Sermon from Pentecost Eve, 5/22/21

 Genesis 11:1-9, Acts 2:1-11

             The Genesis reading today is the story of the Tower of Babel.  That famous story that serves as a strange antidote to any well-meant pleas of “let’s all live as one” and “teamwork is the best way” and “we are better together.”  Perhaps the trite summary of this story might instead be something along the lines of “Confusion is best” or “Please God by being a bad teammate.”  In the passage God appears to be displeased by human unity, ideals and aspirations.  And so the result is confusion, ambiguity and a bunch of different languages. 

          I wonder though … might there be benefits to the resulting chaotic existence?  Are there perks of living in a crazy world?  Maybe there is a case for confusion …

          In Robert Alter’s commentary on this passage he explains a bit about the origins of the word “babble” as he says, “a word like babble occurs in a wide spectrum of languages from Greek, Latin, and Sanskrit to Norwegian, and [is] … of echoic origin; probably not of continuous derivation but recoiled from common experience.” In other words, all across time and all across the world people have come up with the word “babble” or something similar on their own and based on their own experience.  Babble seems to be a universal language. 

          In fact, it is the first form of verbal communication for humans regardless of time and place.  The babble phase that babies go through is something I have always found completely adorable.  I remember fondly my little niece toddling up to me and expressing random noises with so much sincerity and passion, changing her vocal tone and facial expressions as though she desperately wanted me to hear what she was saying even though the actual words were utter nonsense … babble. 

          That’s the thing about babble, while it may be heard as nonsense, it is a genuine effort on one side to be heard, to be understood, to communicate.  One person’s babble is another person’s attempt to communicate.  We can either dismiss it as nonsense and go on our way sticking to the words we know and understand, or we can try to hear it, try to understand another person who wants to be heard but is struggling to get their message across.  

          I was thinking about this as I was speaking to a young person who was offering me words to describe themselves that I had never heard before.  I tripped on my pronouns and appreciated their patience as they tried to help me understand (through a mask even) these words that many people of their generation understand and use to convey how they identify themselves.  I had a choice: dismiss all of this as the babble of a younger generation and stick to the words I have used for years, or accept the invitation to understand this person better and learn how to better hear others of their generation. 

          I started thinking about all of the words I hear others say that I quickly dismiss as babble and in my mind turn into “blah blah blah.”  Like if you meet someone and they tell you where they get their news from or who they voted for or some theology that you have decided is not for you … and instantly your mind turns their words into “blah blah blah” … babble.  And because of this, we often find so many people today babbling at one another, turning away from attempts to be heard, filling their ears with air pods that will instead echo back what they already believe and talking and talking but never actually communicating with one another.

          Instead of listening, we sit safely in our certainty.  We do not need to hear the experiences of others because we already know them.  We have the answers so we can tune out the babble.  We are so certain that we are right so we can safely stay in our corner. 

          Pentecost messes that all up.  It’s a confusing scene, everything is ambiguous and nothing makes sense.  It’s utter nonsense: violent wind, divided tongues on fire and everyone speaking different languages.  In the reading from Acts today we see the effect this has on people … it makes them start asking questions.  It creates confusion.  How do they understand each other?  Aren’t these people Galileans? How am I understanding this?  It breaks their certainty.  It shatters the labels they had put on the people and makes them look inward.  The babble breaks down barriers and people start to actually hear one another and to understand.  And that is how the church is born … from confusion … lack of certainty … an ability to hear others. 

          I don’t know about you, but for me this past week has created a lot of ambiguity in regards to mask wearing.  As a person who likes to follow the rules I find myself not knowing what I should be doing.  I am vaccinated but my kids aren’t, some places still require masks, but some don’t … the cod says I don’t have to, some still say it isn’t clear … what to do?  One happy result of this confusion is we can’t instantly judge one another by whether or not our faces are half covered by a piece of cloth.  We do not know why someone is or is not wearing one and it may not be malicious intent or overprotectiveness … so we can dispense of our instant face judging.  Perhaps the ambiguity and confusion will enable us to drop the judgements and certainty at least enough to listen?

          I’m sure we will still find plenty of other ways to judge and condemn others and probably judge and condemn ourselves too … but along the way maybe we can dive deep into moments of ambiguity to actually open our hearts and try to hear what each other is saying?  Perhaps when we see people speaking all kinds of languages with tongues of fire on their heads we can pause and say “maybe this is something I should hear?”  Perhaps … we can take a break from our certainty to accept that God is the source of all knowing and our role as humans is to keep learning and depending on God’s wisdom to guide us?  Maybe before we dismiss the struggles, experiences, and self-revelations of others as babble we can embrace the confusion and try to hear each other.  I don’t know that we need another giant tower, but we do need a world built more on mutual care.  Amen.