Daddy, why do people from different countries talk funny?" And the response came from an even dimmer and more distant past -- the story of the Tower of Babel that we find in chapter 11 of Genesis. Human pride had decided it would make a name for itself and would build a city and a tower that would be a gateway to heaven; God would not allow such presumption so the speech of the workers was confused, they fell to bickering among themselves, dispersed over all the earth, and never did complete the tower. And that is why Germans do not understand French, Italians do not understand Chinese, Greeks do not understand English, and nobody understands teenagers!
To this day, we have problems communicating with one another. In international relations, translations often fail to convey proper meanings. Multinational corporations learn the lesson the hard way. A friend of mine used to be in the advertising business and was responsible for the Pepsi Cola account. He is the one who came up with the slogan, "Come alive. You're in the Pepsi generation." Remember that? I am told that Pepsi tried to market their product in China using the same slogan. Ha! In Chinese the meaning came out as, "Pepsi brings your ancestors back from the dead."
To be sure, communication is tough enough even when folks speak the same language. The same word means different things to different people. One person talks about justice and means that everyone should have fair and equal opportunity for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness -- no one should expect a free ride at the expense of society ... each one should pull his or her own weight. That is just. But another thinks justice means that life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness should be understood to guarantee a home, a job, and medical care for everyone, regardless of any other consideration, and we should all chip in to make sure that no one falls through the cracks. Same word ... justice ... vastly different meanings.
Sometimes misunderstandings are accidental. Consider this little vignette. A little old lady planning a vacation wrote a letter to a particular campground to inquire about its facilities. She could not bring herself to write the word "toilet" so she finally settled on the term, "BC," which, to her, meant "bathroom commode." The initials baffled the campground manager who showed the letter to some of the other campers. They did not understand either until one of them suggested the woman might be referring to a Baptist church. The owner agreed and wrote this reply:
Dear Madam,
Thank you for your inquiry. I take pleasure in informing you that a BC is located two miles north of our campground, and seats 250 people. My wife and I go quite regularly, but as we grow older, it seems to be more of an effort, particularly during cold spells. If you visit our campground, perhaps we could go with you the first time, sit with you, and introduce you to the other folks. Ours is a friendly community.
Sincerely yours
Mistaken impressions notwithstanding, research has been done which shows that some of what we hear and do not hear is quite deliberate. One experiment had two groups of subjects, smokers and non-smokers, listen to messages, some of which implied that smoking causes cancer and others which claimed the opposite. The messages were obscured by static, which could be eliminated if the listener pressed a button. Smokers more frequently removed static from the "smoking does not cause cancer" messages while non-smokers more frequently cleared up the "smoking causes cancer" messages. The conclusion is obvious: people are more likely to hear what they want to hear than what they don't. Any wife who has ever asked a husband to mow the lawn during the telecast of a World Series game could say, "Amen," to that. It is the Tower of Babel, twenty-first-century style.
Unfortunately, the problem is just as bad in the church. There are communication gaps all over the place ... gaps between denominations, gaps between the pulpit and the pew, gaps between young and old, gaps between rich and poor, gaps between liberal and conservative. If anyone wonders why, in almost 2,000 years, we have not won the world for Jesus Christ, the answer is that we have not communicated the good news of the gospel with much effectiveness at all.
The shame of it is that there was once a day when the divisions of Babel were mended. It was the Feast of Weeks, Pentecost, one of the three great holy days of the Jewish year. Thousands of the faithful had gathered in Jerusalem from all over the known world to celebrate the giving of the Law to Moses on Mount Sinai, fifty days after the Passover.
That small band of Christians was there as well -- they had been praying together for ten solid days and now were enjoying an ecstatic religious experience. They were creating such a commotion that their noise began to draw a crowd. Some thought it was just a drunken party.
But others listened more carefully to what was going on. And miraculously, each one hearing understood. It made no difference what their native tongue might have been. As they listened, they heard the story of what God had done in that group and was prepared to do in all who would believe. The ancient divisions at the Tower of Babel had been healed. The result? Scripture says that 3,000 people responded to the invitation of Peter that day to "repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ." It was a great day!
