A WORD FOR TODAY, June 4, 2025
Peggy Hoppes
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Blessings. Peg
A WORD FOR TODAY, June 4, 2025
Lectionary Scriptures for June 8, 2025, Pentecost: Genesis 11:1-9; Psalm 143; Acts 2:1-21; John 14:23-31
“They were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other languages, as the Spirit gave them the ability to speak.” Acts 2:4, WEB
Most languages have a common root, although that ancient language has long been forgotten, making it difficult for us to talk to people from another country. Sometimes it isn’t even different languages that cause confusion. It is difficult for an American from the south to have a conversation with a English speaking person from Britain or Australia. My children had a Spanish teacher that told us that even though she was a native speaker, there are places around the world that speak a different type of Spanish.
However, language is not always a barrier. You can go to an opera that is sung entirely in Italian and understand what is happening. Missionaries often visit other countries with very little knowledge of language and no knowledge of the regional dialects and are able to communicate with the people and serve their needs. Christians can often attend church in foreign lands and understand what is happening because the liturgy rises above language. Music is a language that crosses borders.
When my husband and I first met, he was stationed in England, and I was living in an apartment in New Jersey. We met at a wedding, so we only spent a few hours together before being separated by an ocean. We met before the age of the Internet, but we used old fashioned ways of communicating. We sent letters regularly, audio tapes occasionally, and we even managed to send a videotape message or two during the nine months we “dated” long distance. We occasionally called one another on the telephone, even though it was very expensive.
I am an artist at heart, so I often have off-the-wall ideas, including my answering machine messages. I had a very limited knowledge of the French language, just in enough to get me into trouble more often than I should admit. I put together a fun message using French, which created a number of problems both for those who dialed a wrong number and those who know me intimately. One friend’s response on the machine was, “I’m pretty sure I heard your last name in that message, so if this is Peggy call me back.” The problem was magnified when it came to Bruce. Since he was living in England, he had to dial a country code to make a call to America. When the answering machine spewed a message in French, he thought he had made a mistake and dialed the wrong country code. When he got the message again, after carefully dialing, he realized it must be my phone. After causing him to make two overseas telephone calls I realized it would be better to keep my message simple and informative.
According to the internet there are more than 7100 different languages. Some have systems of writing, my many are just verbal. In the Douglas Adams story, “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Universe,” the travelers wear a “Babelfish” in their ear that automatically translates any language so that strangers can understand one another. It isn’t quite so simple in the real world, though with the internet it is getting much easier. There are translation apps for your phone, and the website Babelfish offers translation for fifteen of the most common languages. There are many other ways of learning to understand different languages.
The Bible tells us how the languages became confused in the story we read from Genesis today. The people of Babel were the first agrarians. They had learned how to harvest water, to tame the land, to work together to have enough food for a large group. They stopped being nomadic. They settled down and stayed in one place. They had time to do things other than survive. They built permanent homes and other buildings. They were beginning to form business methods, writing, art, government and religion. They established temples for their gods. This freedom gave them time to ponder life, the universe and everything. They believed in the gods, but they also began to see themselves in a new way. They were not only stronger than the animals, they were also intelligent. They could build things. They could create things. They could transform things. They began to think like gods.
One day they got together and decided that they, too, could be like their gods. They worked together to build a tower to heaven. The tower was more than just a ladder. The people wanted to make a name; they wanted a reputation. Archeologists have found ziggurats throughout the Middle East, including one that they believe is actually the original Tower of Babel. These towers were designed to reach toward the heavens to impress the gods so that they would bless the people with prosperity, health and wealth. Yet in the story of the Tower of Babel, we get the impression that they were building it for another reason. They were afraid that they would lose it all and that they would be scattered. They didn’t want to go back to the old nomadic ways.
It is interesting to note that even if the tower of Babel was much larger than the typical ziggurat which was less than ten stories, it would have been dwarfed by the amazing skyscrapers of today. The problem is not that they were able to build incredible architecture or even that they were trying to reach heaven. That was an impossible goal because heaven is not a place we can identify in relation to the world. We have sent rockets into outer space, and cameras to the far edges of our universe, but they will never reach heaven. The problem in Babel was that the people thought they could become like God. People have always managed to overcome differences in language to accomplish great things. We can see that in the history of the world, and despite more than seven thousand languages, the world has become a very small place.
