Hearing and Trusting the Language of God, a Sermon for the Day of Pentecost, 2024

Day of Pentecost, May 19th, Year of Our + Lord 2024
Our Redeemer and Our Savior’s Lutheran Churches
Custer and Hill City, South Dakota
Hearing and Trusting the Language of God
Genesis 9:1-11, Acts 2:1-21

Audio of Sermon Available HERE.

     Do you understand what’s been said?  The Lord’s goal today, and everyday, is that you hear His voice and grasp the meaning of what He is telling you, so that it might enter your heart.  He wants you to know and trust the truth of His great love for you, shape your life accordingly, and rejoice.  So, do you understand?  Are you hearing what Jesus is saying to you?  Are you cut to the heart, but also healed, restored, and lifted up to heaven? 

   Hearing but not understanding is no fun.  One morning, sometime in 2017, I was headed downtown on Line 21 of Tussam, the Sevilla, Spain city bus system.  The big red “autobus” was lurching from stop to stop, and very full, every seat taken and a dozen or more of us standing in the aisle, swaying and grabbing a pole or a strap to keep our balance.  Spaniards are not quiet people, and less so when you jam a lot of them into a small space.  My ears were swimming in a cacophony of banter and laughter.  And I couldn’t understand a thing.  Two years in country, speaking Spanish every day, preaching on Sundays, supposedly my ‘castellano’ was pretty good.  But that morning, it was all babble to me, a startling moment.

  I tried to concentrate, to listen to just one voice.  But the most I could grasp was a word here and there. 

   I understood the recorded voice announcing the stops and warning about moving doors and taking care stepping off the bus, because I had those announcements memorized.  But, I understood almost nothing of the conversations all around me.  It was not the best Spanish ever spoken, to be sure, probably some of the worst.  Think of grade schoolers on a big yellow bus, or the rumble of conversation over coffee, after a church service.  Still, I hated it.  I should have been able to understand some of the conversations going on.  My feelings went from startled to oppressed.  I felt stupid, like a child trapped in a grown up conversation, lost and lonely.  

   It’s no fun, being lost in the midst of voices that you cannot understand.  In Sevilla, I had escape valves, Shelee and the other missionaries, and Spaniards I knew who spoke English, or were kind enough to speak Spanish slowly and carefully.  That bus ride was unpleasant, but short. 

   We might have a variety of reactions if we find ourselves dropped into a place where no one speaks English and we don’t speak the local tongue.  Anger is a not uncommon reaction.  Some people withdraw.  Others speak English, louder and LOUDER, as if volume could substitute for translation or comprehension.  It won’t feel like it at the time, but if one is blessed, there will be no escape valves. 

   If, to stay safe and dry and warm, if, to get fed you have to figure out how to communicate, well, then you will most likely learn how to communicate, fairly quickly.  An empty stomach or not knowing where you are going to sleep tonight both have a way of removing our inhibitions and opening our minds to learn to communicate in a foreign language. 

   The intense separation that language differences can cause is God’s doing, a consequence of His actions at Babel.  My unpleasant bus ride and every other language based lack of understanding are the result of the Lord confusing the language of the men in Babel who were seeking to make a name for themselves and build their own personal stairway to heaven. 

   While the confusion of languages causes discomfort, and can lead frustrated people to do bad things, in its essence, God’s confusing work at Babel was an act of grace, a painful but necessary gift.  God was preventing humanity from separating themselves from Him, forever.  By confusing their words, the Eternal Word began to prepare the way for reunion.  By causing a millennia long and ongoing separation of tongues and tribes and nations, we humans were prevented from losing ourselves in our own fallen identity, stopped from thinking we could build our own way to God’s heaven.  All this so that, at just the right time, the Lord could reunite human language around the proclamation of mercy, that God in Christ has made the Way for us sinners to rise to Him, that through faith in the blood bought forgiveness of Jesus, God has prepared a new name, a good name, for us, and for all people. 

   For centuries, English has dominated the language-scape in North America.  Indeed, many Americans are convinced they could never learn a foreign language.  The truth is, they haven’t had to learn one.  It is not impossible to learn another language.  Some people have a knack for it, especially the young.  But if you have the need, if you are somewhere that no one speaks your language, you will learn.  Hunger and other basic human needs will drive you to learn.  In an echo of the tough love of God at the Tower of Babel, folks  around you who refuse to use English or offer you a translation app will actually be helping you to learn, better and faster.  It’s not always pleasant, but you can do it.   

   As challenging as learning a new human language seems to us, it is even harder to grasp the Lord’s Gospel language.  The miracle of the disciples at Pentecost speaking in many languages that they had never learned was a foretaste of the free communication and perfect understanding that the faithful will enjoy in the new heaven and new earth.  And it is certainly easier to listen to and understand the proclamation of Christ in the language of your heart, of your childhood.  Understanding the words of God and their meaning is always important.  But that’s not the whole deal. 

