I have to begin this sermon with a confession. I have a weakness for puns. One or two of you may have noticed it, and as faults go it’s not as bad as some. But this week, I have to admit, I gave into temptation. The title of this sermon is a pun. Because I’m not going to talk about what most people think about when someone mentions the gift of tongues. Well, maybe just a little. Most people think of Pentecost when the gift of tongues is mentioned. And of course since today is Pentecost it would have been entirely appropriate to talk about what happened to the disciples that day so long ago, when tongues of fire appeared above their heads and the Holy Spirit entered them and they began to speak in the languages of all the many people who had come to worship in Jerusalem that Pentecost festival.
And I’m not going to talk about the kind of tongues called ‘glossolalia’, or ‘ecstatic utterance,’ a kind of private prayer and praise language which Pentecostals and many other charismatics believe is the sign of the presence of the Holy Spirit.
No, I’m going to talk about the gift of multiple languages that God gave the people at Babel at least a couple of thousand years before that.
But of course they didn’t think of it as a gift.
How many of you have gotten something from God that you really didn’t think was a gift at the time, but turned out later to be so? I used to joke that God had given me the gift of celibacy, and that although I’d much rather have a new toaster, unfortunately the manufacturer has a no-exchange policy. But you know what? I’m really grateful for that gift. Because, as Paul says in his first letter to the Corinthians, a married person has to be concerned about pleasing his or her spouse, but the single person can be wholly concerned with the things of the Lord. Not that I’m even now as focused as I would like to be, but think how much worse it would be if I had to juggle a husband and children as well! I do not envy my married colleagues. So the celibacy God chose for me really has been a gift.
But what has that got to do with today’s tale of the tower of Babel? It’s not a story about gifts, it’s a story of Pride and Punishment, isn’t it?
Let’s look at it more closely.
One of the unfortunate side effects of that long ago gift of tongues is that when you translate a story from one language to another you miss a lot of the nuances. Especially from Hebrew to English, because they’re completely unrelated linguistically. And this story is just packed full of word plays and internal rhyme and other nifty literary devices that just don't make it across the gap. Fortunately the basic, tidy structure is still visible in English.
First, the people have one language. Next, they come together. Then they make plans to become great. Then God gets involved. And God plans something else. And he scatters the people. And thereafter they speak many languages.
This story works on at least three levels.
It serves, first of all, as a theologically consistent explanation of why people speak different languages. It contrasts with myths from the surrounding cultures which explain language barriers as a side effect of a sort of intramural rivalry between two of their gods. There’s no moral dimension to their explanation at all. But Israel knows that everything that God does has a purpose, and that there are no accidents.
Secondly, it’s full of sly digs at the Babylonians. They were so proud of their cities, especially the fancy brickwork of the ziggurats - which is what they called their temples. So this story reinterprets their technological achievements as foolishness. They weren’t a people to be emulated or envied, but rather to be pitied. Because, you see, they were competing with the gods, trying to get to heaven under their own steam, and trying to make a name for themselves - that is an identity - which would be independent of the gods. It’s an early variation on the theme of cocky or complacent people forgetting that they owe everything they have - from the weather to their technological expertise - to God. And we all know what happens to people who try to get the better of God.
And thirdly, it’s a commentary on the importance of language, and on how difficult it is for people to get along when they can’t understand one another. Half the time we don’t understand each other even when we’re using the same words. If any of you have read “He Said, She Said” you know what I mean. So it’s hard to imagine any more effective way God could have chosen to keep people from cooperating for long enough to pose any kind of threat to his sovereignty, isn’t it.
It’s also a reminder of how important speech is to God. Remember that it is through speech that God created the world and everything in it. It is in the gift of speech that God gives Adam and Eve authority over the rest of creation. It makes sense, doesn’t it, that speech without God becomes a source of confusion, even destruction, rather than something that gives life.
But why was it a gift? Why do I call God’s mixing up the languages a gift?
Two reasons.
The first is simple. Let’s imagine you’re driving somewhere in a hurry, and you come to a roadblock, and you have to go around, and it takes forever and you’re late for your appointment and what’s more the road you had to take was unpaved and the car is filthy and you’re going to have to get the wheels realigned. Was the roadblock a gift? Of course it was. Because the alternative was driving straight off a cliff. Whenever God stops us from doing what we want, it’s to send us in a better direction, not just because he enjoys jerking us around.
And the second reason that the confusion of languages was a gift is that it laid the groundwork for our redemption. Think about it.
The first sign that the Holy Spirit had come upon the apostles was that they when spoke the people around them heard the words in their own languages. Not only Aramaic and Greek, but Parthian, Median, Egyptian, Libyan, Latin - you name it. The sentence of Babel was lifted in those moments by the coming of the Holy Spirit. Now, most commentators believe that this speaking in tongues is unlike what Paul is talking about in his letter to the Corinthians: “For those who speak in a tongue do not speak to other people but to God; for nobody understands them, since they are speaking mysteries in the Spirit.” [1 Cor 14:2] They say things like “this manifestation of tongues [was in] languages understood by the people.” [Ajith Fernando] But I don’t agree. Remember that not all of the people listening to Peter and the others heard the Gospel. “... others sneered and said, "They are filled with new wine." [Acts 2:13] That’s exactly the sort of response Paul warned about later on in that same letter: “if in a tongue you utter speech that is not intelligible, how will anyone know what is being said? For you will be speaking into the air.” [1 Cor 14:9]
No, I think that it wasn’t just the speaking that was transformed. It was the hearing. Because “interpretation” is also a gift of the Holy Spirit.
