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To this day we have problems communicating with one another.
In international relations, translations often fail to convey
proper meanings. Multinational corporations learn the lesson the
hard way. A friend of mine on Hilton Head used to be in the
advertising business and was responsible for the Pepsi Cola
account. He is the one who came up with the slogan, "Come alive.
You're in the Pepsi generation." Remember that? I am told that
Pepsi tried to market their product in China using the same
slogan. Ha! In Chinese the meaning came out as "Pepsi brings
your ancestors back from the dead."
Pepsi's problem was an inconvenience, but we know very well
that other international misunderstandings can lead to disaster.
In David Brinkley's excellent book, Washington Goes to War,(1) we
find the story of the transformation of our nation's capital from
a sleepy southern town into the massive machine it became during
World War II. Brinkley was a young reporter at the time and
recalls the isolationist feeling that was pervasive in America
prior to Pearl Harbor and blames much of it on the foolishness of
previous conflicts, wars so stupid that when Kaiser Wilhelm II
was asked during World War I why his country was at war with half
of Europe, he responded, "If only I knew."(2) War had become
massively brutal. No wonder Americans had no enthusiasm for
getting into another one...nor do we now. That is why regular
face-to-face encounters for the leaders of nations such as Mr.
Clinton and his counterparts have been having recently is
critical. Communication!
For all its faults, an organization like the United Nations
is vitally needed. The world breathes a bit easier when
potentially hostile neighbors talk together. In a nuclear age,
we would never survive another "If only I knew." Effective
communication can mean the difference between life and death for
the planet.
To be sure, communication is tough enough even when folks
speak the same language. The same word means different things to
different people. One person talks about justice and means that
everyone should have fair and equal opportunity for life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness - no one should expect a
free ride at the expense of society...each one should pull his or
her own weight. That is just. But another thinks justice means
that life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness should be
understood to guarantee a home, a job, and medical care for
everyone, regardless of any other consideration, and we should
all chip in to make sure that no one falls through the cracks.
Same word...justice...VASTLY different meanings.
Sometimes, misunderstandings are accidental. In my files is
this vignette. A little old lady planning a vacation wrote a
letter to a particular campground to inquire about its
facilities. She could not bring herself to write the word
"toilet" so she finally settled on the term "BC" which to her
meant "bathroom commode." The initials baffled the campground
manager who showed the letter to some of the other campers. They
did not understand either until one of them suggested the woman
might be referring to a Baptist Church. The owner agreed and
wrote this reply:
Unfortunately, the problem is just as bad in the church.
There are communication gaps all over the place...gaps between
denominations, gaps between the pulpit and the pew, gaps between
young and old, gaps between rich and poor, gaps between liberal
and conservative. If anyone wonders why, in almost 2,000 years,
we have not won the world for Jesus Christ, the answer is that we
have not communicated the Good News of the Gospel with much
effectiveness at all.
Think about it. For centuries, the language of the church
was one which no one except scholars read or spoke...Latin. That
was a problem recognized in the Reformation. In our Presbyterian
Book of Confessions is a declaration from Switzerland over 400
years ago - part of the Second Helvetic Confession. It said:
The shame of it is that there was once a day when the
divisions of Babel were mended. It was the Feast of Weeks,
Pentecost, one of the three great holy days of the Jewish year.
Thousands of the faithful had gathered in Jerusalem from all over
the known world to celebrate the giving of the Law to Moses on
Mt. Sinai, fifty days after the Passover.
That small band of Christians was there as well - they had
been praying together for ten solid days and now were enjoying an
ecstatic religious experience. They were creating such a
commotion that their noise began to draw a crowd. Some thought
it was just a drunken party.
But others listened more carefully to what was going on.
And miraculously, each one hearing understood. It made no
difference what their native tongue might have been. As they
listened, they heard the story of what God had done in that group
and was prepared to do in all who would believe. The ancient
divisions at the Tower of Babel had been healed. The result?
Scripture says that 3,000 people responded to the invitation of
Peter that day to "repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus
Christ." It was a great day!
One wonders why there have not been more days like that.
After all, the Holy Spirit who imparted such power on that rag-tag band did not suddenly vanish. Christians continue to believe
that the Spirit empowers the church. We believe that the Spirit
is with us now, ready to warm cold hearts, soften stiff necks,
penetrate thick skulls, and heal the divisions of Babel. What
has gone wrong?
If we consider that brief scene described in the beginning
of the Book of Acts, several things jump out at us that are
different today than they were back then. First, the church no
longer prays and waits for God's leading like it did. The
instructions given to the disciples at Jesus' ascension were to
wait in Jerusalem for divine direction, divine power. They did.
