“But Wait, There’s More!”; Acts 2:1-21; May 24, 2015, FPC Holt

Posted on May 24, 2015 by Rev. Kathleen Henrion

“But Wait, There’s More!”
Acts 2:1-21
May 24, 2015, First Presbyterian Church of Holt

Pentecost Drum Circle:

As our call to worship in our Upstream Service We created rhythms utilizing the different names of the groups present at Pentecost in Acts 2 and then put them all together to experience the movement of the Spirit among the people, bringing them together in one voice.

“But Wait, There’s More!”

Listen to the sermon here

Do you ever feel like things are just a bit… noisy? You just have so many thoughts, so many ideas, that you can’t quite settle your mind down? Or you’re at a big gathering for a meal and there’s so many different people talking that you’re really not sure what conversation to tune in on? Or, you’re at one of those sports bars that seem to have one TV per person and they’re all on different channels and you just can’t seem to focus?

This is the feeling I’m imagining at the very beginning of the Pentecost gathering. So many different people all drawn together, speaking in their own languages about their own thoughts and issues, everyone is buzzing about wondering what’s going to happen next. I like this picture of it… because it seems just messy enough to be accurate.

Since the Holy Spirit has a great sense of humor, this very buzzing about is what was going on in my own brain as I tried to figure out what message this text could have for us today: We could talk about the correlation between Babel and Pentecost. We could explore the modern geography of the nationalities present at that gathering. I could attempt to deliver a sermon in Hebrew or Greek to see if the Holy Spirit shows up in the same particular way as in Pentecost so we’re all able to understand Hebrew and Greek perfectly, a miracle I would’ve been really grateful to have happen while I was in seminary. We could explore the Jewish festival of Shavu’ot as the setting for Pentecost, correlating the 10 commandments to the Spirit’s presence. We could talk about how the word for spirit and breath are the same or how the disciples had a similar reaction to the resurrection as they did to Pentecost.

This text is overflowing with theological, ecclesiological, and eschatological meaning, but for today the message I know I needed to hear the most, the miracle in this text for me this time around, was the way the Holy Spirit calmed all of this madly buzzing chaos and brought clarity.

In a whoosh of wind and fire the Spirit transformed the community from frenetic into faithful, from cacophonous into melodious, from fearful into empowered.

In the midst of a busy season at the end of a busy year in my own life, I know I need that message. As a congregation freshly emerging from a big year of many celebrations, I believe this is the message we could all use: That when the Holy Spirit moves among us, we can better understand what God wants us to do next, because by the Spirit we can better understand God and each other.

At the time of Pentecost, the disciples were under instruction from Jesus himself that they are not to leave Jerusalem until the Holy Spirit comes among them. But what will that look like? How will they know? In scripture we don’t hear them asking this question, but if they did I could imagine Jesus saying something along the lines of, “oh, you’ll know.”

After three years of ministry among them, his crucifixion, and then resurrection, Jesus ascends to heaven. Jesus is no longer there among them to answer their questions, to wash their feet, or to feed them loaves and fishes. And so, they are likely fearful, afraid that they are on their own, that God is no longer in their midst, since the primary way they have experienced God, so far, is through Christ.

After all that has happened in their lives with Jesus, he gives the disciples the divine version of, “but wait, there’s more.” So at Pentecost they are awaiting the Holy Spirit to come among them.

And as the disciples are gathered with “devout Jews from every nation,” the Holy Spirit rushes in with a violent wind, and “tongues of fire,” resting on each of them. And in their bewilderment they draw close together and inexplicably can all understand each other, even though they are speaking different languages.

Imagine actually being in this crowd at that time and how it would make you feel: a strong and angry wind, fire all around you. It would certainly be terrifying. Loud noises and fire are usually not an indication of positive things, rather of an attack or hurricane or tornado. Keep in mind it was a packed crowd in that temple, with lots of unfamiliar faces, perhaps even people in the room who looked like the type of people you had been taught to mistrust. But you’re in this together, whatever bad or good may come of this strange situation.

