Saturday Homily - No Babbling

One day in the Garden of Eden, Eve called out to God.  “Lord, I have a problem.” 
“What’s the problem Eve?” 
“Lord, I know you created me and all of this beautiful garden, all of these amazing animals and that hilarious snake, but I’m just not happy.” 
“Why is that Eve?” came the reply from above.  
“Lord, I’m lonely, and I’m sick to death of apples.” 
“Well Eve, in that case I have a solution.  I shall create a man for you.” 
“What’s a man Lord?” 
“Man will be a flawed creature with many wretched traits.  All in all he’ll give you a hard time.  But, he’ll be bigger, stronger, and will like to hunt and kill things. He will be witless and enjoy childish things like fighting and kicking a ball about.  He won’t be too smart; he’ll also need your advice to think properly.  
“Sounds wonderful,” said Eve.   “But what’s the catch, Lord?” 
And God replied, “Man will be proud, arrogant, and self-admiring…So you’ll have to let him believe that I made him first. Just remember, it’s our little secret…You know, woman to woman.”

Such a prankster is our God!  Funny man, or should I say, funny woman?  Who can say?  It’s just God – gender aside. There are no gender identity issues here.

God can be a joker who likes a good laugh and sometimes it seems at our expense.  Our first reading gives us an example. It’s about the Tower of Babel, from which we get the word “babbling.”  God plays a practical joke on all the people of the world.

According to the Book of Genesis, God saw that all people spoke the same language, so God decided to confuse their speech thereby creating many languages. The result: people could not understand each other causing them to separate and scatter all over the earth.

That was God’s plan.  Remember that Old Testament writers had God commanding Adam and Eve to be fruitful, multiply, and fill the earth.  And so they did.

Of course, there’s a down side to scattering and separation. We’ve all learned the hard way what separation can cause.  It perpetuates tribal thinking and us-against-them mindsets.  It promotes suspicion, mistrust, and even hatred as nations fail to understand each other because communication breaks down. 

So, we ask God why must we babble and separate when the consequences can be so severe – war between nations being one example?  According to the biblical writers, God reconsidered and did so through Pentecost.    

Tomorrow we will hear of tongues of fire that rested on everyone filling them with the Holy Spirit, and all could understand each other.  It’s just the opposite of the Genesis story.  At Pentecost each person heard the other speaking in his or her language, and there was understanding and friendship.  Especially today, we all need those tongues of fire enabling us to speak Arabic, Russian, Chinese to name just a few languages.   

I end by calling our attention to the Gospel in which we hear: “Jesus stood up and exclaimed, ‘Let anyone who thirsts come to me and drink.  As Scripture says: Rivers of living water will flow from within him who believes in me.” What does this mean for today and tomorrow when we celebrate Pentecost that puts such an emphasis on speaking the same language?  One meaning is that we are not to be babbling brooks.

Instead, we are all to be flowing rivers of water giving life to others. We do this by speaking a language all can understand. We are to speak the language of peace rather than war; the language of cooperation rather than competition; the language of forgiveness rather than vengeance; of hope rather than despair; of tolerance rather than bigotry; of friendship rather than hostility; of unity rather than division; of love rather than hate.

When we do this, we are multilingual. This makes sense because our Church is a multi-lingual, spirit-filled community that speaks the world’s languages.  We are not babblers.  We are flowing rivers of water that must continue to give life to others.

Deacon David Pierce