Many Tongues Became One

Fr. Ed Fowler

The Feast of Pentecost

May 26, 2024

My dad was a sprout during the Great Depression.  His family fared better than most.  His dad worked as a superintendent in the Texas Company oil field just outside of town and he remained gainfully employed throughout that dark period.

            They lived in West Columbia, Texas, home of the fightin’ Roughnecks.

            When Dad was 8 or 9 it became the custom for his mother to give him a nickel each Saturday night – assuming he had been reasonably well behaved and had tended to his chores.  That nickel would cover both admission to the movies and the price of a candy bar.

            Dad would meet up with a couple of his pals and they would head over to the Bijou Theater on the main drag and take in the show.

            One summer night, one of the boys had a better idea.  He’d heard about a regular Saturday night event that promised to be a better show.  And not only that, they could keep their nickels in their pockets because it was free.

            So the three boys headed for the big tent on the edge of town where the Pentecostal church met.  They held their service on Saturday night because this was the Texas Gulf Coast and the summer days were hotter than blazes.

            The Pentecostals also rolled up the edges of their tent all the way around so that any breeze that might stir wouldn’t go to waste.  That gave three puckish boys an opportunity to flop on their bellies and peer inside.

            The Pentecostal preacher was a fellow named One-Arm Brown.  He had transitioned from his previous career as a bootlegger after he lost an arm in the course of a high-speed chase.  A revenuer got off a lucky shot that sent the bootlegger skidding off the gravel road and into a tree.

            This unfortunate incident limited him to the point that he felt compelled to withdraw from the bootleggers’ guild and move on to the related field of preaching.  He reckoned that both jobs were about making people feel better during those difficult days.

            Well, on this particular night as the boys looked on, the praise band got to playing and the preacher got to preaching and before long some of the folks appeared to enter a state of frenzy.  A comely lass of about 17 named Nellie became so ecstatic that she fell off of her chair and began to roll around in the center aisle.

            As she did, the hem of her skirt began to ride up higher and higher.  In the interest of decorum, the widow Jones, who was seated right there on the aisle, reached down to pull Nellie’s skirt back down.  Whereupon Reverend One-Armed Brown held up his one arm and bellowed, “Desist, Sister Jones, desist!  And let her glory shine!”

            And so on this Feast of Pentecost I put it to you: Is that really how God the Holy Spirit operates in His creation?

Pentecost is the day on which the Holy Spirit erupted in the creation and breathed out salvation on 3,000 souls in Jerusalem, the day on which God inaugurated the church as we know it and understand it and live it today.

We have our concerns – well-founded concerns – about the state of God’s church in our place and time, but perhaps this is a day to see the glass as half-full.

I read a story recently that provides some perspective.  The 18th century was a time of indifference and even apostasy in England.  A pastor named Samuel Wesley was the father of two sons, John and Charles.

            One day he told the one, “Charles, be steady.  The Christian faith will surely revive in these kingdoms.  You shall see it, though I shall not.”

            John of course heard of that conversation and he recalled it years later when, standing at his father’s grave, he preached to a great multitude.  England did see revival, and much of the credit for it goes to Samuel Wesley’s two boys, who spooned their gospel tonic into an ailing church in both England and America.  We are reminded once again to walk by faith and not by sight.

            If we inhabit an age of the eclipse of the church, so have many others.  But from every eclipse the church has emerged and will emerge more resplendent than before.  If a spiritual gloom has descended upon our own time, it affords us an opportunity to turn up the flame of our faith in God.

            From the time of the fathers the church has seen Pentecost as the reversal of the Tower of Babel.  At Babel, one language became many; at Pentecost, many languages become one.   In the instant the church was born, she spoke with one voice.

            This is the power of our God.  In this power – in His power -- are our strength and our hope.  In this power – in His power -- is the reason we shall not lose heart.  We are His church, and the gates of hell will not stand against us.

            At Babel, God confused the tongues of the nations; at Pentecost He reversed the confusion.  At Babel, God scattered the people in judgment; at Pentecost He distributed the people to publish the gospel to the uttermost parts of the earth.

At Babel, the people used language to advance a human agenda; at Pentecost, language became a sign to declare the power of God.  At Babel, disunity radiated outward as when a stone causes ripples in a pond; at Pentecost, people flew together as iron filings to a magnet.

            Our God is ever merciful.  In the garden, he drove man out so he could not  eat from the tree of life and live forever in his sinful state.  At Babel, He drove man away, delaying judgment on the City of Man and affording His creatures an opportunity of repentance.

            Only God could tolerate the sin of His creatures; only God could provide a remedy for it.  After the great flood, when God looked down and saw that sin was once again rampant on the earth, He called Abraham out of Ur of the Chaldees to begin to form a people for His holy name.

            Later He would send a man, born of a woman, born under the law, to complete the work.  This man, after His resurrection from the dead but before His ascension into heaven, would commission His apostles, or messengers, to “make disciples of all nations,” going “to the end of the earth” to take the gospel to every nation, people, tongue and tribe.

            But wait, He told them, until you receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.  They received that gift on this day, Pentecost, the 50th day after the Feast of Unleavened Bread, which was celebrated at the time of harvest.  In God’s economy the harvest of grain would ever thereafter trigger the memory of the harvest of souls.

One thing the Holy Spirit would teach us is that there is no true unity among men if not through God.  The vertical relationship must always precede the horizontal.

            At Pentecost, the “mighty rushing wind” and “divided tongues, as of fire” -- do you recall the burning bush? -- brought God’s remedy for the rifts between man and God and man and man that sin produced.  Man dedicated the Tower of Babel, the house sin built, to the premise that man can unite with man while freezing God out.

            The Psalmist would refute this notion:

            “Unless the LORD builds the house, they labor in vain who build it . . .” (127:1).

            The church God inaugurated on that first Pentecost is His gift of a halfway house for His people, a shelter from the anarchy of the City of Man while we await communion in the City of God.

            This city of the Christian church rises out of the ruins of the civilizations of this world and survives all manner of chaos and tumult.  One gilded day, her King will return to take up His throne and rule over an eternal realm of perfect justice and peace.

Meanwhile, we who are the subjects of this King have the privilege of looking upon this City of God with the eyes of faith and glimpsing our future home.  We have the further privilege of serving our King in preparing the world for the transfer of the City of God from heaven to earth, of proclaiming to the nations separated at Babel the solution God effected at Pentecost.

            By the power of God, disunity has become unity, chaos has conceded to order, darkness has shriveled before the light.

            God the Holy Spirit, the Helper, continues to roll out His Pentecost today.  And He grants His faithful ones the inestimable privilege of helping Him in the work.  Thanks be to God.  Amen.