The languages of Pentecost
Sermon by Pr. Craig Mueller on the Day of Pentecost + Sunday, June 8, 2025
Guten morgen. Buenos dias. It was many decades ago that I studied Spanish and later German for a few years. Some words and basic dialogues come back to me. But I am far from fluent!
Whenever I travel abroad it always fascinates me to realize that other travelers are speaking to each other in English as their second language. They have their own unique first language. But Italians and Japanese are able to speak to each other in English. And this makes it too easy for some Americans to think they don’t ever need to learn another language.
As we celebrate Pentecost, languages figure prominently. Many of us know the story of the Tower of Babel. It is usually seen as an ancient story to illustrate how there are diverse languages across the world. Now the whole earth had one language and the same words, the passage begins. The typical interpretation is that the people were thinking too big and making themselves God by erecting a large tower into the sky. God creates different languages and scatters the people so they can no longer understand each other. One scholar wonders if they were actually thinking too small—not imagining the gift of difference. The Tower of Babel was built on sameness and conformity.1
There are 350 languages spoken in this country. And 300 more indigenous languages were spoken when the Europeans landed here. And yet several months ago English was declared the official language of our country. How ironic since the US was often described as a melting pot, a cultural integration of immigrants.
What causes us to fear people who are different from us? What do we lose when we are only with those who speak the same language, see the world like we do, worship as we do, or come from the same background?
The Pentecost story in Acts is a celebration of the human family in all its diversity. On one level Pentecost is a reversal of Babel. Instead of human hubris reaching to the heavens, the Holy Spirit descends on the gathered disciples. Instead of fragmentation in which there is no understanding, the Spirit brings people together, bridging divides and creating unity.
Picture it. Those gathered are “strikingly diverse, inclusive, and egalitarian. The Jews that Peter addresses are immigrants from all over the known world who live in Jerusalem The Jesus movement will open up to include Gentiles as well. As one writer puts it, the early church is a “diverse, prophetic community of bridge-builders, visionaries, and dreamers, male and female, slave and free.”2
The world is so much more than our limited experience. And if God is the creator of all people and all languages and all cultures, then God is so much more. And Pentecost revels in it.
How many of you have seen the musical The Band’s Visit or seen the movie? In 2018 it won the Tony award for best musical. If you can’t see the musical which I’ve seen twice, I recommend the movie that we watched this week.
The Band’s Visit tells a moving story in which an Egyptian ceremonial police band arrives in Tel Aviv. When no one from the Arab cultural organization shows up to pick them up to take them to a concert, one of the members goes to a bus station to ask the clerk for tickets to the Israeli town of Petah Tikvah. But due to his Egyptian accent, the clerk misunderstands him and sells him tickets for the entire band to go to Bet Hatikvah.
When they eventually arrive in Bet Hatikvah the residents are amused that a band has arrived to play in a place they can consider the middle of nowhere. A place where nothing happens and they lead boring and monotonous lives in the desert. The Israelis speak Hebrew and the Egyptians speak Arabic, so English is the common second language they use to communicate.
The songwriter for the musical version has a Jewish mother and Lebanese father. He wrote music for a story that fused two cultural backgrounds but was not about tribal conflict. The Egyptian band members and Israeli hosts get to know each other. Some of the characters are lonely with complicated histories. But something magical happens when strangers encounter each other. They open up and talk about grief and loneliness in a way they might not with their friends or family.
Even though they come from different cultures with different languages, a sense of understanding and appreciation develops among the Arabs and Israelis. Stereotypes are broken. Their worldviews are enlarged. The hosts provide hospitality. Music becomes a universal language that unites them. And their lives are changed by the night they spend together.
In a time when the language many speak today is fear and prejudice, the Holy Spirit is poured out upon us this Pentecost day. Walls come down. New connections are made. Our common humanity is celebrated. And whatever our language or background, we begin to understand—or at least appreciate—each other.
Come, down O love divine! Come, breath of God. Come, wind of the Spirit. Blow among us. Set our hearts on fire and make us one. Send us forth to be a fiery, passionate people. Treasuring the diverse cultures and languages of our city and of our world!
1 Aviva Zornberg, The Beginning of Desire: Reflections on Genesis.
