The Tower and the Breath

It has long seemed plausible to me that some of the most important stories in the Bible are the results of a child’s question posed to a parent.  For instance, I suspect that story of Noah’s Ark could be the result of a child who asked a parent, “Where do rainbows come from?”  Such antecedents are in no way at odds with the attribution of divine inspiration for such stories.  For one thing, the parent could have replied by saying, “Let’s go ask the priest.”  But who’s to say that a parent’s response to their child couldn’t be just as divinely inspired?  And we have reason to believe that such stories had long oral traditions before they were written down, anyway.

Another such story that may have been the result of a child’s question is the story of the Tower of Babel.  I can just hear a child asking her mother, “Why do some people speak different languages from us?”

“Good question,” Mom might have replied, “let’s go ask your grandmother.”  And maybe Grandma knew a story that she had learned from her Grandma, who had learned it from hers, etc, etc.

That story begins with a memory that once “the whole earth had one language and the same words.”  It was the westward migration of people and the development of the technology of bricks and mortar that enabled the building of cities that provide the background for this story.  Coming upon a plain that looked like a good spot for a settlement, the people said to one another, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves….”

The Lord, looking down from heaven took note of this urban development, noting not only the use of bricks and mortar, but also the social and industrial cooperation that was possible since “they have all one language.”  Assessing the situation, God determined that “this is only the beginning of what they will do; nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them.”  And so, in the face of this possibility, God did not send lightning from the heavens to destroy the tower; he did not make it rain until the city flooded - he’d sworn not to do that again; he did not cause an earthquake that brought the tower tumbling down; he simply “confused the language of all the earth; and… scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth.”

The story of the Tower of Babel works well as a mythical explanation of where different languages come from, and I suppose that it makes sense to some degree from an anthropological point of view, too.  From a theological point of view, however, the story is a little more perplexing, since it makes God look so defensive, as God seems to want to limit the potential of his own creatures and the gifts he gave them; and because God seems threatened by the social cohesion of his people when they are united in their ability and their cause.

If social cohesion and the unity of his people are a problem for God, then I have a lot I need to re-think, and I’d suggest that God does too.  Nevertheless, I believe there is wisdom to be found in the story of the Tower of Babel.  For, God knows that since we are made in his very own image and likeness, we humans have been given power to accomplish things, even though some of the things we may be able to accomplish may not be so good for us.  And if that assertion was true in long-ago, ancient days when this story was first told, it is exponentially true today.  It may not literally be true that nothing we propose to do is now impossible for us, but, oh we have come a long way since Babel!

I happen to believe that the story of the Tower of Babel - which I’m sure has been forgotten by many more people than remember it - I happen to believe that its wisdom may be more directly important for our own generation than it was for those who first told it.  Those ancient peoples may have shared one language, but we are using large language models to develop astonishing capabilities with Artificial Intelligence.  Spend a little time considering the accomplishments of A. I. in just the past few years, and you don’t have to be the Lord looking down from heaven to think to yourself, “this is only the beginning of what they will do; nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them.”

The story of the Tower of Babel reminds us that, for reasons God did not disclose to us, God decided that there should be limits on what should be possible for humans.  And long ago, God imposed those limits not through disaster and punishment, but through confusion and dis-union, which proved to be sufficient to the task of limiting our human achievements.  The implicit warning at the heart of the story of the Tower of Babel is that we humans can accomplish things that may not be so wise or good for us.  And this is a warning that is mostly rejected by an overly self-confident modern society that believes it can regulate its way out of such dangers.  Having proved unable to regulate either fire or the wheel - both of which have tremendously positive and tremendously negative applications (tanks, for instance, use both) - I’m not sure how we think we will regulate Artificial Intelligence.

None of which was on the minds of the disciples when they gathered together, all in one house, just ten days after Jesus had ascended into heaven.  And the reason to bring up the Tower of Babel on the Feast of Pentecost is because the two accounts, from two different ends of the Bible, find nearly perfect counterparts in one another.

Most obviously, the confusion of language that God caused at the Tower of Babel is resolved on the Day of Pentecost, at least for a moment, when the disciples are not only enabled to speak in various languages, but “each one heard them speaking in the native language of each.”  This moment of universal comprehension is a decisive and holy reversal of the linguistic confusion of Babel.  And what a holy moment it is!  For, the united understanding of all the people gathered there comes as a celebration of their diversity, not as a negation of that diversity.  Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea, Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, as well as visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs - in their own languages they are united in mutual understanding to hear one another speaking about God's deeds of power!

