Preached on the Day of Pentecost (Year C), June 8, 2025, at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Seattle, Washington by The Reverend Stephen Crippen.
Genesis 11:1-9
Psalm 104:25-35, 37
Acts 2:1-21
John 14:8-17
Pentecost, by Jennifer Allison
They said, "Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves; otherwise we shall be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.”
To make a name for ourselves: That is one reason to build a city. Imagine the city – gleaming towers, splendid temples, a vast library, a thriving theater district, waterfront walking trails, shaded parks with benches for reading, playgrounds for children. Once we have built this city, and named it after ourselves, we will be known, we will be admired, we will inspire awe.
But then God will see all of this and drive us apart, confuse us, scatter us. Why? Because our city is beautiful, but it only exists for our glory. And soon enough we will want more glory: We will want to build an empire, and an army; we will want to launch rockets to colonize Mars. Why? To make a name for ourselves. To banish the thought of our mortality. To avoid the hard truth of our weaknesses. To avoid the ordinary, human truth of our vulnerability, and our finitude.
God says No to this anxious hubris. We must be scattered, if only to protect the verdant land, the flowing waters, and the living creatures who share this garden of creation with us. But there’s an even better reason for our scattering: When God creatively scatters us, we get more diverse, more flexible. We learn how to cooperate. We begin to understand what we do not know, and get better at recognizing what we are doing wrong. We improve. We feel better. We do better.
And then, strengthened and encouraged by God’s challenging gift of diversity, we could build an even better city, for an even better reason. We could build a city to house a community that speaks fluently across difference, a city that welcomes pilgrims from all directions, a city where groups of friends gather and break bread. And in the breaking of that bread, those friends are given courage and skill to greet strangers and foreigners, and make friends with them, too.
We could build a City of Justice, rather than a city of glory.
Building is a metaphor close to our hearts these days. Not so long ago, this congregation got bracing, challenging feedback from an expert in universal accessibility, someone who scattered us away from our false belief that, because one can access this sanctuary from Roy Street without using stairs, we were adequately accessible. We learned how very far we had to go to make this mission base actually, genuinely accessible to more and more people.
There are four major floors in our complex: undercroft, classrooms, sanctuary, and office. While yes, we have direct street access to this room, three of our four floors have always been nearly or completely inaccessible to many of us. But our task force went beyond stairs and ramps to take a hard look at everything – not just how people get from floor to floor, but how every staircase needs two handrails, and at a particular height; how restrooms can be brought to ADA code, and also be gender neutral while still affording privacy; how we need to make room in these pews for those who pray here but do not walk here; and how we need to boost the sound so that everyone can hear the Good News.
In other words, we rebuilt the “city” of this community so that more and more people belong here. We do this not for anyone’s glory. We do it for everyone’s access. The glory belongs only to God, whose creative power makes all of this possible. We Christians like to talk and sing about the “New Jerusalem,” that great vision of a city coming down out of heaven from God. Whenever we install a handrail or a chair lift, we catch a tiny glimpse of God sending down that city, right here.
Today we hear again the Pentecost story, which tells not of God sending down to earth a City of Justice, but God’s own spirit descending to an old city to make it new again; God’s own Spirit descending and burning brightly on the heads of God’s people; God’s own Spirit descending and firing up the hearts of God’s people.
The Spirit of God descends on the scattered people and brings them together, from all the different directions, back into one community. But God does this not by collapsing them back into one language, one culture – not by reversing the great blessing of diversity that God gave the people at Babel. No, this time God gives the people yet another blessing: God gives them fluency. They can understand each other now.
First, God gives us diversity, diversity that is almost beyond belief: thousands of languages and cultures, and something entirely unique about every single person. Then God gives us fluency, and we reach across our differences to embrace, collaborate, and to open even wider our accessible doors to more and more people.
Yesterday, twenty-seven people came to this building and worked for many long hours, cleaning, organizing, painting, and repairing everything that has faltered or been broken. They tended to all of the needs, concerns, and hopes of this mission base, this city within a city. Their anonymous labor is known and enjoyed by everyone who finds refuge here, everyone who seeks justice here.
I bid your prayers for these quiet and faithful servants; I bid your prayers for all the people they serve; and I bid your prayers for you yourself – for you are beloved of God. We who were scattered by God in beautiful diversity are gathered today by the Spirit into one Body, singing together this psalm of thanks and praise: “All creatures look to you, O Lord, to give them their food in due season. You give it to them; they gather it; you open your hand, and they are filled with good things.”