Sunday, June 8, 2003

Pentecost Sunday

Readings:
Acts 2, 1-11: When the time for Pentecost was fulfilled, they were all in one place together.
Psalm: 103, 1.24.29-31.34
Gal 5, 16-25: The fruits of the Spirit
Jn 15, 26-27; 16, 12-15: You also will bear witness

Almost any large city in our world reminds us of the situation in the Tower of Babel story: a multiplicity of languages, a variety of cultures, ideas, and lifestyles, and immense problems of intolerance and misunderstanding among the inhabitants. How can people of such great diversity live together and understand one another? The situation is becoming especially problematic in developed countries, but is present in every large city in the world. Immigrants from farming areas, from the interior, from other states or provinces or countries, leave everything behind to look for work, for a home, for a place where they can find a means of support and a better quality of life. Every day more people abandon their countries in desperation to knock at the doors of developed countries, even when they have to cross dark seas in rickety and hazardous boats to get there. Arriving at the other shore is a dream...And when they arrive, if they are allowed to enter, they begin a true Calvary, attempting to rise to the level of those who already live there. Our world has become an imitation of the Tower of Babel, a term which signifies “gateway to the gods”. That’s what the biblical city was called, and it was a symbol of humanity, the precursor of urban culture. A city focused on a tower, a language and a project: to climb to heaven, to invade the place of the divine. Human beings wanted to be like God (in Paradise, they tried to be like God at the personal level, now it’s at the political level) and they united (-and codified themselves into uniformity-) to accomplish it.

But the project was thwarted: God, jealous at the commencement of human progress, baffled (in Hebrew, “balal”) and mixed up the languages and demolished forever the “gateway to the gods” (Babel”). Perhaps such a uniform world never did exist; maybe it was only a tempting dream about human power. After the divine punishment, the diversity of languages was the major obstacle to coexistence, as well as the principle of dispersion and of human estrangement. The author of the Babel narrative didn’t think about the richness of plurality, and he interpreted the divine gesture as a punishment. But he stated, from the beginning, that God was for pluralism, separating the inhabitants of the globe by languages and scattering them around the globe.

Ten centuries after the writing of this story, found in the book of Genesis, we read another in the Acts of the Apostles. It took place on Pentecost, the Harvest Festival, the occasion when the Jews recalled their covenant with God on Mount Sinai, fifty days (=Pentecost) after their escape (Exodus) from Egypt.

The disciples were gathered together, also fifty days after the Resurrection (the Exodus of Jesus to the Father) and they were going to reap the fruit of the seeds spread by the Master, which was the coming of the Spirit. It is described as accompanied by events, expressed as if they were sensible phenomena: the sound of a hurricane wind, tongues like fire that consumes or refines, Holy (=”hagios”: not of this earth, distinct, divine) Spirit (=”ruah”: air, breath, breathing). Luke chooses this method to express the indescribable, the irruption of the Spirit, which would free them from cowardice and fear, and would enable them to speak freely to spread the good news of the death and resurrection of Jesus.

So, having received the Spirit, they all began to speak different languages. Some have theorized that this expression dealt with “strange noises”; maybe that was the original meaning, in the manner of charismatic meetings. But Luke says “different languages”. Just as it sounds. It is otherwise of little importance to figure out the nature of this phenomenon for whose explanation we have little data. What is important is to know that the “Jesus Movement” was born, open to everyone and to the whole world; that God doesn’t want uniformity, but plurality; God does not want confrontation, but dialogue; that a new era has begun in which we must proclaim that all are brothers and sisters, not just in spite of, but thanks to, our diversity; that it is possible to understand one another, and surpass all barriers that hinder communication.

This Spirit of God is not a spirit of monotony or of uniformity: it is multilingual, multivoiced. It is a spirit of harmony (from the Latin “concertare”: to debate, discuss, improve, negotiate, agree). A spirit that brings to harmony people who have differing points of view or different ways of being. On Pentecost, despite the multiplicity of languages, confusion did not result, as it did with the Tower of Babel. “Each one heard them speaking in his own language about the wonderful works of God.” God made the miracle of understanding possible…The new Babel made its debut, not with unhealthy uniformity, but with a pluralistic yet harmonious world. Would that we could reinvent this city, and not continue to build walls and barriers between rich and poor, between developed, developing, and underdeveloped countries.

The coming of the Spirit for this little handful of disciples meant the end of fear and of cowardice. The doors of the community were opened. A human community was born, free as the wind, like a burning fire. It is not without reason that Paul says: “Wherever the Spirit of God is, there is freedom”, and where there is freedom, there is autonomy (human beings – and their well-being – become the law), and where there is autonomy, here plurality and individuality are fostered, and truth stands out, because the Spirit is true and leads us on the path of truth, of authenticity, and of life, as John says in his gospel. Oh, that a new Pentecost would come upon our world – this is our prayer – to end the flood of intolerance and narrow-mindedness which invades every locale.

For small community or bible study groups

For personal conversion

For the Prayer of the Faithful

Community Prayer (2)

     God, Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Father of Glory: enlighten our interior vision so that, understanding what we expect as a result of your call, and the great and glorious inheritance that you reserve for your saints, we may see with what extraordinary power you act in favor of those who believe. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. [Cf Eph 1, 17ff]

Or

     O God, Holy Spirit, Light of light, Love within all love, Power and Life that breathes in all of Creation: pour yourself out today on all creation and all peoples, so that we may look beyond the different names with which we call upon you, to encounter you and encounter one another in you, united in everything that exists. You who live and make all things live, forever and ever. Amen