But also on that day, in a countermeasure to the men of Babel who sought to build a tower that would reach up into heaven, the events of Pentecost - the sound of rushing wind, the tongues of fire, and the gift of languages that signals the work of the Holy Spirit - all these represent God reaching down from heaven to touch the earth with a powerful breath.  And in this moment, God’s power is shown not to be destructive or vengeful, not confusing or divisive; but clarifying and unifying, and, I think we can assume, joyful!

One of the paradoxes we may have to accept about God is that although time may be nothing to him, since he is surely not bound by our three-dimensional time-space continuum, God nevertheless acts in time, or appears to, as far as we can tell.  And God sanctifies time by his actions in it.

Yes, God did a new thing in time in Pentecost.  Perhaps he was showing us the truth of our existence as it could be, if only we were not so eager to to transgress whatever boundaries he establishes for us.  Perhaps God opened up the boundaries of a different dimension long enough to let the tongues of fire burn brightly but safely, to let the wind rush in, to unscramble the divisions of language and culture that divide us one from another, to see what is possible when we live more fully into the power that God wants us to have, if only we will take that power without trying to be gods ourselves, who desire to worship only ourselves, one another, and our own accomplishments, as if the true and living God in heaven had nothing to do with who we are and what we can do!

On the Feast of Pentecost, it is tempting to try to take a clinical look at the person of the Holy Spirit, and account for the work and the power of the Spirit with an inventory or task sheet.  But such a managerial accounting of the work and ministry of the Spirit is foolishness.  We can’t even account for the Spirit’s pronouns, let alone the Spirit’s work and power in the world!  Rather than wondering if we can describe what it is the Spirit does, perhaps we should flip the question and ask ourselves what the Spirit doesn’t do, if there is any enterprise of God’s in which the Spirit is not involved?

St. Luke reports that on the Day of Pentecost, “all were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, ‘What does this mean?’”  What does this mean - this momentary return to a state we can remember from long ago, during which we find ourselves un-confused by one another, united in our speech, and filled with the power of God?  What does this mean?

When we look at the events of Pentecost in light of the Tower of Babel, perhaps we see what God’s intentions for us really are, and always have been.  The child who went to her grandmother asking why people from different places speak different languages could easily have been led to believe that confusion and dis-union has long been God’s intention for his people: that God prefers things that way, especially since it keeps our human achievements at a safe distance from God’s holy precincts.

But on the Feast of Pentecost, that perspective is challenged, as we consider the possibility that God relents of the confusion and division that he either caused or allowed as civilization expanded westward, and his people scattered across the face of the globe.  The anxiety that God is supposed to have expressed so long ago is that nothing would be impossible for us, his creatures.  But with the coming of Jesus into the world, a new perspective was given, beginning with his mother, who could not imagine how God would accomplish his loving purposes through her, but who was assured by the angel Gabriel that with God nothing would be impossible.

On Pentecost, as God reaches down from heaven with the breath of his Holy Spirit, he corrects the long-held suspicion that his principle concern is to keep us in our place, by showing us that he remembers what it was like when “the whole earth had one language and the same words.”  There was something beautiful about it, God remembers.  And there was something wonderful about a people who were un-confused, and united in their ability and their cause.

And, as God sent his people out on a new westward expansion, to bring with them the Gospel of Peace that is proclaimed in the Name of Jesus,, he showed them a vision of that memory, to remind them of the beauty and wonder and possibility that comes when we are united in our ability and our cause.  And he made it clear to them that their diversity need not be an impediment to their unity or to that holy cause to preach the Gospel of peace.  With the power of the Spirit, they could still be united, even in their great diversity.

Recall what the people had said to themselves as they planned to build a tower on the plain, so long ago: “Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves….”

Let us make a name for ourselves.  But with the coming of Jesus we have been given a Name that is above every other Name.  And in the power of the Spirit, that Name can remove from us the anxiety that makes us want to be gods ourselves, and worship nothing but ourselves.

And we are reminded that God has not stopped reaching down from heaven to invert the tower we once sought to build, and to bring God’s power to us, so we don’t have to reach up to grab it.  And for a moment, we are un-confused, and united in our ability and our cause and the only Name that matters is the Name that brought us here: the Name of Jesus Christ, who is one with the Father and the Holy Spirit, who breathes on us now!

