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| Pentecost |
Listen.
Listen to the wind of God.
In the beginning, when God began to
create the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness
covered the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. Then God said, “Let there be light”; and
there was light.[1]
But God remembered Noah and all the
wild animals and all the domestic animals that were with them in the ark. And God made a wind blow over the earth,
and the waters subsided.”[2]
Then Moses stretched out his hand over
the sea. The Lord drove the sea back
by a strong east wind all night, and turned the sea into dry land; and the
waters were divided. The Israelites went
into the sea on dry ground, the waters forming a wall for them on their right
and on their left.[3]
“Thus says the Lord God: Come from
the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may
live.” I prophesied as he commanded me,
and the wind came into them, and they lived, and stood on their feet, a vast
multitude.[4]
When the day of Pentecost had come,
they were all together in one place. And
suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and
it filled the entire house where they were sitting . . . All of them were
filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the
Spirit gave them ability.[5]
God is not done creating.
From the “In the beginning” of Genesis to the “new heaven and new earth”[6] of
Revelation, the biblical witness consistently insists that God is bringing
creation to its fulfillment. When chaos,
oppression, and alienation threaten creation, the wind of God blows again. God will not leave his creation alone. God is absolutely relentless in his
commitment to all that he has made.
At the heart of the biblical narrative is the beating heart
of God. God is not an “ unmoved mover,” not a god who winds up creation like a
clock and then lets it tick on, unconcerned and disconnected. God is
passionately in love with all of creation.
It is God’s love that holds it in being: that keeps the wind blowing new
life into it again and again.
The conflict driving the biblical narrative is that between
the human creatures, who resist the Creator’s desire for creation’s
fulfillment, and the pathos of God, who continually suffers with and for these
recalcitrant creatures. The moment we
turn and hide from God, we hear him crying out in the Garden, “Where are you?”[7] When our alienation from God breeds rivalry
and violence, reducing creation to chaos again, God is grieved to his heart.[8] But he remembers Noah and the wild and
domestic animals with him in the ark.[9]
When we were slaves in Egypt – whenever imperial ambition
and greed destroys the dignity of the creatures of God – the Lord says, “I have
observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt; I have heard their cry on
account of their taskmasters. Indeed I
know their suffering, and I have come down to deliver them.”[10] When we imitate the very oppression we sought
to escape in Egypt, the pathos of God reaches its dramatic climax in Hebrew
Scripture:
How can I give you up, Ephraim? . . . My
heart recoils
within me; my compassion grows warm and
tender. I will not execute my fierce
anger; I will not again destroy Ephraim; for I am God and no mortal, the Holy
One in your midst, and I will not come in wrath. [11]
God remembers that he is God, even if we forget that we are
created in God’s image. He cannot, will
not, abandon his creation to destruction.
It is God’s compassion that Jesus reveals to us.[12] In
the face of human resistance to love, a resistance that leads finally to the
Cross, God continues to do a new thing, surprising us with grace. Jesus, who was crucified, is risen. His resurrection takes the form of
forgiveness and his Spirit, the very wind of God, now blows upon us with fresh
urgency, drawing us into God’s desire to reconcile all things to himself.[13]
St. Paul
recognized the Risen Christ as the realization of God’s passionate
determination to bring the creation to fulfillment:
So
if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed
away; see, everything has become new! All this is from God, who reconciled us
to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation;
that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their
trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. So
we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we
entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.[14]
The story of Pentecost
gives us a glimpse of what this new creation looks like through the lens of the
first ambassadors of Christ. As the
Spirit blows over the disciples like a mighty wind, we see a new creation
coming into being, reversing the chaos into which the old creation had
fallen. Pentecost is the anti-Babel.
The story of
Babel comes at the very end of the primeval history in Genesis. God’s struggle to bring creation to its
fulfillment is not going well. Human
resistance remains strong. Fear and the
illusion of control trumps trust in God’s gracious sovereignty. What is at issue is the relationship between
unity and diversity.
