Spread Out (Sunday, June 5th, 2022: Pentecost)

OT Lesson: Genesis 11:1-9 (CEB)

All people on the earth had one language and the same words. When they travelled east, they found a valley in the land of Shinar and settled there. They said to each other, “Come, let’s make bricks and bake them hard.” They used bricks for stones and asphalt for mortar. They said, “Come, let’s build for ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the sky, and let’s make a name for ourselves so that we won’t be dispersed over all the earth.”

Then the Lord came down to see the city and the tower that the humans built. And the Lord said, “There is now one people and they all have one language. This is what they have begun to do, and now all that they plan to do will be possible for them. Come, let’s go down and mix up their language there so they won’t understand each other’s language.” Then the Lord dispersed them from there over all of the earth, and they stopped building the city. Therefore, it is named Babel, because there the Lord mixed up the language of all the earth; and from there the Lord dispersed them over all the earth.

Acts 2:1-21 (NRSV)

When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.

Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each. Amazed and astonished, they asked, ‘Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs—in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power.’ All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, ‘What does this mean?’ But others sneered and said, ‘They are filled with new wine.’

But Peter, standing with the eleven, raised his voice and addressed them: ‘Men of Judea and all who live in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and listen to what I say. Indeed, these are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only nine o’clock in the morning. No, this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel:

“In the last days it will be, God declares,
that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh,
and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
and your young men shall see visions,
and your old men shall dream dreams.
Even upon my slaves, both men and women,
in those days I will pour out my Spirit;
and they shall prophesy.
And I will show portents in the heaven above
and signs on the earth below,
blood, and fire, and smoky mist.
The sun shall be turned to darkness
and the moon to blood,
before the coming of the Lord’s great and glorious day.

Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”

Sermon

Introduction

Hallelujah! The Spirit of the Lord is here with us! Today is Pentecost. Pentecost is the birthday of the church—not this one, First Presbyterian Church in Lebanon, not the PCUSA, not the old Catholic, but THE Church, I mean the universal church including and encompassing all the saints confessing Jesus Christ is their Lord and Saviour, receiving the Holy Spirit. So let us together say, “Happy Birthday Church!” Pentecost is a Greek word meaning fiftieth day. It is very straightforward, no hidden meaning. After the resurrection, Jesus stayed with his disciples and followers for forty days, showing the evidences of his resurrection, giving hopes and inspiring faith. On the fortieth day Jesus rose up to heaven as we confess in the Apostles’ Creed.

By the way this is a photo that I took in 2014 at the Church of Ascension. Believe it or not, according to the church legend, Jesus was standing on this rock, and as he began to rise up, he hit this rock. And what we see is supposedly the last footprint of Jesus on the rock. Ten days after the ascension, the Holy Spirit of God came down onto the disciples and followers who were gathered together. And they began to speak in tongues. So today only, I let you speak in tongues if you want. We are Presbyterians and we don’t always speak in tongues, but today only, you can stand up in the middle of the sermon, you can shout, you can dance, you can jump, you can fall backward but safely, and you can speak in tongues just like the Pentecostals do. No other Sundays but today.

Though I let you do some unusual things today, there is one thing that I will not do today. That is shouting ‘fire’ in the middle of the sermon. True story. On a Pentecost Sunday, a preacher in Korea wanted to make a point that the Holy Spirit came down in the shape of fire, so he shouted ‘fire’ three times. Then some of the half-asleep people on the pews were surprised and thought that there was a fire in the sanctuary. So they began to escape. And that was almost eighty per cent of the people. For that reason, I will not shout ‘fire’ to be considerate for the half-asleep people on the pews. Now you have my words, you can make yourself most comfortably, half-asleep, fully asleep, or fully awake.

Tower of Babel

Today’s OT lesson is about the tower of Babel—a famous story. But it is not all about the tower. It is actually more about the city. They said, ‘Let us build a city… and a tower.’ They were building a city with a high monumental tower in the centre of the city. And they used bricks to build the city and the tower. I don’t have a photo of the Babel—well, nobody has, but I do have this one: 

This is another photo that I took during my Holy Land trip in 2014. From time to time, during my sermon, I will show you the relevant photos. I am so grateful that we have a wonderful projection system that shows videos and photos. Anyway, this is a tower in Jericho, the unbreakable fortress which Joshua conquered. You can see that it is made by bricks, precisely mud bricks. It is ten thousand years old, and is considered the world’s oldest stone building, and possibly the world’s first work of monumental architecture. Pretty amazing, ten thousand years, and kept so well. If the city and the tower of Babel is older than this one, that cannot be better than this one as well. The story of the tower of Babel as most people know is this: the people began to build a high tower and wanted to reach the heaven. God was angry, “Hey, the heaven is my private property. No trespassing.” So God punished them by confusing the languages. Right?