Preached by Fr. Sean Mullen
The Feast of Pentecost 2023
Saint Mark’s, Locust Street, Philadelphia

From Here To Eternity

At some point in the 1953 film “From Here to Eternity,”  Burt Lancaster’s character delivers a great line to Deborah Kerr’s character.  He says to her, “I’ve never been so miserable in all my life since I met you, and I wouldn’t change a minute of it.”  This is the premise of most romantic comedy: that some relations seem miserable, but there are rewards that make them worthwhile.  This is also the premise of a fair bit of religion: that a relationship with God might be difficult, might even make you miserable, but the rewards make it worthwhile.

If you ask me, the quip makes a pretty good prayer.  It’s the type of thing I sometimes feel I want to say to Jesus in my prayers, when I reflect on how relentless is Christ’s call to follow him and to love him, and how often that call insists that I see that the world does not revolve around me.

Today, on the Sunday after the Ascension, Easter is starting to feel like a distant memory, and it feels like we bid farewell to Jesus on Thursday night.  And from this vantage point, all these generations later, we might be beginning to reflect that Resurrection and Ascension are all fine for Jesus, but to ask ourselves what’s in it for you and me?  A lot of people look at the church these days and they can only see a lot of misery caused by and within the temples of religion.  I suppose that they suspect that trying to have a relationship with Jesus will only make you miserable, so why bother?  For many Christians, the rationale for putting up with the demands of a relationship with Jesus is the promised reward of eternal life.  It may be difficult to follow Jesus, even miserable in some ways, but considering the reward, they wouldn’t change a thing.

But eternity isn’t what it used to be.  Eternity used to be what we called “world without end.”  But then we realized that we didn’t really mean that.  Eternity used to be for ever and ever and ever and ever.  But we are not so sure that’s good idea, either.  Who wants to go on for ever and ever and ever and ever, world without end?  Eternity was much more popular, I suspect, when neither the past, the present, nor the future was all that wonderful for many or most people.  If you were miserable anyway, the promise of eternity was an attractive alternative, I guess, as long as it was lived in paradise; as long as eternal life is to be lived in heaven, not hell.

But of course, changing attitudes about heaven and hell have also tended to undermine the appeal of eternity.  Nowadays most people would be hard-pressed, I think, to say just what they think they mean by either “heaven” or “hell,” let alone what the church might mean by these concepts.  Eternity might be just fine, as long as it’s in paradise.  But who really believes in a heavenly paradise these days?  And as long as there’s Paris, could paradise really be that much better?  And if Paris isn’t your cup of tea, well then, there’s Vegas.

But the prospect of eternity as a spiritual prize has also begun to seem less appealing, as many people find the idea of reward and punishment as the two possible outcomes of religious participation somewhat unconvincing.

In the New Testament, eternity is usually mentioned in the context of “eternal life.”  And this promise of eternal life is always presented as a reward, much to be desired.  Nine times, in St. John’s gospel, do we hear Jesus promise the reward of eternal life.  It is a significant theme.  But if eternity isn’t what it used to be, neither, I suspect, is the promise of eternal life.  I suspect that there are simply fewer and fewer people out there who prioritize the possibility of eternal life as a happy thing to hope for.  Even at death’s door, the possibility that a new life might await us, unbound by the limits of time, might be too nebulous a promise to bring much hope and comfort to many people.  Plus, many people these days put more faith in medicine than in God, so that the end of life is almost always preoccupied with avoiding the inevitable rather than preparing for it.  No, the promise of eternal life isn’t what it used to be.

In the passage we heard from John’s gospel just now, Jesus is praying to God the Father, and in his prayer, Jesus says a curious thing:

“Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son… since you have given him authority… to give eternal life to all whom you have given him.  And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.”

This is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.  As I say, this is a curious statement, and I’m sure that it can be read in a number of ways.  The way I read it, Jesus means that eternal life is somehow related to “knowing” God, and this is “knowing” in more or less the biblical sense, which is to say, not so much as an item of knowledge as in the object of a relationship.  And if eternal life is somehow related to coming into a closer and more obvious relationship with the one, true God, it is not clear, in this formula, whether eternal life is the benefit that comes from the mechanism of being in a relationship with God; or whether a deep and intimate relationship with God is the benefit of the mechanism of having been given eternal life.  Which comes first?  I hope it will not surprise you to hear that I don’t think it matters which is the result of which.

What I think is this: that humanity is not in a crisis because people see less and less value in the promise of eternity.  Whether eternal life is used as a carrot or stick in the development of a spiritual life, I’m not sure it makes the difference between being a card-carrying, church-going Christian, and a person who knows themselves to be spiritual but not religious, or  a person who has neither spirituality nor religion to call upon in their life.