And then all of a sudden comes the moment I love in this passage, where the people in their fear draw closer to one another, and what was initially cowering in fear is transformed into gathering in unity. Their shouts of personal bewilderment aren’t just their own, but those of a common language and voice. They’re terrified, but in their terror they’re able to understand one another and the joy of that newfound clarity turns their panic into relief, discomfort into joy.

It reminds me of a story from my favorite artist, Brian Andreas. He writes, “this is a machine that’s supposed to make people good & true & kind & the funny thing is that it works best when it’s completely broken down so everyone has to stop what they’re doing & get together & figure out how to fix it.”[1]

Their unification was initially out of fear, but in surrendering themselves to their astonishment, the Holy Spirit breathes restoration and new beginnings in their midst.

As they drew together in fright the Holy Spirit transformed them into people of one language. As they were able to hear one another and Peter’s preaching they became people of one purpose, the beginning of the church of Jesus Christ.

The flames and wind and spontaneous ability to hear in one language were undoubtedly miraculous, but the part of this that I think speaks best to me today, was the way that the Holy Spirit enabled them not just to hear the words that each other were saying, but that the Holy Spirit enabled them to listen to the heart of one another, that they were each laid vulnerable before the other and truly understand God’s prophetic word for all of them.

Author Mark Nepo writes of the ways the Holy Spirit can transform our own fears and misgivings into life-giving unification, “The moment we speak from the truth of compassion, we speak the same language always waiting underneath our differences.” Continuing on he says, “in a moment of vulnerability, in a moment of suffering or acceptance, in a moment of letting the truth of things rise within us, in a moment of risking to be who we are in front of others, we can feel the life of others wash over us as we slip back into the sea of compassion. And in that…moment, there is only one tongue.”[2]

Through the Holy Spirit we experience clarity, a freedom from all of those things that we thought divided us, all those human-created conventions that we thought were necessary steps to accessing God. This freedom can and should shake up our lives, compelling us to reprioritize our own lives, and perhaps even our church to better reflect the priorities of God’s Kingdom.

Particularly in our upcoming Summer of Sabbatical, may we be mindful to silence any voices in us that are not of God, ever pursuing God’s call for each of our lives.

Whether it be through flames of Pentecost or a look of familiarity in the eyes of the stranger, thanks be to God for every time that the Holy Spirit helps us to get out of our own way so that God might be more mightily at work among us. May we ever open our eyes to the ways God is in our midst. Amen.

[1] http://www.storypeople.com/2013/12/16/broken-down/

“Beginnings and Endings,” Acts 2:1-21; June 1, 2014, FPC Jesup

Posted on June 1, 2014 by Rev. Kathleen Henrion

“Beginnings and Endings”
Acts 2:1-21
June 1, 2014, First Presbyterian Church of Jesup

I love home makeover shows. I love seeing the before and after, I love seeing how things come together, but my favorite part? The moment the family finds out that they are getting a home makeover.

In my favorite home makeover show, Extreme Makeover, Home Edition, we saw Ty Pennington and crew come running into the family’s life, bullhorn in hand. I loved watching how the family reacts, knowing that their lives are going to be changed. In several episodes, people have explained their reaction as a “weight being lifted.” Most people just screamed and jumped up and down.

This is not unlike what happens in our Pentecost narrative today. The Holy Spirit rolls into where the disciples are gathered and changes everything. The Spirit comes not with a bullhorn, but with a sound like rushing wind. In Greek, the word for Spirit can also be translated as breath, and in this Pentecost action, the Divine Breath is breathing into the assembly. This raw and electric energy ignites the people assembled, giving each the ability to be heard and understood by the others, even though each speaks a different language. The people are beside themselves, prophesying, dreaming dreams, and seeing visions.

When watching these makeover shows, it’s easy to get caught up in the emotion of the stories. The way we come to care about these people and their reactions is that these TV shows don’t just start out with showing up at someone’s door. We hear their story, many of all varieties of heartbreak and hardship. We hear specifically how getting a new home, one built to their needs, will make their lives better. We learn how a new home like this is not something they can build on their own.