Yes, yes, I know... Luke reports that they “began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.” [Acts 2:4] And who am I to independently refute the gathered wisdom of the scholarly community down the centuries? Well, I suppose it is possible that there were people in the crowd who spoke none of the languages mentioned in the text; but would they be likely to accuse the speakers of being drunk? After all, they wouldn’t have expected to understand the speakers if they didn’t speak Greek or Aramaic or Latin.
But even more importantly than that, we know even today that people whose hearts have not been stirred by the Holy Spirit, whose ears have not been opened by the Holy Spirit, will not understand or receive the gospel even when it is clearly presented in their own language.
It is not surprising that God communicates with us. God has reached out to his people from Abraham to Moses to David, to Pharaoh in Egypt and to the people of Nineveh and Cyrus the Persian. It’s not surprising that God should speak. What is different here is that the people heard.
You see, it isn’t just the different languages that make it impossible for people to communicate with one another. It’s the different agendas. We’re all pulling in opposite directions to get our own needs met, to bring about secure futures for ourselves and our children, to get enough power or influence or money to be safe in a dangerous and chaotic world. And we all have different world views. Every culture in the world defines “the good life” in a different way. Yes, we all want peace and prosperity... but all too many people believe that peace is only possible by getting the other guy before he gets you, and prosperity comes through theft or fraud rather than labor and creativity.
So even if we did all have the same language, we’d be using it to pull in different directions. Sometimes we’d be using it honestly, and just not get what the other person is saying. That’s what happens so often between the sexes. When she says, “Don’t you think it’s a little warm in here?” he thinks she’s asking a question; but what she’s really doing is asking for the heat to be turned down. The same sort of thing happens between cultures. I have cousins who were in the Peace Corps on the South Pacific island of Truk, and they had to adjust to the notion that for women to go around with nothing on above the waist was perfectly acceptable. But if your thighs showed! Well, that was another matter.
But sometimes we use words deliberately to confuse instead of to enlighten, to distort rather than to make clear. We all remember how important the definition of “is” is.
The disciples needed the Holy Spirit. I don’t discount the importance and the reality of the power that was working in them on that day. It gave them courage. It gave them a message. It gave them an uncontrollable urge to go tell the people living in darkness that the light they had been waiting for had come at last. But it wasn’t enough by itself. The Holy Spirit came upon the crowd, as well, to all those who were willing to hear.
We can only truly understand one another when we are listening to the same voice. And that unity of purpose, even beyond the unity of language, is the sign of our redemption in Christ. Because even now, when a North Korean refugee finds a cross on a house in the almost equally hostile country of China, they know they are safe, even if they can only communicate in signs.
Of course we all know that Christians still have trouble communicating - even, I’m afraid, those who speak more or less the same language. The amazing linguistic miracle of Pentecost wasn’t permanent. We still often speak past one other, to deaf ears and to confused ones. But it was a sign of what is to come, and it was the beginning of something even more awesome.
Because we may still have many languages, but we have only one Word. In Jesus Christ, the living Word, we are all one. And that Word is the same in all and to all nations, and peoples, and tribes, and - yes - tongues. And in Christ, and through Christ, and because of Christ, believers have gone everywhere in the world not to make war, or to make money, or to make a name for themselves, but to make the word of God available to all people.
The late Harvard mathematician and philosopher, Alfred North Whitehead, maintained that the whole scientific enterprise of the western world rested upon the belief that at the bottom of things science would find order rather than chaos. Where animists were afraid to probe a world enchanted with demons and spirits, western scientists dissected, investigated, explored and probed into the depths of the atom believing order and organization would be found rather than disorder and disarray. "What was at the bottom of this conviction?" asked Whitehead. It was the theological concept of the Logos, the Word or Reason or Mind of God, which held everything together. Why do things cohere and hold together? It is because the Mind or Logos, or the Spirit of God, holds them together. [Maurice A. Fetty, The Divine Advocacy] Paul put it more simply: “[Jesus Christ] is before all things, and in him all things hold together. “[Col 1:17 ]
And every time the Scriptures are translated into another language, and people come to know the Lord Jesus Christ, and we see the joy in their faces and the miracle of changed lives, the Word of God is renewed in power within us, as well. If it isn’t an easy thing to be at peace, to live and work and create with people who are like us, who have the same history and the same culture, how much more difficult is it to build enduring and fruitful relationships with people who are different. And yet it is happening everywhere, all over the world. Wherever people share Jesus Christ with one another God’s spirit is at work, and we are participating in a miracle. Against the backdrop of many tongues, the one Word shines more brightly than any star.
