Communication/Communion

Genesis 11:1-9/Acts 2:1-21

One of the most important milestones in every child's life is the acquisition of language. Parents wait eagerly for those first words and watch as their child's language develops into sentences and questions.

Spoken language leads to learning to use written language, reading and writing. Throughout a child's schooling, from kindergarten to graduate school, one of the goals is to develop and improve the student's language skills, the ability to hear or read and comprehend, to write or speak and communicate effectively.

And we are prejudiced in favor of those with good language skills. More than any one other skill/ability, we associate language with intelligence. Fair or not, the child who speaks and reads early is assumed to be bright, brighter perhaps than the child who demonstrates creativity or mechanical ability or even mathematical ability. The person who communicates well is more likely to "do well" in school, get better jobs, higher pay even when language is not the primary job skill. The pastor who preaches well is more likely to find a church than the one who is devout, and kind, but inarticulate.

Why do we put so much emphasis on the ability to communicate?

I think it is because of our brokenness. Because we are sinful, broken, less than we should be, we experience shame and guilt, which are two different things.

Guilt produces pain and fear, the kind of fear we sing about in "Amazing Grace" (you know, "T'was grace that taught my heart to fear.") Guilt is of course one product of sin. Guilt leads us to God in remorse.

But shame is also a product of sin. However, while guilt (being sorry for what we have done) leads us to remorse, shame (being ashamed and embarrassed by what we have done) separates us. Shame cuts us off from God and from one another, makes us want to hide so no one will know how bad we are. The product of shame is loneliness and isolation.

The ability to communicate, seems to promise us a way to overcome that loneliness and isolation. If I can just tell you how I feel, who I am, maybe you can say or do something to heal my hurt, maybe you can love the inner me, the lonely child inside of me. If you'll just tell me who you are, how you feel, what you think, maybe I can reach out and touch you, love you. If we can just communicate.

But the story of The Tower of Babel is one with great truth in it. You remember the story, when the people of the earth all spoke one language and proposed to build a tower that would reach into God's heaven and make them like God, and God confused their language and scattered them over the face of the earth. Whether we believe the story is literally true or a parable, we recognize the truth in it: human beings need to be able to communicate with each other. To be scattered abroad over the face of the earth, to be cut off from one another is to die. Without teeth and claws, strength or speed we are doomed to become prey to other animals. It's only when we act together, cooperate as a society, that we become the hunter instead of the hunted.

But there's more to our need for each other than that. We are made in the image of God, the same God who created the world in order to have something to relate with, something to love. That God made us with a need to be together, to reach out and care for each other.

Human beings need to stay together, and to do that we need to communicate with each other. Separated, we are vulnerable and lonely, but together "nothing that we propose to do will be impossible for us."

But what will we propose to do?

In the story of Babel, the people were communicating well, working together, but their purpose was wrong. Like Adam and Eve in the Garden, they sought to be like Gods, to "make a name for themselves." And the story tells us that when that is our purpose, God is not pleased. The builders of the city of Babel lost their ability to communicate with one another and their plan to build a city, a plan which had been going so well, fell apart.

Today, we can see the story of Babel repeated. Whenever our purpose is self-aggrandizement, self-glorification, "making a name for ourselves," our human brokenness takes over, our cooperation is replaced with competition, our trust is destroyed. We know that each of us is out to take care of number one. Our communication becomes guarded and careful as we try to hide our motives from each other, and sooner or later our schemes and plans fall apart.

But there's another story, one which is the mirror image of Babel.

On the day of Pentecost, those who had followed Jesus, those who believed in him, those who knew that he was the Son of God and who believed in the life and forgiveness which he preached, were all together in one place. And God poured his Spirit out upon them and gave them the ability to communicate with people from every nation under heaven. And God's plan to build a church, a plan that bucked impossible odds, was fulfilled.

But something even greater happened on that first Pentecost. Through that same Spirit, their communication became communion.

Communication means to be with, to connect with; Communion means to be one with.

By the power of the Holy Spirit, the church, made up of broken human beings, becomes the one unbroken, resurrected Body of Christ. What starts as communication between brokenness becomes wholeness. The Hebrews had a word for that wholeness: Shalom -- peace and health and wholeness.

Communication seems to promise an end to our loneliness and isolation, but fails. Communion succeeds.

What makes the difference? In a word: The Word, Jesus Christ who sent the Holy Spirit to dwell with us and in us. In a world where all our words can be only rickety bridges between broken souls, The Word unites us, makes us one, whole and healed.

When our focus is on ourselves, when our purpose is to glorify ourselves and make a name for ourselves, we are scattered abroad and we will surely die. When our focus is on God, when our purpose is to spread his Name, we are brought together, made whole and we will surely live.

Test it out: The next time you find yourself at odds with your neighbor, the next time you feel the loneliness and isolation, change your focus, exchange your words for His Word. Instead of thinking and talking about what you need or want, try to listen for what God would have you say, talk about what God wants, speak the word of healing, speak the word of love, speak about God's great desire to reconcile the world. You may find that your communication is transformed as the same Spirit who on that first Pentecost, restored our ability to communicate, makes us one through Communion with our Lord.

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