The disciples too have had their own heartbreaks and hardships. These people have been following a man that they knew to be the messiah, Jesus of Nazareth, who gave them guidance, instruction, and purpose. When he died, they knew why, he died to save humankind from sin. However, this knowledge surely did not protect them from sadness at missing day to day breathing contact with this man.

Back even farther into the Judeo-Christian community’s history, was another heartbreak: Babel. In Genesis 11:1-9 we read of this story:

Now the whole earth had one language and the same words. And as they migrated from the east, they came upon a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. And they said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly.” And they had brick for stone, and bitumen for mortar. Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves; otherwise we shall be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.” The LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which mortals had built.

And the LORD said, “Look, they are one people, and they have all one language; and this is only the beginning of what they will do; nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. Come, let us go down, and confuse their language there, so that they will not understand one another’s speech.” So the LORD scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city. Therefore it was called Babel, because there the LORD confused the language of all the earth; and from there the LORD scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth.

The builders of this city and tower were building not so that they might have a home that would meet their needs, but rather, that it might help them to “make a name for themselves.” They were trying to reach God, not for relationship or connection, but for dominance. And so God came into the story, and muddled their language so that they might not be so self-assured. They were scattered so that they could relearn how to be together.

Throughout the Biblical narratives, we discover that when the Trinity enters into the human narrative, it’s to restore balance. In Babel, what the people needed was humility and diversifying their language created that. It made them reevaluate, reconsider, regroup. It forced them to work more on their relationships than their conquests.

By the time we get to Acts 2, the people desire to understand one another, not for the sake of dominance, but for the sake of relationship. And so, to restore balance, the Holy Spirit enters in and allows the people to understand each other. Pentecost changes not the result of Babel, for we are blessed to be part of a diverse world, but rather it changes the impact of Babel. As the people were scattered following Babel they went out into the world forming their own communities, identities, and cultures. Now as they come together at Pentecost, though everyone is speaking in different languages, they are able to understand one another. They are able to relate within and through their diversity through the power of the Holy Spirit. Within this moment, the foundation of the Christian church as we know it today is established.

Pope John Paul II explained this well saying, “According to the text of Genesis 11, the builders of Babel had decided to build a city with a great tower whose top would reach the heavens. The sacred author sees in this project a foolish pride, which flows into division, disorder and lack of communication. On the day of Pentecost, on the other hand Jesus’ disciples do not want to climb arrogantly to the heavens but are humbly open to the gift that comes down from above. While in Babel the same language is spoken by all but they end up not understanding each other, on the day of Pentecost different languages are spoken, yet they are very clearly understood. This is a miracle of the Holy Spirit.”

There’s another thing that I can’t help but want to see on makeover shows, but that is not featured on too many of them: when they follow up a few months later. When a makeover show ends with someone receiving a home, achieving record weight loss, or now having the perfect wardrobe, we know that at this moment, things are good. At this moment there is hope of sustaining this transformation. However, months or years down the line, things might not be quite that way.

A child may have outgrown their highly thematic room, the doctor’s bills may be accumulating once again, the weight may be regained, or the cancer that had been in remission may come back.

In the Pentecost story in Acts, the Breath of all breath breathes into these disciples. The church is made alive by Pentecost fire. The people are linguistically reconnected to brothers and sisters separated by thousands of years of division. And now, 2000 years later, where are they now? By the grace of God and the work of millions of missionaries, the Gospel has been spread to nearly every country, and continues to be spread throughout communities around the world. Within the tradition of the Church we are the inheritors of hundreds of years of teachings and liturgy. A cloud of witnesses who have come before us surrounds us. But, with such gifts, also comes a history of deep division. Wars have been fought in the name of Christianity. Lines have been drawn for the sake of polity. The unity achieved by the Holy Spirit in Pentecost seems to have faded away. We are Pentecost people, but we are living like we are still suffering the consequences of Babel.

Galatians 3:26-29 tells us: “For in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise.”

Jesus came to this world to end division, give us hope, and like those home makeover recipients, lift our burdens. On this Pentecost day, know that the Holy Spirit is still breathing in and through this community. God is still yearning to be present in all that we say and do. Amen.