The tower of
Babel is emblematic of humankind’s rejection of the divine mandate to fill the
earth and care for it as stewards of God’s blessing. Rather than finding their unity in obedience
to God’s command to care for creation, they seek to “make a name for
themselves” by building a city with a great tower. Their unity is founded on imperial ambition,
imposing unity through uniformity. They
fear being scattered.[15]
But God’s
intention is precisely that they be scattered.
Unity grounded in obedience to God’s gracious command is perfectly
consistent with a diversity of peoples uniquely fitted to act as stewards of
God’s creation in particular times and places.
Such diversity reflects and nurtures the creative efflorescence of life
in all its dazzling variety. The
diversity of human cultures is an adaptation to the limits of sustainability in
particular environments. The recognition
of limits is in the serve of life and is the way in which creation comes to
fulfillment in its rich variety.[16]
The tower of
Babel represents a failure to accept human limits, an arrogant abrogation of
the purposes of God designed to preserve creation as a blessing within the
boundaries established to foster life.
This usurpation of God’s sovereign grace is rooted in fear and distrust,
leading to anxiety and attempts to impose an illusory sense of security.
As with all such
attempts to establish unity and security through imperial ambition, human
diversity – expressed through language – finally undermines the Babel
project. Work on the tower ceases, and
the people are scattered. Now, however,
the scattering represents human social fragmentation and disunity, rather than
a creative diversity rooted in God.
Creation is devolving again into chaos.
The critical
verse here is Genesis 11:7: their
language is confused so that they did not listen to one another.[17] Unwilling to be obedient (listen) to God,
people are unwilling to listen to each other either. When we do not listen, we cannot respond to
God’s creative word to us, much less to one another. God’s word is always gracious and inviting, never
coercive, respecting the freedom and dignity of the creature. We can ignore it; refuse to listen; and resist
God’s intention for creation.
But God keeps
speaking, keeps creating. The disciples
gathered in Jerusalem, “constantly devoting themselves to prayer,”[18]
attentively listen for the sound of the mighty wind of God making all things
new, and are filled with its power.
They hear and respond to God’s desire to reconcile the whole world to
himself through Christ.
Their response
shows how clearly God’s project contrasts with the Babel project. At Pentecost, the diversity of languages is
honored; it is not a barrier. Each
person is able to hear – to listen – to the disciples in their own
language. Unity grounded in God’s
reconciling love embraces human diversity.
It opposes all human attempts at a unity that denies and destroys
difference.
These ambassadors
for Christ hold open the possibility that God will yet bring creation to its
fulfillment; not through coercive uniformity, but through patient listening and
responding to God’s gracious word, God’s vision for his creation; and not just
for some elite, but also for everyone of every language, people and
nation. The wind of God blows on all
flesh, sons and daughters, young and old, even upon slaves.[19]
As we renew our baptismal
vows this morning, we recommit ourselves to being ambassadors for Christ,
carrying the message of God’s reconciling love for the whole world. We listen and respond to the wind of God
blowing through the whole creation, finding our unity in obedience to the One
seated on the throne who says, “See, I am making all things new.”[20]
Listen. Listen for the wind of God. God will not leave his creation alone until
it comes to its fulfillment. Thanks be
to God. Amen.
[2]
Genesis 8:1.
[3]
Exodus 14:21-22.
[4]
Ezekiel 37:9b-10.
[6]
Revelation 21:1-7.
[7]
Genesis 3:9.
[8]
Genesis 6:6.
[9]
Genesis 8:1.
[10]
Exodus 3:
[11]
Hosea 11:8a,c-9.
[12]
John 3:16-17.
[13]
Ephesians 1:1-10; cf. Colossians 1:11-20.
[14] 2
Corinthians 5:17-20.
[15]
Genesis 11:4.
[16]
Walter Brueggemann, Genesis
(Louisville, KY: John Knox Press, 2010), p. 99.
[17]
Brueggemann, pp. 18, 102-103.
[18]
Acts 1:14.
[19]
Acts 2:16-18.
[20]
Revelation 21:5.
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