One wonders why there have not been more days like that. After all, the Holy Spirit who imparted such power on that ragtag band did not suddenly vanish. Christians continue to believe that the Spirit empowers the church. We believe that the Spirit is with us now, ready to warm cold hearts, soften stiff necks, penetrate thick skulls, and heal the divisions of Babel. What has gone wrong?
If we consider that brief scene described in the beginning of the book of Acts, several things jump out at us that are different today than they were back then. First, the church no longer prays and waits for God's leading like it did. The instructions given to the disciples at Jesus' ascension were to wait in Jerusalem for divine direction, divine power. They did. For ten days they waited and prayed. When was the last time you heard of a ten-day prayer meeting ... or even a ten-hour prayer meeting? In a society that demands instant food, instant coffee, instant banking, instant success, instant everything, prayerful waiting no longer seems to be a priority.
Second, the church no longer cares as much about being "all together in one place" as it did. If that day of Pentecost were transplanted to our day, more than half of the 120 in the room back then would probably be absent -- Peter and his wife would have been at their cottage in the mountains; Bartholomew would have had guests in from out of town for the member-guest tournament at the club and would not be there; Phillip and his family would have been up late the night before and overslept; Andrew would have had a business conference about a new fishing boat; and James would have had to stay home to cut the grass. Togetherness is not considered as important in the church as it once was.
Third, the message of the church these days seems less about "the mighty acts of God" than about social justice or abortion or sexuality or any number of other things. Exacerbating the problem is the fact that the church speaks with more than one voice on the questions. People on the outside do not know what or whom to believe. Those issues are all important, but the result is that our message has been skewed and filled with static.
Prayerful waiting -- communicating with God; fellowship -- communicating with each other; our message -- communicating with the world: We do not seem to be doing a very good job of any of them. Babel is pervasive.
The miracle of Pentecost was not simply the coming of the Holy Spirit. Scripture makes clear that the Spirit was active in human affairs from the beginning of time. The real miracle was that the divisions of Babel were overcome. Real communication took place, and the result was an exponential growth of the church. Yes, Pentecost can beat Babel once more. Why not here? Why not now?
To this day, we have problems communicating with one another. In international relations, translations often fail to convey proper meanings. Multinational corporations learn the lesson the hard way. A friend of mine used to be in the advertising business and was responsible for the Pepsi Cola account. He is the one who came up with the slogan, "Come alive. You're in the Pepsi generation." Remember that? I am told that Pepsi tried to market their product in China using the same slogan. Ha! In Chinese the meaning came out as, "Pepsi brings your ancestors back from the dead."
To be sure, communication is tough enough even when folks speak the same language. The same word means different things to different people. One person talks about justice and means that everyone should have fair and equal opportunity for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness -- no one should expect a free ride at the expense of society ... each one should pull his or her own weight. That is just. But another thinks justice means that life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness should be understood to guarantee a home, a job, and medical care for everyone, regardless of any other consideration, and we should all chip in to make sure that no one falls through the cracks. Same word ... justice ... vastly different meanings.
Sometimes misunderstandings are accidental. Consider this little vignette. A little old lady planning a vacation wrote a letter to a particular campground to inquire about its facilities. She could not bring herself to write the word "toilet" so she finally settled on the term, "BC," which, to her, meant "bathroom commode." The initials baffled the campground manager who showed the letter to some of the other campers. They did not understand either until one of them suggested the woman might be referring to a Baptist church. The owner agreed and wrote this reply:
Dear Madam,
Thank you for your inquiry. I take pleasure in informing you that a BC is located two miles north of our campground, and seats 250 people. My wife and I go quite regularly, but as we grow older, it seems to be more of an effort, particularly during cold spells. If you visit our campground, perhaps we could go with you the first time, sit with you, and introduce you to the other folks. Ours is a friendly community.