Festival of Homiletics Tweets

Posted on May 23, 2013 by Rev. Kathleen Henrion

I just returned from a wonderful week in Nashville for the Festival of Homiletics. It was such an incredible time I’m having trouble summarizing all of it, so I have decided to share some of the highlights from my tweets from the week. Please feel free to read more of them on my twitter page.

“Lydia is Listening”; Acts 16:9-15; May 5, 2013, FPC Jesup

Posted on May 5, 2013 by Rev. Kathleen Henrion

“Lydia is Listening”
Acts 16:9-15
May 5, 2013, First Presbyterian Church of Jesup

A month and a half ago the world saw a new pope elected at the Vatican in Italy. The Protestant church got its start when Martin Luther, a German monk posted his 95 reasons the church needed to change to be faithful to scripture. In the 1500s French/Swiss theologian John Calvin started what became the Presbyterian Church.

When many in the world think about Christianity, we think about Europe. However, none of these things would have happened without our story that we heard today from the New Testament.

Our New Testament passage gives us a quick story about a woman named Lydia: “A certain woman named Lydia, a worshiper of God, was listening to us; she was from the city of Thyatira and a dealer in purple cloth. The Lord opened her heart to listen eagerly to what was said by Paul. When she and her household were baptized, she urged us, saying, “If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come and stay at my home.” And she prevailed upon us.”

Though her story is a quick two verses, it’s an important moment in the history of the church. Lydia is recognized as the very first European conversion at the start of the Church. The Vatican, the Protestant Reformation, and even Calvin’s Presbyterianism wouldn’t have come about if Paul hadn’t followed his strange nighttime vision calling him to Macedonia.

There are some lessons to be learned from Paul, from Lydia, and from their seeming chance encounter. These lessons can teach us about our own call to share the gospel with others.

First, Paul was a very unlikely sort of follower of Christ. He tells us in scripture that he originally persecuted Christians: “For you have heard of my former life in Judaism, how I persecuted the church of God violently and tried to destroy it. And I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people, so extremely zealous was I for the traditions of my fathers.” (Galatians 1:13-14)

Paul recounts his conversion in Acts 26:12-18 “I was traveling to Damascus… when at midday along the road…I saw a light from heaven, brighter than the sun, shining around me and my companions. When we had all fallen to the ground, I heard a voice saying to me in the Hebrew language, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? …’

I asked, ‘Who are you, Lord?’ The Lord answered, ‘I am Jesus whom you are persecuting. But get up and stand on your feet; for I have appeared to you for this purpose, to appoint you to serve and testify to the things in which you have seen me and to those in which I will appear to you. I will rescue you from your people and from the Gentiles—to whom I am sending you to open their eyes so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.’”

Paul was given a very specific sort of call from God. In the familiar great commission passage at the end of Matthew 28, Jesus tells his disciples to, “go and make disciples of all nations.” However, the early church was composed primarily of Jewish people who had experienced the miracles of Christ.

In the account of Pentecost, the advent of the Christian church, we are told a miraculous account of a whole group of people from every nation who are overcome with the Holy Spirit and are able to understand one another even though they are all speaking in their native languages. A point that I never really picked up on in this passage is that it refers to this crowd of people as, “devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem.” (Acts 2:5) So while there was ethnic and geographic diversity in this group, there was not religious diversity. The call to reach all nations had somehow been translated into “the Jews of all nations.” So when Paul was called to follow Christ, he was called to open the eyes of both Jews and Gentiles.

Paul was a passionate man, so as impassioned as he was about persecuting Christians, he became all the more passionate about converting Gentiles to Christians once he was one.

He was brought to understand God’s plan for his life through a light from heaven, the voice of Jesus, and then later through visions in the night. His response, his willingness to follow where God led, changed the world forever.

It is incredible how God can redeem even those who seem the farthest off, and use them for the building of the Kingdom. Even now while I am talking about sharing Christ with others, do you find yourself falling asleep or looking around the room at others who are “better at sharing their faith”? If so, you are exactly who I am talking to.