   There is another, higher communication, which the Church prepares and facilitates by speaking the Truth of Christ to as many people and in as many languages as possible.  We Christians have an indispensable role in this higher communication; we get to say the words.   We get to tell others.  But the understanding that saves, this heart-piercing and soul-reviving part of evangelism is the work of the Holy Spirit.  To close the deal, He must drive home the message and create receptive faith in human hearts.  The final miracle of language belongs to God. 

   The need for this divine communication is clear to see at Babel, and continues to our day.  Those descendants of Noah didn’t struggle to comprehend God’s instruction to fill the earth, they simply refused.  God’s plan didn’t make sense to them, and it seemed like they could do great things by following their hearts, by making their own way.  So, they tried.  Let’s make a name for ourselves!  Let’s build a tower into the very heavens!  Let’s just do it!  What could go wrong? 

   The more things change, the more they stay the same.  The challenge of drawing sinners to God through the Cross and Resurrection of Jesus has never been easily fulfilled.  Jesus gave this charge to the Apostles and the Church they built: take the Gospel to every corner of the world and call every human being to repentance.  The visible results of Christ’s Mission have ebbed and flowed throughout 2,000 years.  The tide seems to be very low in our day. 

   On the other hand, nothing sounds more contemporary and familiar than “making a name for ourselves” or “achieving heaven on earth” through human selected projects.  There are so many options to choose from: Neo-Marxism to Make America Great, from day traders and corporate climbers to getting back to the land, from ultra sports fans to fitness nuts to the ultra techie, from the AI Metaverse, to Environmentalism and the Climate Crisis, Internet Influencers, Doomsday Preppers, Social Justice Warriors, or the Trads and the Based. 

   You are constantly told to find your group, which will give you a good name, a good identity, and a shot at enjoying life in the way you define as good.  This seems to be what most people spend much of their time striving towards. 

    How about you and me?  Are we turning to the wisdom of Scripture to learn how God defines a good life?  Do we find our identity, our good name, and our purpose, in that brief moment, probably before our memory, when some pastor splashed a bit of water on us, water made powerful because it was joined to God’s Holy Name?  Do we seek to know and apply the wisdom of God to every situation in our life?  Or are we chasing the same fever dreams as the world, with a few hours of Church-y stuff pasted on like a band-aid? 

    Like the folks at Babel, on our own, we tend to listen to any voice but the Holy Spirit, mostly because the Lord does not cater to our immediate and base desires.  No, He seeks to give us what we really need.  We are constantly tempted to ignore His gifts, and seek immediate and visible success, and pleasure, and pride of self. 

   God knows how we are.  See how the Spirit went to great lengths on Pentecost to break through the noise of earthly salvation schemes, to gain a hearing for the plain, jarring, difficult, but life-giving Word of Christ.  The Spirit’s elaborate efforts, rushing wind, tongues of fire, miracle of languages, and bold Scriptural preaching by St. Peter, these amazing Pentecost happenings match perfectly with the great lengths that Jesus of Nazareth went to prepare the Way. 

    He came and spoke words of promise and peace to His own people, in their own language.  But they would not hear Him.  He plainly explained His plan to save Israel, and the whole world, His commitment to reunite all people, in His own sacrificed body.  But their hearts were hard and their ears were filled with human notions of holiness and greatness.  All of this Jesus did, and more, taking our role as the Sinner, the Rebel, the Enemy of God, taking it all the way to Calvary, all the way through suffering, rejection by His Father and death for the sins of the whole world.  He lived and died the simple story that He had been teaching since the beginning, the story of God’s love for His rebellious children, despite what they deserve, despite what we deserve. 

    Alleluia, Christ is Risen!  Christ is risen, and the Holy Spirit has come, speaking peace from the Father to us, reuniting our hearts with God, through the forgiveness Jesus has won for all people, for you, for me, for everyone.  Rejoice that the Holy Spirit has brought this message to you, in language you can understand, and with holy conviction that pierces your heart and turns you back to God, seeking His mercy. 

    Such a humble life, walking with Christ and His Gospel as your first priority, following His plan for human life as your guide each day, such Christian faith and life has never been the way to popularity, fame or riches.  But in the Risen Christ who covers you with His baptismal grace every day, your Name before God is beloved, your life will be blessed with integrity and grace, and your future is to live with Him, today by faith, and one day, face to face forever. 

    All who call on the Name of the Lord will be saved.  So let us call on Him in prayer: 

O Holy Spirit, day by day grant us faith to trust Your promises, live by Your truth, and rejoice in our future glory, through Christ Jesus our Lord, Amen.