Homily for the Day of Pentecost 8 June 2025
Episcopal Parish of All Saints - Ashmont, Dorchester, Massachusetts
The Rev’d John R. Clarke, Interim Rector
And they left off building the city. Genesis 11:8a
Requiem for a Language Lost. That’s what the Endangered Languages Center at the City University of New York is trying to avoid: Requiem for a Language Lost. A host of languages lost.
Why New York?
Simple. Languages born
in every corner of the globe are now more commonly heard in neighborhoods of
New York than anywhere else. That means New York City — a magnet for immigrants
speaking languages that are even disappearing in their countries of origin —
has become “Babel in reverse.”
But why save a language? NYU
linguistics professor Yezdana Vérizik has an answer. “A language,” she believes,
“reflects the singular nature of a people speaking it.”
Read: When a language dies, something unique
and personal is lost.
Robert Holman, of Columbia University,
elaborates: “Every immigrant wants to speak English,” he says. “But those non-English
lullabies that allow you to go to sleep at night and dream: that’s what we’re
talking about saving.”
And this is what is lost in the
confusion God sows in the city we know as Babel: The singular nature of a
people, and perhaps more tragically, those “lullabies that allow you to go to
sleep at night and dream.”
That’s a lot to lose for so simple a
story. But, why the story at all?
As with the rest of Genesis, Babel is
a myth, a myth of origins. It is not history. The myth answers the
question: Why do we have so many languages when, as another legend puts it, the
survivors of the Flood (Noah and family) only spoke Hebrew? You know, you can’t
make this stuff up. (Well, turns out you can!)
At any rate, the Babel myth starts out
with the generation after Noah. Multiple nomadic groups, perhaps, but all
sharing a common culture: one language, one grammar, one vocabulary. And one
place to which they’ve migrated: the plain of Shinar. Life is sweet. The
consensus? “Let’s stay put.”
And yet, the people recognize the centrifugal
impulse in their genes. They’re afraid they’ll scatter and lose their hard-won sense
of community, their culture.
So, they decide to make something:
something so big its sheer gravitational pull will compel each and all
to make a go of it right then and there.
Upshot? They invent a city. They
invent the whole concept of “city.” A city not of tents, or grass huts,
or mud houses, but a city of solid brick.
The city’s crowning achievement? A tower,
its top piercing the heavens. A skyscraper!
But what’s missing? A brand. “Let’s
make a name for ourselves.”
Their brand? Anyone’s guess. City
Heights? High Society? Metropolis? Whatever. It’s enough to trigger an on-site inspection.
The inspector? God, no less.
And the city, the tower … they do not
go over well. Not well at all. God projects, “Even the sky — the vault of
heaven itself — won’t be the limit of what these people can do!”
The culprit in God’s eyes? The common language.
So, God goes all Red Alert, mingles
with the people, and plants one language-per-person like so many viruses.
The result? Giga-miscommunication! There
goes commerce. There goes shopping. There go the Rules of the Road and the Rule
of Law. There goes sanitation! There go “those lullabies that allow you
to go to sleep at night and dream.”
Fall-out? The people desert the city
and scatter. They leave behind a crumbling ghost town, a phantom city. The
tower — a shell — unfinished.
But why would this endgame please God?
Doesn’t our experience show that God prefers harmony to discord … communication
to misunderstanding … healthy collaboration to corrosive competition?
And hasn’t God given us the gifts of curiosity
and creativity and a hunger to defy the laws of physics — and the means to do
it — in order for us to become all we can be?
So, there would appear to be a disconnect
here between God’s ideal and what God does, at least at Babel.
That’s what happens when you start
with a myth of origins … and the myth morphs into a morality tale.
Take the tower, that “proud tower.” God
smashes it to smithereens? Right? Wrong! Not in the Bible. Credit Hollywood,
which is always game for a good smash-up. But the Bible doesn’t go that far.
How far? Their language lost, “they left
off building the city” and scatter. Period.
But what if they had decided to stay?
What if they had decided to stay … and
learn each other’s language — or learn enough languages to communicate (even
sign language!) … enough to resume building the city and the tower, but this
time, with a hard-learned humility to listen to each other … and listen to God?
To learn from each other … and learn from God?
And, in the process, become a new
people shaping a new culture altogether: a culture that values and profits
from difference?
That “what if” occurs at what we call
the Day of Pentecost in a clear re-working of the original Babel myth … when —
as the story is told in Acts — the disciples, fired-up by God’s Spirit, hit the
streets of Jerusalem and preach the Good News to complete and utter strangers
in creative ways that people from all over the map understand: that, though many,
we are one in Christ.
And that same “what if” is our
opportunity — our Pentecost opportunity — to save an endangered language:
the language that reflects our “singular nature” as followers of Jesus Christ …
an inclusive and including language riddled through and through with dreams, dignity,
and decency that establishes the reality that:
When we affirm, in the face of
divisive and systemic racism, our Christian faith demands we treat all
persons — regardless of color and origin — equally and with magnanimity …
When we make a stand against homophobia
and transphobia …
When we reject erecting walls that
keep out families and individuals fleeing violence in their own country…
When, as daily (every … single … day … 24/7), our liberties and those of our neighbors are coming under mortal
threat, we choose instead to re-build together institutions that will create
justice for all, for all time …
When we fully embrace the spirit of
Pentecost …
It is then — and only
then — that we will engage in just the first stages of learning — and speaking
— the language of God.
Amen.