Paul’s willingness is not the end to this story. Lydia’s openness to Paul’s gospel message is at least important as Paul’s willingness to follow God’s will. Though what we know about her is limited, her immediate responsiveness speaks to an even greater openness to God’s will. She gets it. She is a listener.

The verse labels her as a “worshiper of God.” In modern terms, she would be what we would call a deist, or perhaps even an agnostic. She is religiously unaffiliated, but questioning, open, and listening.

The reality is there are so many Lydias in this world. So many that are unaffiliated, that are looking for a truth to grasp onto. They’re looking for a way to connect. If we get out of our own way of the excuses of why we are not sharing our own Gospel witness with those we encounter, we open ourselves up to meeting these Lydias, and introducing them to our Savior.

More than just accept the message, Lydia is moved to respond. She immediately has her entire household baptism and invites Paul to stay at her home. She is all in, opening her home and her heart to what God would have her do.

If Paul had his own way he wouldn’t have even ended up in Macedonia to begin with. He wouldn’t have met Lydia, might not have made the effort to evangelize to Europe. Right before the passage we heard today, we are told that Paul was forbidden by the Holy Spirit to go to Asia. Like a GPS recalculating, he was constantly being pushed to try somewhere else.

It was not an easy thing for Paul to follow Christ’s call on his life. As Paul had previously persecuted Christians, he too found himself facing persecution. We read in Acts 14:2-7 that as he was in Iconium, “the unbelieving Jews stirred up the Gentiles and poisoned their minds against the brothers. So they remained for a long time, speaking boldly for the Lord, who testified to the word of his grace by granting signs and wonders to be done through them. But the residents of the city were divided; some sided with the Jews, and some with the apostles. And when an attempt was made by both Gentiles and Jews, with their rulers, to mistreat them and to stone them, the apostles learned of it and fled to Lystra and Derbe, cities of Lycaonia, and to the surrounding country; and there they continued proclaiming the good news.”

The important thing to notice here is that follow God’s call to preach the gospel was certainly not always easy. In fact at times it was awful and hard, but even so Paul and his companions continued on their efforts “they continued proclaiming the good news.”

God’s plan was so very different than what Paul wanted to do by his own will. While Paul tried to work his way place by place, this night time vision sent him across the ocean to a whole new area, a whole new continent.

As we seek to tell others about Christ it will be hard, and we might feel defeated from time to time, but there are Lydias in this world waiting to hear the great good news of grace, redemption, and love. If we allow ourselves to get stuck in dead ends, or defeated by those who might even hate us for our faith, we will miss out on those eagerly waiting for us to share our own experience of Christ.

I read an article this week by Presbyterian pastor MaryAnn McKibben Dana called, Christian Wanderlust: Paul, Lydia and the Holy Detour. In it she writes, “ I love the story of Columba, priest in sixth-century Ireland, who got in a rudderless boat and let God and providence take him where he was meant to be. He made landfall once, but decided to push out again because he could still see his homeland on the horizon behind him. The second place he landed was Iona, the island where Christianity touched Scotland for the first time.” She continues, challenging each of us, “How are we being called beyond our carefully-considered plans and safe assumptions into something daring, unpredictable… maybe even unprecedented?”[1]

I have to admit, as someone who likes to have a plan, a direction, and a purpose, the idea of a rudderless boat seems genuinely frightening, not to mention dangerous in all the storms he likely encountered. Opening ourselves entirely to God’s will can be a terrifying proposition, it requires vulnerability, perhaps even helplessness, but it can also change the world. May we open ourselves to what God would have us do, knowing that somewhere in your life, somewhere in your path, God has placed a Lydia, who is just waiting to respond. Amen.

[1] Christian Wanderlust: Paul, Lydia and the Holy Detour, by MaryAnn McKibben Dana http://thq.wearesparkhouse.org/featured/easter6cn/

“All Things in Common”

Posted on May 28, 2012 by Rev. Kathleen Henrion

Peter said to them, “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ so that your sins may be forgiven; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you, for your children, and for all who are far away, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to him.” And he testified with many other arguments and exhorted them, saying, “Save yourselves from this corrupt generation.” So those who welcomed his message were baptized, and that day about three thousand persons were added. They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. Awe came upon everyone, because many wonders and signs were being done by the apostles. All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all the people. And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved. – Acts 2:38-47

Yesterday we celebrated the founding of the Christian church, Pentecost. We read of the Holy Spirit descending upon a gathering of people and though all are speaking different languages, the Holy Spirit enables them to understand one another. And, “all who believed were together and had all things in common.”