So is it a punishment and a curse that we have many languages? Maybe. For example, you cannot watch Parasite or Minari without the subtitles. You cannot have a nice conversation with Koreans unless they speak English. EU, European Union, spends almost $13M every year in translations. But I don’t think it is a curse, instead, it is a blessing. The translation is a huge business with the most conservative estimate of $40B. That is several billion dollar more than the combination of the four major sports industry—NFL, NHL, MLB, and NBA. In the world of economy, God created a huge pie just by confusing the languages tens of thousands of years ago. And personally, having different languages helps us understand the nature of the language. For example, if there is only one language like English, then there is no way we can tell something is the nature of the language itself or the characteristic of mere English. As a language lover, I thank God and praise God’s name for giving us many languages, though it is painful to learn. I am still learning English after 17 years of living in North America.

But when we read today’s OT passage closely, we can find two interesting things. One, the purpose of the city and the tower was not to reach the heaven and God. Two, God was not angry but simply concerned. And also the Bible does not say anything like a punishment or a curse. Anyway, God diversified the languages that we have so many different languages—more than seven thousand languages now on earth. Speaking of different languages and accents, it is your second time listening to a sermon in a foreign accent. As you know, I have a thick Korean accent because my native language is not English. But I believe you will eventually get accustomed to it sooner than you think. Human brains are amazingly adaptive. If you cannot really understand, please ask of me the sermon script after the service. Then I can print out one for you to read. But beware that I have accent in writing English as well that I have learned the British spelling—Canada, eh?

Holy Spirit and Tongues

Let us move on to today’s NT lesson. It is one of the two Scripture passages talking about the diverse languages, and they are connected in that way. As I said before, the disciples and the followers of Jesus were waiting for the promised Holy Spirit. They had been praying for ten days. Ten days can be nothing but when you are anxiously waiting for something, ten days, trust me, is long enough to make you feel like forever. Anyway, the disciples and the followers totalling about hundred and twenty people gathered everyday praying in the upper room of Mark’s house. Finally the day of Pentecost came and the Holy Spirit descended on all the disciples and followers present in the room. Just for your information, it was not while they were praying. The Bible says they were sitting but the Jews habitually pray standing. So they were either eating, discussing, or simply resting. Anyway, they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and the very first thing happened to them was praying in tongues. They were not praying before but the Holy Spirit made them pray. Likewise when we are guided by the Holy Spirit, God will help us pray. Those first Christians were praying in tongues. Just for your information, though I am not a Pentecostal, I also pray in tongues. You don’t have to test me because I do not pray in tongues in public. Apostle Paul says that the praying in tongues is not to show off. He ordered in his epistle to pray in tongues privately. And even if you hear me praying, there is no way you can tell if I am praying in tongues or in Korean. Regular Koreans also cannot tell it because I might be praying in English. Only Korean Americans can tell. Alas, none of you are Korean Americans.

Praying in tongues means praying in many different languages which they cannot speak. Not that one person pray in all different languages, but each of them pray in each different language. Once I saw a man praying in fluent Japanese. And I speak Japanese. My Japanese is actually better than my English. So later time, I talked to him in Japanese but he didn’t understand me at all. He doesn’t speak any Japanese at all. So he was obviously praying in tongues, which in his case, Japanese. At the tower of Babel, God made people speak in new languages which they didn’t know. Likewise on the day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit made the disciples and followers of Jesus then and now pray in the languages which they don’t know. What happened at the tower of Babel happened again on the day of Pentecost. Isn’t it interesting?

Babel, Why?

I mentioned before that the people were not building the tower to reach the heaven, and that God was not angry. If their purpose was not to reach the heaven, what was it then? Let me quote today’s OT lesson: “Let us build for ourselves a city…so that we will not be dispersed over the earth.” So they didn’t want to spread out. They wanted to stay together and that was the purpose of the city. And of course God didn’t like it. And again, God was not angry but concerned. Then what was God concerned about?

