In Genesis 11, we attempt to make a name for ourselves by building a tower to the heavens. Our work is driven by the fear that we will be scattered to the winds and our current way of life will be lost.
Ironically, that’s exactly what God does. Because as God says, “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them.”
So, as the story goes, our language is confused. Without being able to speak the same common tongue, we are unable to work together.
The Tower of Babel is left abandoned as we group up with those we can understand and scatter to the corners of the earth. But that’s not the end of the story.
This past weekend, we celebrated Pentecost — Jesus’s fulfillment of his promise to send a helper, the Spirit, to always be with us. We remember the tongues of fire that crowned each and every head of Christ’s followers, signaling it was time for their public ministry to begin.
And the disciples responded by preaching the gospel in the streets. Although they spoke Aramaic in their distinct Galilean dialect, the ears of those listening heard their own language, their own dialects had evolved over generations.
Our language is confused no longer. The Spirit calls us all back together to hear the good news, that the kingdom of God is here. Instead of building a human tower of fear to the heavens, we’ve now been given the tools to build a heavenly kingdom of love spread out over the entire earth.
But today it seems like even if we speak a common tongue, our dialects are harder to understand than ever before.
Algorithms confuse our language, making it so parents and children, spouses, neighbors, and friends cannot speak to each other. Our dialects are made of talking points from whoever yells the loudest on the TV, podcasts or from the pulpits of people who already agree with how we view the world.
The chaos of fear screams in our ears, scorches our eyes, and smothers our tongues. And through it all, the fire of the Spirit still whispers, still calls us together.
Pentecost is the promise that no matter what divides us, God has given us a common tongue to speak that everyone can hear.
It’s the screech of brakes as a car stops alongside a ditch to pull someone out. It’s the ringing of a doorbell that heralds much-needed food as someone’s world falls apart. It’s the soothing murmurs of a bystander in a cloud of car exhaust, holding a child whose mother is suddenly nowhere in sight.
It’s the language of the kingdom of heaven, a dialect marked by calloused hands and worn feet of people who still show up to help those who need it most.
We read it in the faces of every person when we refuse to see them as the “other,” the enemy, and instead see them as the reflection of the face of God that they are. We whisper it when we wrap our arms around hunched-over shoulders, bent under the weight of missing loved ones. We sing it at vigils, in our pews and pulpits, from our neighborhood streets to the halls of power, drowning out the language of fear until all we can hear is love.
Because as God promised, “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them” (Genesis 11:6).
- About the Author
- Latest Posts
Rachel Mumaw-Schweser is a pastoral resident at Second Baptist Church, Liberty, Missouri.
