Speaking in Tongues

 

Genesis 11:1-9

Acts 2:1-21

 

            The most spectacular feature of Pentecost Sunday is the phenomenon of speaking in tongues. Lutherans tend to approach this topic suspiciously and a bit nervously.

 

            However, two of the readings for today force us to deal with this issue. The stories of the Tower of Babel and of Pentecost are very different types of stories, but taken together, they provide a fascinating framework for thinking about what it means to speak in tongues.

 

            The Tower of Babel story is ancient fable, told from the perspective of the very limited scientific knowledge of the time. The story tells of a world in which all people speak only one language. A group of men decide to build a great city with a tower that reaches to the heavens, “so that they may make a great name for themselves.”

            The Lord comes down to look at the construction project and does not like what he sees. “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them.” God appears to be concerned that they will succeed in their task of building a tower to the heavens, and that in so doing they will then be able to take over God’s role in the world.

            The Lord responds by making them all speak in tongues, in different languages. No one can understand what the other is saying. This disrupts their communications and makes any cooperative effort impossible. Their plan is foiled. They are unable to complete their fabulous tower. They are scattered across the earth, where they are no longer a threat. God’s place in the universe is saved.

 

            Is this supposed to be a report of a historical event? That’s an easy question to answer with some elementary logic. Prior to 1884 the tallest structure ever built in the entire human history, the Great Pyramid of Cheops, topped out at 481 feet. Not exactly up in the heavens. Would anyone seriously suggest that the reason no buildings were any taller through those thousands of years until almost the end of the 19^th century was because of language issues?

 

            The tallest human-made building currently in existence is the Taipei 101 completed in 2004 in Taiwan, at 1,667 feet. The tallest tower is the KVLY-TV mast near Fargo, North Dakota at 2,063 feet. At present there is a building under construction in Dubai in the Middle East that is designed to reach 2,640 feet, twice as tall as the Empire State building. Ask any engineer if people in ancient Biblical times, all speaking the same language, could have built a tower that high with the materials and technology available.

 

            Assuming they could have built such a tower in olden times, would this have been remotely threatening to God? Consider these three facts: 1) As spectacular as it will be, the Dubai building will not even be visible in a satellite image of the Earth. 2) The Earth is 1/100^th the size of the star it orbits—the sun. 3) There are more stars in God’s universe than there are grains of sand on all the beaches and dunes and sandhills on earth.

 

            Therefore, in the scope of the universe, the most humungous tower ever built would be as significant as an invisible structure on a microscopic speck of matter 1/100^th the size of a grain of sand floating in an ocean among all the grains of sand in existence.

 

            Given what Scripture tells us about the creator of the universe, is there any way God would feel threatened by this tower?

 

            The Tower of Babel is a work of fiction, and in Western culture we have taken on a very cramped view of what fiction is and can do.

            In presentations during my author days, when I was younger and meaner than I am today, I used to ask people what’s the difference between fiction and nonfiction? I could always get the answer: nonfiction is something that is true and fiction is something that is not true. Wrong!

 

            Have you read Mein Kampf by Adolph Hitler? That’s nonfiction. You’re telling me what he wrote is true? I don’t think so. On the other hand, there are many works of fiction that have touched my heart with the truth in a way that no factual reporting could.

 

            I suspect they understood stories in Biblical times better than we obsessive fact-crunchers and reality tv-watchers of today. In a couple of weeks, our Old Testament reading will be about David and Bathsheba. When we get there, notice in that reading how the only way the prophet Nathan can get David to recognize the truth is to tell him a story that is pure fiction. Truth comes to David through fiction. Good fiction is not only true, it lays bare truths that we could see in no other way.

 

            I can illustrate the truth-telling power of story through my own experience. I used to do a lot of traveling and speaking in schools because I could make more money talking about what I had written than I did from writing it. There were only a couple of times in all my travels when I ran into major discipline problems, where the behavior situation was spinning out of control and school authorities were doing nothing about it.

 

            In those situations, I stopped my presentation and began to tell a story. The setting was Minneapolis, about the time I was born. The Minneapolis Symphony agreed to put on a special performance for school children. The day arrived, and buses came from all over the Metro area for this event. Every seat in the Minneapolis Auditorium was filled. The lights dimmed, and the conductor walked out onto the stage. As he reached center stage and bowed to the applauding audience, some kid yelled out: “Nice tux, Freddie!”

 

            The conductor stared in icy silence at the audience, then turned and walked off the stage. That was the end of the performance. Several thousand students had to go home without hearing a single note played. All the expense for dozens of school districts, of buses and drivers, all the logistics of transporting students, an entire school day—all wasted. Wasted because one kid didn’t know how to act. Because one kid thought he was cute.

 

            After telling that to my audience, I asked a simple question. “Do you know why I’m telling you that story?”

 

            The silence and tension that fell over the room gave me their answer. They knew very why I told the story. It was a warning, and it had its intended effect.