The Tower of Babel must have been an extraordinary accomplishment because God saw what they did, and He knew that it was not good for the people to reach too high. He is pleased when we use our gifts and develop our talents. He created man to be co-creators with Him in this world. He wants us to reach high, but we can’t become gods, and we shouldn’t try. Fear manifests as ambition. If only we could become great, then we wouldn’t have to worry about losing anything. If only we could become immortal, then we would own the world. But we can’t become immortal by our own human deeds.
God was not impressed. “Yahweh said, “Behold, they are one people, and they all have one language, and this is what they begin to do. Now nothing will be withheld from them, which they intend to do. 7 Come, let’s go down, and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.” 8 So Yahweh scattered them abroad from there on the surface of all the earth. They stopped building the city.”
This scattering would not be permanent. We know that even in the days when Jesus walked the earth, many different nations found ways to communicate and trade. The variety of nations and languages represented in Jerusalem during the Pentecost season was diverse. Luke tells us in Acts that there were “Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and people from Mesopotamia, Judea, Cappadocia, Pontus, Asia, Phrygia, Pamphylia, Egypt, the parts of Libya around Cyrene, visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabians.” We know, at the very least, people spoke Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and/or Aramaic. The visitors to Pentecost likely spoke other foreign languages.
We talk about Genesis 11 on Pentecost, because we see a complete reversal of what happened in Babel, but not in a way those ancient people might have wanted. God didn’t give the world one language so that they could easily understand each other. He gave the world a new language: the Gospel, which makes us one in Him. The Pentecost event was miraculous; the discipled spoke the languages of the world so that all the people in Jerusalem could hear the story of Jesus and His grace in their own tongue. The words might be different from nation to nation, but the Gospel is the same everywhere. Jesus Christ died for the sake of the world so that all who believe will be saved.
The psalmist reminds us that no man is righteous and that the persecution we experience might just be deserved. We have reason to be downtrodden, for our hearts to be desolate. But when we are overwhelmed, we need only remember what God has done and what God has overcome. We can seek His grace to cry out to Him. The Gospel is a message of forgiveness. Whatever it is that we have done wrong, whatever failures we have experienced, whatever sins we have committed are forgiven and forgotten in the name of Jesus. He is the manifestation of God’s lovingkindness. It is passed to us not in the flesh of Jesus, but in the power of the Spirit. By His hand we are saved and gifted, we are welcomed into an everlasting relationship with our Creator. We don’t have to build a Tower to heaven because God has come down to earth to dwell among us.
God had a plan from the beginning of time to work this salvation and transformation in our lives. He promised throughout the Old Testament that He would send a Savior, and that Savior promised that He would send a Helper. Jesus was the Savior, and for the past seven weeks we have heard Jesus preparing the disciples to continue His work in the world. Those stories are meant for us to. We have lifted up the apostles as special witnesses for God, and we think they are faultless. Yet, we know from the stories in the scriptures that they were not perfect; they were just like us. They sinned against their neighbor; they learned day by day how to be better. They needed a Savior as much as we do.
Every parent wants the best for their children. We want them to have a better life than we had. We push, perhaps too hard sometimes, so that they will go farther and higher than we ever went. Some parents, maybe all of us in some ways, try to live vicariously through our children, living out our dreams and trying to correct our regrets, like the things we didn’t get to do, the things we failed to do, the things we forgot to do. We don’t want our kids to make the same mistakes, so we push.
It is difficult for our children to live up to our expectations. Many have no desire to do the same things their parents did. They don’t want to go to the same college or have the same goals. They don’t have the same gifts. How does a child who wishes to be an artist face a parent who is a world-renowned lawyer? How does he or she accomplish greatness under such circumstances?
This Sunday we celebrate the beginning of the next step in God’s plan for His children, but we wonder how we could possibly live up the expectations that He has for us. We are reminded at Pentecost that we could not believe or be transformed without the power of God’s Holy Spirit which the Church received at Pentecost.