For ten days they waited and prayed. When was the last time you
heard of a ten-day prayer meeting...or even a ten-hour prayer
meeting? In a society that demands instant food, instant coffee,
instant banking, instant success, instant everything, prayerful
waiting no longer seems to be a priority.
Second, the church no longer cares as much about being "all
together in one place" as it did. If that day of Pentecost were
transplanted to 2000, more than half of the 120 in the room back
then would probably be absent - Peter and his wife would have
been at their cottage in the mountains; Bartholomew would have
had guests in from out of town for the member-guest tournament at
the club and would not be there; Phillip and his family would
have been up late the night before and overslept; Andrew would
have had a business conference about a new fishing boat; and
James would have had to stay home to cut the grass.(4)
Togetherness is not considered as important in the church as it
once was.
Third, the message of the church these days seems less about
"the mighty acts of God" than about social justice or abortion or
sexuality or any number of other things. Exacerbating the
problem is the fact that the church speaks with more than one
voice on the questions. People on the outside do not know what
or whom to believe. Our message has been skewed and filled with
static.
Prayerful waiting - communicating with God; fellowship -
communicating with each other; our message - communicating with
the world. We do not seem to be doing a very good job of any of
them. Babel is pervasive.
Perhaps that is why the modern church does not appear to be
as excited about its faith as the early church was. No one could
come into our Sunday morning worship these days and mistake it
for a drunken party. In far too many instances, we make
Christianity, not only confusing, but downright boring. Charles
Haddon Spurgeon, the great evangelist of the last century, once
commented about another minister he happened to hear, "He would
make a good martyr; he was so dry he would surely burn well." If
the Gospel is the Good News we say it is, we should positively
radiate. But we don't.
The miracle of Pentecost was not simply the coming of the
Holy Spirit. Scripture makes clear that the Spirit was active in
human affairs from the beginning of time. The real miracle was
that the divisions of Babel were overcome. Real communication
took place, and the result was an exponential growth of the
church.
Can we experience the miracle of Pentecost again in our day?
Can that sense of joyful abandon, the party atmosphere, return?
Of course. The Spirit is still active...still ready to bridge
those communication gaps. The task of the church is to make
itself available for the Spirit to come in real power.
If we can restore corporate prayer to the important place it
once held, God is still willing to hear and answer. If we can
impress upon members of the church the importance of gathering
together for worship, even when there are other things we might
be doing, the incredible bond of fellowship that those early
Christians shared can be brought back. If we can focus our
message upon God and the Good News of love and mercy, the God who
was made known in Jesus Christ, rather than confusing people with
theological jargon and too many ancillary issues, the world will
be more inclined to tune out the static and listen. It might
even feel like a party again.
Yes, Pentecost can beat Babel once more. Why not here? Why
not now?
Amen!
1. David Brinkley, Washington Goes to War, (New York : Alfred A. Knopf, 1988) 2. pp. 27-28 3. Book of Confessions 5.217 4. Adapted from Halford Luccock from a column some years ago in The Christian Century
Dear Madam: Thank you for your inquiry. I take
pleasure in informing you that a BC is located two
miles north of our campground, and seats 250 people.
My wife and I go quite regularly, but as we grow older,
it seems to be more of an effort, particularly during
cold spells. If you visit our campground, perhaps we
could go with you the first time, sit with you, and
introduce you to the other folks. Ours is a friendly
community. Sincerely yours,
Mistaken impressions notwithstanding, research has been done
which shows that some of what we hear and do not hear is quite
deliberate. One experiment had two groups of subjects, smokers
and non-smokers, listen to messages, some of which implied that
smoking causes cancer and others which claimed the opposite. The
messages were obscured by static, which could be eliminated if
the listener pressed a button. Smokers more frequently removed
static from the "smoking does NOT cause cancer" messages while
NON-smokers more frequently cleared up the "smoking causes
cancer" messages. The conclusion is obvious: people are more
likely to hear what they want to hear than what they don't. Any
wife who has ever asked a husband to mow the lawn during the
telecast of a World Series game could say Amen to that. It is
the Tower of Babel, 21st century style.
Let all strange tongues keep silence in gatherings for
worship, and let all things be set forth in a common
language which is understood by the people gathered in
that place.(3)
We wish it were that simple. Some wag once said that
England and America are two countries divided by a common
language. That is often also true in the church. For example,
we say that the Bible is the Word of God. Everyone agrees with
that. But one Christian hears that and pictures God dictating
every word that appears; another Christian understands it to mean
that God miraculously speaks to us through fallible human words.
There have been, and continue to be, great fights in the church
about that. Same phrase...the Word of God...VASTLY different
meanings. The Tower of Babel continues to impede the witness of
the Gospel.
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