Sincerely yours
Mistaken impressions notwithstanding, research has been done which shows that some of what we hear and do not hear is quite deliberate. One experiment had two groups of subjects, smokers and non-smokers, listen to messages, some of which implied that smoking causes cancer and others which claimed the opposite. The messages were obscured by static, which could be eliminated if the listener pressed a button. Smokers more frequently removed static from the "smoking does not cause cancer" messages while non-smokers more frequently cleared up the "smoking causes cancer" messages. The conclusion is obvious: people are more likely to hear what they want to hear than what they don't. Any wife who has ever asked a husband to mow the lawn during the telecast of a World Series game could say, "Amen," to that. It is the Tower of Babel, twenty-first-century style.
Unfortunately, the problem is just as bad in the church. There are communication gaps all over the place ... gaps between denominations, gaps between the pulpit and the pew, gaps between young and old, gaps between rich and poor, gaps between liberal and conservative. If anyone wonders why, in almost 2,000 years, we have not won the world for Jesus Christ, the answer is that we have not communicated the good news of the gospel with much effectiveness at all.
The shame of it is that there was once a day when the divisions of Babel were mended. It was the Feast of Weeks, Pentecost, one of the three great holy days of the Jewish year. Thousands of the faithful had gathered in Jerusalem from all over the known world to celebrate the giving of the Law to Moses on Mount Sinai, fifty days after the Passover.
That small band of Christians was there as well -- they had been praying together for ten solid days and now were enjoying an ecstatic religious experience. They were creating such a commotion that their noise began to draw a crowd. Some thought it was just a drunken party.
But others listened more carefully to what was going on. And miraculously, each one hearing understood. It made no difference what their native tongue might have been. As they listened, they heard the story of what God had done in that group and was prepared to do in all who would believe. The ancient divisions at the Tower of Babel had been healed. The result? Scripture says that 3,000 people responded to the invitation of Peter that day to "repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ." It was a great day!
One wonders why there have not been more days like that. After all, the Holy Spirit who imparted such power on that ragtag band did not suddenly vanish. Christians continue to believe that the Spirit empowers the church. We believe that the Spirit is with us now, ready to warm cold hearts, soften stiff necks, penetrate thick skulls, and heal the divisions of Babel. What has gone wrong?
If we consider that brief scene described in the beginning of the book of Acts, several things jump out at us that are different today than they were back then. First, the church no longer prays and waits for God's leading like it did. The instructions given to the disciples at Jesus' ascension were to wait in Jerusalem for divine direction, divine power. They did. For ten days they waited and prayed. When was the last time you heard of a ten-day prayer meeting ... or even a ten-hour prayer meeting? In a society that demands instant food, instant coffee, instant banking, instant success, instant everything, prayerful waiting no longer seems to be a priority.
Second, the church no longer cares as much about being "all together in one place" as it did. If that day of Pentecost were transplanted to our day, more than half of the 120 in the room back then would probably be absent -- Peter and his wife would have been at their cottage in the mountains; Bartholomew would have had guests in from out of town for the member-guest tournament at the club and would not be there; Phillip and his family would have been up late the night before and overslept; Andrew would have had a business conference about a new fishing boat; and James would have had to stay home to cut the grass. Togetherness is not considered as important in the church as it once was.
Third, the message of the church these days seems less about "the mighty acts of God" than about social justice or abortion or sexuality or any number of other things. Exacerbating the problem is the fact that the church speaks with more than one voice on the questions. People on the outside do not know what or whom to believe. Those issues are all important, but the result is that our message has been skewed and filled with static.
Prayerful waiting -- communicating with God; fellowship -- communicating with each other; our message -- communicating with the world: We do not seem to be doing a very good job of any of them. Babel is pervasive.
The miracle of Pentecost was not simply the coming of the Holy Spirit. Scripture makes clear that the Spirit was active in human affairs from the beginning of time. The real miracle was that the divisions of Babel were overcome. Real communication took place, and the result was an exponential growth of the church. Yes, Pentecost can beat Babel once more. Why not here? Why not now?