But humanity is in a crisis in many ways because people do not know the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom he sent.  Without knowing God  - that is to say, without having a meaningful relationship with God - people do not know who or what to worship.  As the late, great American writer, David Foster Wallace, reminded us in a famous speech he once gave.  “Everybody worships.  The only choice we get is what to worship.”  Wallace went on to say this: “…the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship… is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive.”*  Wallace knew whereof he spake.  For, in this world of ours, consumerism, the greed of the marketplace, guns, warfare, addiction to fossil fuels, political orthodoxies, the intransigence of racism, and the stumbling of truth in the public square, among many other objects of worship, are surely eating us alive, little by little.

When Jesus prayed about the gift of eternal life that is his to give us, he was, I think also praying that we would come to know who to worship in a life in which everybody worships, and the only choice we get is what to worship.  “This is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.”

But, as I say, eternity isn’t what it used to be.  The time-space continuum isn’t what it used to be, either.  If Einstein could imagine a four-dimensional world, so can God, so the odds seem likely to me that Einstein was onto something.  And eternity is not a long and endless string of linear time, but a reality in which everything is always happening everywhere, we just can’t see it from where we live.  Maybe eternal life is the gift of being able to perceive the created order as it truly is, God perceives it, which might be in four dimensions, or more.  Maybe the gift of eternal life isn’t a measure of time, maybe eternal life is a measure of God’s love.

Jesus did not come into the world to make us miserable but willing to bear that misery because of the promise of a reward that would carry us from here to eternity.  Jesus came into the world to bring us back into a close and intimate relationship with God, to establish a new covenant of love, in which we know ourselves to be loved by God, and in which we can reclaim the desire to love God too.

Jesus wants us to know the truth of God as God really is.  And when we know that truth in the biblical sense - that is, when we have embraced the truth that God loves us - then we will see the world as it really is, in four dimensions or more, unbound by time or space, and we will know that we have been given the gift of eternal life, which will turn out to be even better than it was cracked up to be!

Jesus’ prayer to God the Father that the gift of eternal life will some day be ours, is a recognition that from where we live our lives now, bound by time and space, life can too often be a misery.  But I also suspect the Jesus wants to pray the same exact prayer about me that I would have prayed about him: “I’ve never been so miserable in all my life since I met you,” I can hear Jesus say to me, “and I wouldn’t change a thing."

Preached by Fr. Sean Mullen
21 May 2023
Saint Mark’s, Locust Street, Philadelphia

*David Foster Wallace, “This Is Water,* a commencement speech at Kenyon College, may 21, 2005

Rogation

It’s a busy weekend here in Philadelphia.  There is a Taylor Swift concert at Lincoln Field, starting at 6:30 tonight.  At 3:30 this afternoon, the 76ers will play the Boston Celtics in the tense final game of the National Basketball Association Conference Semifinals.  Fortunately that’s taking place in Boston, but I imagine, if the cheers and groans coming from my neighborhood during Game Six were any indication, that that will be an occasion for many home parties and some very crowded bars.  Remember, though, today is Mother’s Day, so unless you spent thousands of dollars getting your mom tickets to Taylor Swift, you’re going to have to find a way to celebrate with her in plenty of time before you slip out to the bar to watch the game.  Unless she’s a big Sixers fan, in which case your work is done.  Good luck celebrating Mother’s Day in a restaurant, though.  Restaurants are always crowded, but this year it should be especially tough to get a reservation because it’s also Alumni Weekend at Penn, and commencement is tomorrow.  So everybody’s relatives have come to town and they are all looking for brunch just as you are.  Oh and by the way, President Biden will be coming to town to see his granddaughter graduate.  He’s no Taylor Swift but I imagine the traffic will be backed up for miles tomorrow. 

So as I say, there is a lot going on right now in Philadelphia.  In fact, given so much excitement, it’s especially good to see you all in church.  And lest you think we might be outdone by the City, let me hasten to assure you that the church has a very full calendar today, too.  We’ll have less nail-biting tension than the 76ers, but much better music than the concert at Lincoln Field.  We in the church are celebrating the Sixth Sunday of Easter today, and also observing Rogation Sunday.  And then of course the Feast of the Ascension is this coming Thursday.  So, in the busy spirit of this weekend, let’s think about them all together.  