When I was in the seminary, all the seminarians had to get a boundary training. Pastors as well. All the pastors in the Presbytery must get the boundary training regularly. On the boundary training at McCormick Theological Seminary, the instructor asked the seminarians a question at the beginning of the class, ‘What is the very first commandment of God?’ The answer what the instructor wanted was that God separated the water and the land, in other words, setting the boundaries for the water. But what all the seminarians answered including myself was ‘Be fruitful and multiply.’ The instructor was super upset and said, ‘No, no, no! That is the opposite of the boundary training. Don’t be fruitful and don’t multiply out of your wedlock. Get your hands off all the time!’ But you know, when you ask a leading question to the seminarians about the Bible, you got to make it clear about it. You never know what weird answer the seminarians may give you. Anyway our answer was not technically wrong because that was the first commandment of God to the humans. After God created humans in the image of God, God commanded in Genesis 1: “Be fruitful, multiply, and fill the earth.” So God’s first commandment to us is to fill the earth, in other words, spread out. In that sense, this country is a realisation of God’s commandment along with Canada and other countries in Central and South Americas, like God said, “Hey White people there, don’t just be stuck in Europe. Come over and spread out. Hey Yellow people there, don’t be stuck in Asia. Come over and spread out. Hey Black people there, don’t be stuck in Africa. Come over and spread out.” See? We are all keeping faithfully at least one of God’s commandments just by living in this country. How awesome is that?

God Wants Us to Spread out

In Genesis, God wanted people to spread out but they chose to stay together. So God confused the languages not because he was angry but to spread them out. With the diversified languages, the peoples spread out over all the earth. Tens of thousands of years after the tower of Babel, once again God diversified the languages of his people by letting them speak in tongues. So what God began at the tower of Babel, God himself completed on the day of Pentecost. It is like what apostle Paul wrote in his epistle to the church in Philippi, ‘He who began a good work in you will complete it by the day of Jesus Christ.’ And I am also sure about this. Whatever good work God has begun in you, he will complete it. We just don’t know how long it will take. God only knows the timing.

Anyway Bible says that on the day of Pentecost, there were so many people from every nation under heaven: Parthians, Medes, Elamites, Mesopotamia, Judea, Cappadocia, Pontus, Asia, Phrygia, Pamphylia, Egypt, Libya, Cyrene, Rome, Greece, etc. And they all heard the disciples speaking about God’s deeds of power in their own languages. But what God really wanted was not just to amuse and entertain the Jews from foreign countries. By giving the disciples the language abilities, God wanted the followers of Jesus to spread out over all the earth so that they can preach the Gospel to the ends of the earth. Jesus made it very clear right before he ascended into heaven by saying in Mark16:15, “Go into all the world and proclaim the good news to the whole creation.” But the disciples and followers did not move. They stayed in Jerusalem together day after day praying in tongues among themselves. That was not what God wanted. God told them to spread out, but the Christians were like, ‘Nay, we’re good.’ ‘I said spread out!’ ‘No, really. We’re fine.’ And then God brought a severe persecution against the Christians in Jerusalem, and the Bible says that all the Christians except the apostles were scattered throughout the countryside of Judea and Samaria. They also spread out all over the world. Eventually even the apostles also spread out. St. Peter made it to the city of Rome and martyred there where we call now the city of Vatican. St. Thomas—remember his name—made it all the way to India.

Conclusion

Don’t get me wrong. I am not saying anything against the gathering itself. The book of Hebrews 10 tells us, ‘Do not neglect to gather together.’ Even on the day of Pentecost, the Christians gathered together and the Holy Spirit descended to the gathered congregation. So we also must gather every Sunday and whenever we have chance. There is no doubt about it. Every time, every single time we gather together in this church, Jesus Christ will be with us together. But then we have to go out and spread out. We don’t have to go to the other countries as missionaries. If you must, I am not stopping you. But you don’t have to. We can spread out in our community, in this town. And the reason we spread out is to proclaim the good news just as Jesus commanded us in his Great Commission. So friends, let us go out. Visit your neighbours and catch up with them over a cup of coffee or tea. Meet your friends and have lunch together. Find some new people and just chitchat. And from time to time—doesn’t have to be every single time, talk about Jesus and mention about this church spontaneously, like ‘Hey, my church has a fantastic pipe organ. Come and check it out;’ ‘Hey, my church’s choir is amazing. Come and check it out;’ ‘Hey, my church has beautiful stained glasses. Come and check it out.;’ or how about ‘Hey, my church now has a new pastor with funny accent. Come and check it out.’ That is what God wants from us: gather together and then spread out for this church in the name of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. When we do that, the presence of God will be with us always and forever, guiding our every step all the way to the heaven where we will meet our beloved families and friends. Amen.

Rev. Je Lee