From Babel to Pentecost

Sermon at Church of the Ascension

Frankfort, KY

Genesis 11:1-9 | Psalm 104:25-35, 37 | Acts 2:1-21 | John 14:8-17, (25-27)

Perhaps the most distracted sermon I have preached, as there was a small black spider - of the jumping variety - crawling around the pulpit as I spoke.  By the time I reached the last line of my sermon, he was sitting atop the microphone, staring me square in the face.  

"From Babel to Pentecost" 

It was a hot day, but the climate was so dry that 95 degrees in the olive grove was much more pleasant than any 80 degree summer day in central Kentucky. My village “sisters” - the 4 and 7 year old daughters of my homestay family in Aoud Lma in southern Morocco – were eyeing me curiously as the men tried to explain to me how to harvest olives. My “mother” Sfia and “grandmother” Barka watched from a short distance, giggling occasionally at this pale-skinned, blue-eyed, curly-haired American girl who insisted on climbing the olive trees with the men instead of remaining on the ground with the women.

My cousin Mohammad gave up on words
and finally took to the trees

Mohammed, my “cousin,” explained in a multitude of ways how to do this job I insisted that I do. He tried Moroccan Arabic, some standard Arabic, some clumsy French and Spanish, his few words of English, and finally, laughing at my determination in spite of my bewilderment, gestures. “Yalla, 'Alia,” he said, motioning for me to follow him up the scrawny trunk of a tree.

My father Mohammad

We spent the afternoon in the olive grove. I climbed tree after tree with Mohammed, my cousin, and Mohammed, my father, and Mohammed my grandfather and shook down the plump green olives. Sfia and Barka gathered the fallen olives in their skirts while my little sisters Ghizlan and Fatima chased each other in circles. At the end of the day we retired for mint tea, bread and olive oil. We sat around the family's mud house and told stories, and while at least half of their words were lost to me and nearly all of my words lost to them, the smiles, the laughter, and the affection were deeply felt and understood.

My sisters Ghizlan and Fatima

Ghizlan and Fatima, who had previously been skeptical of me, now jockeyed for position sitting in my lap. Barka and Sfia showed me how to properly wrap my head scarf. Three generations of Mohammeds chuckled as they smoked hookah and recounted my climbing in the trees. I laughed along with them.


Every year when Pentecost rolls around – with the miracle of understanding, each listener hearing and interpreting the apostles’ words in his own language, the miracle of the Holy Spirit - I think of the afternoon in the olive grove.

My time in Morocco was the first in my life that I experienced what it was like to be “other” - to look different, to have different cultural assumptions, to be a foreign woman. I felt like an alien. It was my first time to be in a place where I understood less than one tenth of what was said around me. It gave me some insight into what being an “other” in America might be like – what it might be like to be an outsider, to be a minority, to be an immigrant, to be gay, to be something other than Christian.

Sfia, my cousin Mohammad, and Barka drinking
tea and telling stories after a long day's work

 At some point in the midst of my confusion and sense of isolation in Morocco, I found a deep sense of peace that I can only explain as abiding in the Spirit. My feeling of other-ness taught me to look and listen more deeply. And when I did that, I began to see the glimmers of God's presence. I was met by grace and welcome. When I quieted my anxieties and opened my heart, when I became intentional about being present in the moment – I met God. I met God in the patience, forbearance, kindness, gentleness, acceptance and radical hospitality of my village family. We may not have been speaking the same language, but we understood the same language. We understood generosity. We understood grace. We understood smiles. We understood love: The universals best expressed through your action, through your body language - and not only words.

 It was out of isolation and confusion that I learned to listen and open my heart. And when I did, Morocco no longer seemed like Babel. As I sought and found the face of God, learning to abide in the presence of the Spirit, I sought and found Pentecost.

The whole experience convinced me that it is our duty, as Christians, to seek, find, and bring Pentecost into the midst of our world of Babel.

Over the last few years, I have been privileged to watch a beautiful thing begin to take root at Church of the Ascension. I have visited this parish twice previously - this is my third morning with all of you - to preach and teach about Reading Camp, to meet and share fellowship and prayer with all of you. And over the last few years, you have discerned that God is calling you to be a welcoming, encouraging, and loving presence to struggling students in Franklin County. As you know, Reading Camp serves children who are grade levels behind in reading skills, children who are caught in a cycle of failure and self-doubt, feeling that they are “too stupid” to read. Children who feel like outsiders. Children who see lines and squiggles and shapes on a page that they are supposed to be able to interpret readily and fluidly, but that instead confuse and play tricks on them.

 I imagine they feel some of the isolation and bewilderment I felt when I lived abroad – the sense of “alone” that any of us feel when we are in a new and unfamiliar place, amongst new and unfamiliar, perhaps unfriendly, people. When we find ourselves in a Babel, where common language and common understanding has been lost.

Now I don't think this is a small thing; I think it's fairly widespread.  Whenever I turn on the news, I see this bewilderment and confusion. Babel, I think, is everywhere we look – our world has forgotten God the creator of all, sustainer of all, the Spirit which moves, guides, and teaches all of us – and we mere mortals have too often put ourselves in God's place. Inflated senses of power, and righteousness and strength, have led to corruption, discord, abuse, and fear. Ignorance and disregard for others' struggles, others' pain and hurt has bred distrust, division, and has broken down the fabric of our communities.  The world is in discord, and people all around us - and us too - are crying out to be heard, for someone to listen to us and to hear our stories.

Lexington Reading Camp 2011

So while your first Reading Camp this summer may seem like a very small, perhaps even insignificant, thing, I say to you – it is one of the most important things you can do in the lives of these children. You will gently and patiently listen to them in a world that has forgotten how to listen, you will be present with them in a world that moves way too fast, you will help them to learn to voice their struggles and their hurt in a world that has ignored them. You can be a place for healing in a world that medicates but doesn't treat the root cause.

And not only these things, but you will provide the tools to help them make sense of what is so confusing and scary. You will lead them from bewilderment to understanding. From Babel to Pentecost. You will offer glimpses of God.

So, abide in the Spirit. Be a presence of understanding, generosity, and patience.

In this morning's Gospel, “Philip said to Jesus, "Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied." Jesus said to him, "Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me?  Have I been with you all this time and you don't know me?"

Photo by Jenny Neat 2012 - Pine Mountain Reading Camp

We are the body of Christ, the children of God. And as you abide in the Spirit, offering a place of hope, joy, discovery, and learning to children this summer at Capital City Reading Camp, there will be no question that you are living out your Baptismal Covenant. And when someone asks, “Show us the Father, and we will be satisfied. Show us the face of God,” they will need only look to the ministry of Capital City Reading Camp to see the work of the Holy Spirit. To see the transformation of our broken world from Babel into Pentecost.

Amen.