Rogation Days began in the fifth century, in what is now France.  The practice started as a form of penitence and supplication for protection from natural disasters, and it took place over the three days leading up to Ascension Thursday.  We still ask for protection from natural disasters, as well as praying in thanksgiving for the good things of the earth, and for a blessing on crops, and for seasonable weather and sufficient rain.  Our procession at the end of Mass today out to the garden for prayer and song and blessing is an echo of the impressive village and parish processions that lasted for hours and included all sorts of interesting traditions we won’t summarize here.  Our Sunday observance comes in anticipation of our Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday Masses at which prayers will be offered respectively for fruitful seasons, for commerce and industry, and for the stewardship of creation.  The name “Rogation” comes from the Latin verb “rogare,” to ask or ask for, as in “interrogate” (to ask questions) or even “arrogant” (asking for too much, or taking too much for oneself).  

So Rogation Sunday is a day of asking and of blessing, of giving thanks for and of pledging stewardship of the good earth.  It’s penitential in the sense that we are reminded that we are very small in the face of all of created nature, and now in modern days in the crucial sense that we have exploited and squandered so much of what God has given us.  You’ll feel it, most likely, when we process out to the garden, and pray the litany, and sing: this is a day that is calling us back into relationship with creation, back into balance, back into the love and the sustenance and the beauty and the goodness that surround us as we live in God’s world. Back to being creatures who depend on God. 

And that return to relationship has everything to do with the instructions Jesus gives his disciples in John’s Gospel: “In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live. On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me; and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them.”

We don’t normally suggest that Jesus is speaking of the natural world here, but the calendar and the lectionary are inviting us to make that connection.  We are asked to love one another and to know ourselves as living in Christ who lives in us and in the one he calls Father.  We are asked to keep his commandments and to love him and to know ourselves as loved by the Father.  Jesus promises to reveal himself to us, to come to us, not to leave us abandoned in our lives on this earth.  

We see him everywhere, even while the world sees him not at all.  We live with a deep assurance of the presence of God.  We live in the Spirit that Jesus will send.  And this coming Thursday, when we remember the bodily ascension of Jesus to heaven, we are asked to understand that this spiritual communion is also profoundly material.  The resurrected body of Jesus ascends, and we live here on earth, but in his Spirit.  And we learn to know God in our bodies, in the world that doesn’t see him, in the love that unites us to all people and all of creation.  He promises to show himself to us, here in the world where we live.  

And so of course we give thanks.  Of course we turn to him for protection, knowing that our own strength is not the power that created the heavens and the earth.  Of course we look to the world God made and we find signs of God everywhere, signs that turn us around and remind us what our true needs are, our true pleasures, our true desires.  This garden in which we live, this garden that we neglect, is the very assurance of God’s love.  And the life of the blessed Trinity, the life that Christ makes present to us, is calling to us in every bud and every bird, as well as in the terrifying storms and in the sheer vastness of creation.  Living in the spirit of the risen and ascended Lord, everything is an invitation.  Beauty itself is penitential in that it calls us to turn back.  Penitence is beautiful in that it opens our eyes to the real desires and the real joys that God has made for us.   So of course we ask God for protection and sustenance.  Of course we pledge ourselves to be loving inhabitants of God’s world.  

I want to close with the words of the seventeenth century writer and priest, Thomas Traherne, who knew better than most that God was calling to us, calling us to return to the joys of right relationship in the good things of the earth.  Here are a few words from his astonishing book called Centuries of Meditations:

God is Love, [says Traherne] and you are His object. You are created to be His Love: and He is yours. He is happy in you, when you are happy: as parents in their children. He is afflicted in all your afflictions. And whosoever toucheth you, toucheth the apple of His eye. Will not you be happy in all His enjoyments? He feeleth in you; will not you feel in Him? He hath obliged you to love Him. And if you love Him, you must of necessity be Heir of the World, for you are happy in Him. All His praises are your joys, all His enjoyments are your treasures, all His pleasures are your enjoyments. In God you are crowned, in God you are concerned. In Him you feel, in Him you live, and move, and have your being, in Him you are blessed. Whatsoever therefore serveth Him; serveth you and in Him you inherit all things. *

In him we inherit all things.  So, happy Mother’s Day.  Go 76ers.  Water your gardens.  Work for the good of the earth.  Pray.  And don’t forget: Wednesday is election day. 

*(https://www.ccel.org/ccel/traherne/centuries.i_1.html  Meditation 52)

Preached by Mother Nora Johnson
May 14, 2023
Saint Mark’s Church, Philadelphia