 

            Is that story of the symphony conductor historically accurate? I doubt it. I heard the story only once, from a teacher, back when I was in 5^th grade. I have never talked to anyone who can corroborate the story; never found a shred of supporting evidence that it ever happened. If I had to guess, I would say it is based on a factual event, but my version of it cannot be accurate. Trying to dredge up details of a story I heard third-hand 25 ago is impossible.

 

            But historical accuracy wasn’t the point of the story. I was not telling it so that students would have at their disposal the facts of a verifiable incident. I was telling it because it was the best way to drive home a truth that they could not seem to grasp in any other way: The truth that I wasn’t there to babysit them, that even though I had traveled a long ways and people had gone to some effort and cost to get me there, I was this close to walking out of the room, and they would have to live with the consequences of their actions.

 

            So when I read the story of the tower of Babel I hear the voice of God asking, “Do you know why I’m telling you this story?” Because it’s full of historical facts that we somehow need to know? Or because it tells us a truth about God and ourselves in an especially insightful way?

 

            The point of the story has to do with pride. The men of Babel thought they were cool stuff. They thought they were the center of the universe. They were so impressed with themselves that they believed they were as good as God, maybe better. They could run the world without regard for anything or anyone else.

 

            According to the story, what does that attitude lead to? Chaos. It’s the old principle that pride goes before a fall. When people do not understand their place in the scheme of life and do not acknowledge the presence of an all-encompassing, cohesive force in the universe, everything breaks down. When we put ourselves at the center of the universe, we can no longer relate to one another. We cannot speak to each other in any meaningful way. When it’s every person for himself or herself, we go our separate ways; when we look after only our own interests, we scatter across the face of the earth.

 

            I suppose Genesis could have said it just the way I did. But the story of the Tower of Babel was a much more interesting and effective way of getting that point across.

 

            Is this just an old tale with no relevance for today? I think it’s more timely now than when it was written. Human arrogance has never been greater. With every scientific advancement in technology and genetic engineering, we get a greater opinion of ourselves. Look what we can do! We can harnass the power of the atom, we can cram billions of bits of information onto a chip the size of a pin head. We can manipulate the building blocks of nature to clone and create new forms of life. We can arrest the aging process and defeat disease. We can build a skyscraper 2,600 feet high.

 

            We are great. We can utterly dominate the world and everything in it. We are our own god. We don’t need any other.

 

            The story of the tower of Babel reminds us that in the grand scheme of things, every human achievement of which we boast is as significant as an invisible structure on a microscopic bit of matter attached to a grain of sand suspended in the ocean.

 

            It warns us that when we stake our claim as the masters of creation, we are setting ourselves up for a gigantic fall. In the language of the universe, prideful boasts are nothing but incoherent babble. They cause us to lose our ability to connect with the world, with each other. Our chances of accomplishing anything real and lasting, anything approaching the glorious new kingdom of God, disintegrate. We fall into chaos.

 

            Contrast that with the story of Pentecost in Acts. This story has more of a historical, eyewitness quality about it that puts it in the nonfiction genre. But as with all stories, the important thing to ask is “Why is God telling us this story?”

 

            Pentecost begins exactly where Babel ends. It begins in chaos. The disciples are confused and uncertain of their place in the world. Jerusalem is filled with people from all over the world, each speaking their own language, unable to communicate with other, to connect with each other. This is a world struggling to find hope, direction, and meaning. 

 

            Unlike the people of Babel, the disciples do not fall into the trap of pride. They do not assume they are the masters of all they survey, answerable to none. They acknowledge God as the source of life, and recognize that whatever they can achieve in life flows from the gifts of their loving creator.

 

            They understand that their role in the world is not to pump themselves up by building towers over the bodies of anyone who gets in their way, but to build peace that lifts up the souls of all in need. What they are in desperate need of is some guidance for taking on this mission.

 

            Like the people of Babel, the disciples begin speaking in tongues. But when they do so, it has the opposite effect. They do not speak in some strange babble that no one can understand, but in languages that proclaim and make known the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

 

            Speaking in tongues at Babel divided and scattered the people. Speaking in tongues at Pentecost drew the people together.

 

            When we try to build monuments to ourselves, when we think that equality with God is a thing to be grasped, we fall into chaos. We become divided and scattered. We cannot speak with each other; we cannot connect with each other. We end up face down in the dirt with broken bits of our monument lying around us

 

            There is one who can turn the babble into coherence. The chaos into order. The division into unity. Who can reforge our connections with each other and with creation.

 

            That person is a carpenter from Nazareth who, as Philipians says, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant. Over 2000 years later, his spirit continues to speak the language of healing and peace that brings together people of all nations. When we speak in his name, we speak in a language that is different from our native tongue. We speak in that universal language that draws us all together.

 

            That is what the gift of speaking in tongues is all about.