Sermon; Pentecost 2025

Today is the Day of Pentecost, the day when the Holy Spirit descended on the apostles giving them the ability to speak in other languages.  This is the day when the apostles began to preach the good news of Jesus Christ to a wide audience and they baptized about 3000 people.  This is also the day many people celebrate as “the birth of the Church,” although that is not technically correct.

I say “not technically correct” because calling Pentecost the birthday of the Church is somewhat simplistic.  The Church is a divine institution.  Within the Church dwells the fullness of divinity, which is why the Church is referred to as the body of Christ.  If the church is the body of Christ, within which dwells the fullness of divinity, then the Church, as a divine institution, is eternal as God is eternal.  This is one of those holy mysteries that we live into. 

The Triune God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – is eternal, without beginning and without end.  The three aspects of the Godhead are each uncreate from the beginning and before time.  This Holy Trinity lives in a perfect relationship of love with each part of the Trinity.  As the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit live in loving communion with each other, we are invited to live into that loving communion as, in, and through the Church, the body of Christ, on earth.

The Church, as the revelation of God, is the fulfillment of God’s purpose from the beginning.  This purpose – to live in a loving communion that represents God on earth – is summed up in our catechism on page 855:  What is the mission of the Church?  The mission of the Church is to restore all people to unity with God and each other in Christ.

Pentecost isn’t so much the birth of the Church as much as it is the manifestation of God’s eternal plan for unity. 

In the beginning God created humans to live in a loving relationship with God and each other.  This worked for awhile, but then humans were tempted to be like God and ate the fruit which gave us vision but no understanding.

Even though we had knowledge of good and evil, we did not understand how to apply that knowledge, so our hearts turned toward selfishness.  That selfishness ultimately inclines our thoughts toward evil, as we don’t care about our neighbor or God’s creation, but only ourselves.  So the story goes that God sent a flood, saving eight people.

That story goes on to say that eventually the descendants of Noah settled in Shinar.  Once again humanity was focused on selfish interests and being like God in their own eyes.  These selfish interests wanted to create a tower to “make a name” for themselves.  This name would ensure that they would never have to answer to anyone else, including God.  It’s the ancient equivalent of, “Do you know who I am?”  In response, the bible says that God came down, confused their language, and scattered them abroad over the face of the earth.

We need to remember here that the bible is not a textbook of the history of humankind.  What it is is a collection of stories about God’s relationship with humanity – or maybe more to the point, our relationship with God.  Some of these stories do contain historical facts, and a good portion of them contain larger Truths about our relationship with God.

I doubt everyone had one language that God confused because God was afraid of what they could/might do.  But I do think this story of Babel points to the larger Truth of humanity’s selfishness and desire to be godlike.  We see stories of selfishness throughout the bible and it is this selfishness that keeps us apart from God and separated from our neighbors and others.  It is this selfishness that keeps a tribal mentality alive and well.  It reminds us that we do things THIS WAY and those people from over there can’t be a part of us because they either do things wrong or they refuse to do things like us.

So a xenophobic mindset was born at Babel because our selfishness and our desire to be like God would not allow us to cooperate with our neighbor.  And because we would rather blame someone else for our failings, we wrote a story saying it was God who confused the languages and scattered us abroad.  It could also be that, instead of blaming God for the scattering, we used God as a prop to support our own personal biases, hatreds, and prejudices.

But then we get to Pentecost.  This is no longer about our selfishness and desires to be like God.  It’s no longer about excluding those not like us.  This day is about God reaching out to humanity in all of its diversity so that everyone may be included in God’s loving embrace.  This day is about us being willing to speak to those we normally wouldn’t speak to.  This day is about hearing those who seem to be different.  This day is about living into the holy mystery of the eternal Church.

On this day the Holy Spirit descended from above and rested on the heads of the apostles like tongues of fire.  On this day God’s Spirit is poured out on all flesh.  On this day sons and daughters prophesy, young men see visions, old men dream dreams.  On this day God’s Spirit is poured out on EVERYONE equally.  On this day, barriers are broken down instead of built up.  On this day we are gathered together by the language of God rather than being separated by the language of people.

Today is not the celebration of the birth of the Church, but the celebration of the manifestation of God’s eternal vision for us and what that looks like if we focus on God rather than ourselves.  And to help us remember what a selfless life in God looks like, we will renew our own baptismal vows, using them as a basis for living in unity with God and our neighbors.

Amen.