Jerusalem was filled with people who spoke many other languages during the days of Pentecost. There were people with Hebraic heritage all over the known world. A large community lived in Ethiopia. There were communities of Jews in Asia. Luke tells us that the crowd in Jerusalem was filled with Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and people from Mesopotamia, Judea, Cappadocia, Pontus, Asia, Phrygia, Pamphylia, Egypt, the parts of Libya around Cyrene. There were visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabians. There are ways to get what you need when you are in a foreign place, but who would have thought that a hodgepodge group of Galileans could speak in a way that so many could hear and understand?
It is helpful to understand the Jewish roots of the festival which is the historical foundation of our Christian celebration of Pentecost. It was a time of counting and preparation. The word “Pentecost” means “fifty” because it was the fiftieth day following the Passover. The counting begins on the second day of the Passover feast when an omer of barley was presented at the temple as the first fruits grain offering. Forty-nine days later an omer of wheat was presented. The counting of the omer concluded with Shavuot. This represents the time between the Exodus from Egypt and the giving of the Law; the celebration is described in Leviticus 23:15-16. At Passover they celebrated their freedom from slavery and then at Shavuot they remembered their acceptance of the Torah, the Law of God. They remembered their commitment as a nation to serve their God.
The barley, also called the wave offering, was representative of the food meant for the animals. It is unearned, given freely, just as the Exodus was a gift given freely by the grace of God. After forty-nine days, the next grain offering was wheat grain made into bread. It was an offering that was given with the cooperation of human effort. Therefore, the forty-nine days were spent not only caring for the wheat and preparing the bread but also developing one’s spiritual potential. This is what Jesus did during the forty days He spent with the disciples after His resurrection. He was preparing the disciples for the work they would do when they were sent out into the world. When He ascended to heaven, they spent the next ten days in prayer. The promised Spirit came on the fiftieth day.
In some Jewish traditions, the preparation for Pentecost was a time to work on one’s inner growth, to develop good character through reflection. Using the “sephirot” or attributes of God from the Kabbalah, the believer reflected on each of seven aspects one day of each week for seven weeks. The weeks also represented the seven aspects, so each day focused on a different combination. The seven aspects are mercy/grace/love of God; judgment/strength/determination; symmetry/balance/compassion; contemplation/initiative/persistence; surrender/sincerity/steadfastness; foundation/wholly remembering/coherent knowledge; kingdom/physical presence/vision and illusion. On the first day of the first week, the believer reflected on the mercy that is in mercy. On the second day of the first week, they reflected on the judgment that is in mercy. On the first day of the second week, they focused on the mercy that is in judgment. They do this each day until they reach the seventh day of the seventh week when they reflect on the kingdom that is in the kingdom.
Pentecost is one of the most important festivals in the Christian year. We don’t follow the Kabbalah tradition, but perhaps we should put more care into the fifty days between Easter and Pentecost, preparing our hearts for the reality of what Christ has done, just as Jesus prepared the disciples for their ministry in the world. We spend time in prayer during Advent and fast during Lent, but we focus on the Incarnation to the Resurrection during the Easter season without preparing ourselves for the day when we truly join the story. It is at Pentecost that Jesus gave us the Spirit. By faith and His power, we can commit to serving Him in the world. Just as the grain offering was given with human effort, God used Pentecost and human cooperation to bring His Gospel message to the world.
The ten days the disciples waited in Jerusalem must have been difficult, dealing with disappointment, discouragement, uncertainty, and doubt. Despite the promises, the disciples did not yet have the indwelling Spirit of God, so for a moment they were left alone. How would they do what Jesus told them they would do? They weren’t just going to teach people about God; they were being sent to do more. Far more. Earlier in John 14, Jesus said “Most certainly I tell you, he who believes in me, the works that I do, he will do also; and he will do greater works than these, because I am going to my Father.” How in the world would they ever do greater things than Jesus?
The disciples were the first to be given the Spirit, to follow Jesus in His work, to be called into ministry in the world. For the past few weeks, we have heard stories from the book of Acts about the amazing things the disciples did. We’ve heard some stories this Easter season from the book of Acts about the amazing things that the disciples did. They raised the dead, healed the sick, spoke with authority, and did many of the same things that Jesus did. Still, could anything they do ever be greater than everything Jesus did?