All things? Really? We’ve been told that they come from a great many different places, with a great many different native languages. Surely each place had their own customs and varying experiences of life. I bet some were farmers, some were shepherds. Some came from pagan traditions and some were Jewish. But still…we are told that they had all things in common.

As the Christian church has continued over the centuries would we still say that we have all things in common? Throughout the horrors of the Crusades, when Martin Luther called the pope, “the devil,” in the ongoing tragedies caused by those who read God’s Word and decide that God hates anyone, our history is littered with many and terrible examples of ways we aren’t united.

A lawyer asked, “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” [Jesus] said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” – Matthew 22:36-40

These two greatest commandments, identified by Jesus himself, must be the foundation for our faith in order for us to achieve any sense of unity. Having “all things in common” is not about unity in demographics, life experiences, or cultural worldview, it is about having love of God and neighbor in common.

This past week was my first week at First Congregational. Though it is a UCC congregation and I myself am Presbyterian, I find that denominational issues differences are not any sort of a problem, but rather a great experience for me to learn about the different expressions of the Church. These are a kind and caring people who love God and neighbor through striving for justice, providing homes for the homeless, and welcoming any who who enter the church with open arms. There’s a lot that could be argued is different between us, but in the things that matter, we do seem to have “all things in common.”

“Extreme Makeover: Holy Spirit Edition,” Acts 2:1-21 and Genesis 11:1-9, June 12, 2011, First Presbyterian Church of Maumee

Posted on May 27, 2012 by Rev. Kathleen Henrion

For Pentecost today I am posting the sermon I preached at FPC Maumee last year:

“Extreme Makeover: Holy Spirit Edition”
Acts 2:1-21 and Genesis 11:1-9
June 12, 2011, First Presbyterian Church of Maumee

I love home makeover shows. I love seeing the before and after, I love seeing how things come together, but my favorite part? The moment the family finds out that they are getting a home makeover.

In my favorite home makeover show, Extreme Makeover, Home Edition, we see Ty Pennington and crew come running into the family’s life, bullhorn in hand. I love watching how the family reacts, knowing that their lives are going to be changed. In several episodes, people have explained their reaction as a “weight being lifted.” Most people just scream and jump up and down.

This raw and electric energy ignites the people assembled, giving each the ability to be heard and understood by the others, even though each speaks a different language. The people are beside themselves, prophesying, dreaming dreams, and seeing visions.

Back even farther into the Judeo-Christian community’s history, was another heartbreak: Babel. In Genesis 11:1-9 we read of this story. The builders of this city and tower were building not so that they might have a home that would meet their needs, but rather, that it might help them to “make a name for themselves.” They were trying to reach God, not for relationship or connection, but for dominance. And so God came into the story, and muddled their language so that they might not be so self-assured. They were scattered so that they could relearn how to be together.

As the people were scattered following Babel they went out into the world forming their own communities, identities, and cultures. Now as they come together at Pentecost, though everyone is speaking in different languages, they are able to understand one another. They are able to relate within and through their diversity through the power of the Holy Spirit. Within this moment, the foundation of the Christian church as we know it today is established.

Pope John Paul II explained this well saying:

“According to the text of Genesis 11, the builders of Babel had decided to build a city with a great tower whose top would reach the heavens. The sacred author sees in this project a foolish pride, which flows into division, disorder and lack of communication. On the day of Pentecost, on the other hand Jesus’ disciples do not want to climb arrogantly to the heavens but are humbly open to the gift that comes down from above. While in Babel the same language is spoken by all but they end up not understanding each other, on the day of Pentecost different languages are spoken, yet they are very clearly understood. This is a miracle of the Holy Spirit.”

Galatians 3:26-29 tells us:

“For in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise.”

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