Perhaps I am the only one here today who
learned English at his mother’s knee. I never had to sit down and study “I am,
you are, he/she/it is…” I never had to think about why today I go, but
yesterday I went, and not I goed. I admit that when I was a little older and
went to school I struggled just as many of you will have with spelling – but by
that time the English language was a part of me. I had taken it in with my
mother’s milk. Wasn’t I lucky?
And yet, if I’m lucky compared with
you, I also feel that I am very poor compared with you. I fear I may be the
only person here who can confidently speak only one language. Hillian, in case
you are wondering, does not speak English as a first language. But since it’s
over forty years since I took her away from her own country and her own Dutch
language, she must have spoken more English than anything else in her lifetime. But like you, she had to
learn it. And over the years we have been together I have often envied the way
she has learned to speak other languages (some fluently, others less so); and I
have come to see how much richer life is if, like all of you, we can think and express
ourselves in a variety of languages. Languages reflect the rich diversity of
our human life.
So it’s bit of a shock to turn to this
ancient story of Babel, and to find that this rich variety of languages is seen
to be not a blessing, but a curse. Here are people who seem very much like us:
they are ambitious, they want to progress, they want their society to develop.
Just as in our world today, new technologies in Babel mean that things are
possible that could never be achieved before. We know very little about ancient
civilizations that built only in wood, for even in hot climates the wood has
rotted away. But learn to bake bricks, and build high with those bricks – and
you make a name for yourself. You are remembered. Leave the villages behind and
move to the city, and there are enough people to take on big projects. Today, for
the first time in history, there are more people in our world who live in
cities than in the countryside. For the first time in history, there is more
land, more earth, moved every year by human beings and our machines than is
moved by rivers and seas and all the forces of nature. Like the citizens of
Babel, we, it seems, are set to “make a name for ourselves”.
But in this ancient story, this is the point
at which God intervenes. We are not told exactly why, but clearly there is the
idea that the people of Babel are going too far. God reasons to himself that “there will be
nothing beyond their reach”. It is not a bad thing to have ambition for
ourselves. It is not a bad thing to seek to develop our society. But of course
if we are listening for what God may be saying to us today, we will want our
schemes and our plans to enrich not just our own lives, but our neighbours’
lives as well. The highest towers in our world today are being built in Dubai
and the Gulf States, but they are nothing but the playthings of the rich. And
in our global society there are many many things that are possible that once
were never dreamed of, but not all of them will help us to be better human
beings. No doubt God still looks down and thinks “There is nothing now beyond
their reach.”
But what has this to do with
languages? Perhaps this confusion of languages is a way of saying that we have
got out of step with God. In all these ancient stories, God is the one who
speaks. His word creates the heavens and the earth and everything in them. God
is the one who speaks to his creatures, t o the man and the woman whom he sets
in the paradise garden – and he still speaks to them, even when sin has driven
them out. God speaks to Noah, and gives him boat-building lessons so that he
and his family are saved from destruction. And through the sign of the rainbow,
God speaks a word of promise, a covenant promise, to all humanity – to you, and
to me, and even to the builders of Babel.
But if God speaks, we need to listen.
Listening should be easy: ears are not like eyes, which we open and shut. Our
ears are open all the time. Yet listening is not always easy – and listening
becomes harder and harder when other languages are around us. Some people at
Khovo kindly talk to me in English, and I listen carefully. But then they start
talking to one another in Portuguese, and I begin to switch off. And because
I’m no longer part of the conversation, they may even lapse into Ronga or
Shangana, and because I’m not listening I don’t even notice. The people of
Babel have not been listening to God. They haven’t thought about whether their
big building schemes suit his eternal purposes of good. But because they forget
to listen to God, they soon discover that they cannot even listen to one
another. The human story becomes a story of tragedy when communication breaks
down and people go off on their different ways, in different directions.
Different languages, which might have reflected the richness of our varied
human life, instead become a measure of our divisions. We can no longer speak
to one another: we no longer hear one another.
Except that in the Bible, of course,
the story of the Tower of Babel is balanced by the story of the Day of
Pentecost. When the followers of Jesus find the courage to share the good news
of his death and his resurrection, they receive this wonderful gift of the
Spirit; and they discover that the streets of Jerusalem, which had previously
been a babble of every language under the sun, echo to a single language that
allows everyone to hear the great things God has done. Into this world of
confusion the Spirit brings understanding. What was confused now becomes clear.
And at that moment God makes his people one again.
If only we could recapture that
moment. But of course there are still other forces at work in the world – and
even in the Church; and if we have experience of petty jealousies and envy and
things that divide us rather than unite us: well Paul knew all about these
things too, and particularly when he was dealing with this church at Corinth.
Here were people who knew all about that wonderful day of Pentecost in
Jerusalem: you never know, some of them may even have been there. And they now knew
that when they threw themselves into the life of the Spirit, they could talk in
tongues – they could talk in a language that wasn’t anything like English or
Portuguese or any local language that we could ever imagine, but which they
liked to think was the language of God, the language of heaven.
Here in Corinth people were speaking
this language, speaking in tongues, at the Sunday service. Fair enough, says
Paul, if this is a gift that God has given you: but don’t be so proud of it.
Don’t think that this is a the greatest gift that there is. It becomes a bit
like the Babel story all over again. Here are people with great ideas, but
they’re not asking themselves what God wants. I’m afraid we can still be like
the Corinthians in our church life today. We make wonderful plans without
always asking what it may be that God wants of us. We think we know best which
gifts we should cherish and develop – when sometimes we should listen to what
others in the church may tell us. Perhaps we have other gifts that we haven’t
realised ourselves. Perhaps our pastor or our elder or a valued friend could
help us to see which of our gifts would be most useful to God, here in this
place, here today.
I’m not sure if anyone at Corinth was
humble enough to ask Paul, but he tells them anyway. Better than tongues, he
says, is to prophesy. Don’t use a language that no one else can understand, but
speak in a common language – and use
that language to tell one another and the world outside what God has done. Use
that language in the best way you can – and use it as a gift of the Spirit: a
gift which like every one of the Spirit’s gifts can be used to build up the
Church.
This is the challenge presented to you
today, as we launch this English language service. God has blessed you with the
gift of languages – and now there is opportunity to use and develop that gift
so that more and more people may learn about God’s love, and his good purposes
for us all. Every Sunday there are people in this city who are not as gifted as
you. Like me they will need to hear the good news in English if they are fully
to understand it – if it is really to touch their hearts and convert their
lives. So seek these people out: invite them to Khovo, every Sunday afternoon,
16.00 hours sharp! And let Paul’s plea to the Church in Corinth be heard by
Presbyterians here in Maupto: Aspire to excel in the Spirit’s gifts that build
up the Church.
God bless you in this work: keep
building!
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