This promise was fulfilled at Pentecost. The truth is that we would never do greater things than Jesus on our own, but with His Spirit we can do anything He sends us to do. We might think that means we’ll do miracles like healing the sick or raising the dead, but are they truly greater that Jesus’ miracles? We will never feed thousands of people with just a few fish and loaves of bread. Jesus did miracles that only the Messiah could do. What could we ever do that would be greater than Jesus? After all, He was not an ordinary man; He was the Son of God. Yet, that promise was fulfilled on the Day of Pentecost.
Jesus did miracles, but even greater than the miracles is the message of the Gospel. We are amazed to think that someone might have been dead and then was alive, but the greater miracle is found in the salvation of God. Jesus healed the sick and raised the dead, but even greater than these is the healing and life that comes from the Word of God. Every Christian, saved by the Gospel and transformed by the Holy Spirit, is a greater miracle than all the miracles that Jesus did. Jesus did not expect the disciples to be like Him, wandering the countryside doing miracles. That is certainly one way to share the Gospel, but Jesus intended something greater for His people. They were called to share God’s grace with the world through the Good News, making disciples of all nations and teaching them to do all that Jesus commanded them to do.
We can focus on a number of different themes for Pentecost. Pentecost is the birthday of the Church, when God gave to the disciples the final piece to the puzzle: the Spirit, who would remind them of everything Jesus taught, teach them what they do not yet know, and give them the power to continue the work Jesus did in this world. We can focus on the idea of languages: that the power of God’s Spirit came at Pentecost to make it possible for disciples of all places to share the Gospel message with the world. We can focus on the wind or breath of God, learning more about the Holy Spirit, and the gifts He gives to God’s people. We can talk about the unity of the body of Christ that comes by the power of the Holy Spirit.
The promise of Pentecost is not that we will be able to understand one another even if we speak different languages. It is about becoming one people again: His people. The power of God’s Spirit came at Pentecost to make it possible for disciples of all ages to share the Gospel message with the world. We are unified—made children of God and heirs to His eternal kingdom—not because we have done anything right or have earned the honor. God comes to His people and by His Spirit grants them faith and gifts to make His name known throughout the world. We are called to be Christ’s body, to share the Gospel and to bring others into the unity of the Church.
Though the miracle of Pentecost is the miraculous tongues that brought so many to faith on that day so long ago, the Holy Spirit’s gift is not always about miracles. We may never raise the dead or heal a leper. We may not cast out demons or make a paralytic walk. We do not have to strive to do those things. If that is the work God is calling us to do, He’ll give us the power and the opportunity to do so. Our task, first and foremost, is to share the simple message of the Gospel, so that those who hear and believe will be restored to God and become His children. These are the greater things.
The psalmist reminds us that no man is righteous. We are all sinners in need of a Savior, by the grace of Jesus Christ we have received forgiveness, and we are being transformed into the people God created us to be. We can seek His grace to cry out to Him, even though we are not worthy. The Gospel is a message of forgiveness, not given because we earn it but because God has promised. We don’t have to build a tower to heaven because God came to earth to dwell among us. This is the promise of the Resurrection, and which was fulfilled at Pentecost.
We are sinners in need of a Savior. It is so much easier to see the faults of others. We can cry out to God in our troubles. We can even ask God to deal with our enemies, but we but we are reminded by the psalmist that no man is righteous. By the grace of Jesus Christ, we have received forgiveness. The story of Jesus from Incarnation to Resurrection made that possible, and it is through Pentecost God restored His people and gave us one language: the language of faith. The story of Jesus continues with us, the people He saved.
We often talk about Pentecost being the birthday of the Church. Perhaps it is. But Pentecost is more than that; it is the day when God restored His people and gave us one language: the language of faith. We don’t have to strive for things of the world. We don’t have to be frightened to lose everything we’ve collected. We don’t have to worry whether we’ll live to see another day because even in death we will live forever. God didn’t make it impossible for us to dwell together in this world by confusing our language, but He helped us to see that we should not strive to be gods. Instead, He gave us the most amazing gift that makes us one with Him and each other, the Spirit, who helps us to live in whatever world we have created with grace and peace.
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