Tongues That Build

Today we celebrate the Feast of Pentecost which traces itself back to the Old Testament in Babel. One people. They had a building project. They wanted to build a tower as high as the heavens. They had everything they needed. They had bricks. Mortar. Unity of purpose and one language.

God came down and notice: he doesn’t send fire. not a flood. doesn’t touch one stone or even the workers. All he does is simply confuse their tongues.

that’s all. touches their mouths and the whole project collapses.

Babel wasn’t destroyed by an army or earthquake but it was destroyed by the people who were building it. why? because at that moment they could no longer speak to one another in love.

Let’s focus on this today because it tells us something hopeful but also worrisome at the same time:<aside> 💡The strongest community in the world can be undone by what comes out of its mouth—and the weakest community in the world can be rebuilt the same way.</aside>

what we are, what we have, what we hope to become as a parish community—it all rests on something smaller than a brick—it rests on the tongue.

St James says:<aside> 💡The tongue is a fire…a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With it we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse those who are made in the likeness of God.”</aside>

There’s a Jewish saying which says:<aside> 💡"Malicious speech about a [another person] kills three people: It kills the one who speaks it, the one who accepts it [the listener], and the one about whom it is said.”</aside>

Think about that. Many of us come here today and receive the body of christ on our tongues. How powerful that is.

However, the same tongue we ask— will it leave this church and speak about someone in the parking lot? in the hall?

will it sit at lunch and pick apart a someone who isn’t here to defend themselves?

Will the same tongue spend it’s God-given time speaking ill and tearing down the lives of other people?

We can feel safe in the church in the presence of God, but sometimes, without knowing, the temptation of the devil can enter through the mouth of the one who gossips.

Here is the what can happen that we don’t often acknowledge:

A family can stop coming to mass because of one conversation they overheard.

Someone can walk away from a parish community because of rumors.

Someone who came to church for years can die not speaking to their family after a comment that was made years ago.

A whole generation of youth and young people watch us—really watch us— and sometimes sadly walk away after deciding the church is just like every broken place.

We have to admit— not losing our people to atheism or the broken ideologies of the west, but to the tongues of christian people.

In the city of Corinth, St. Paul experienced this as well. The community had all the gifts of God: prophecy, knowledge, money, gift of tongues. They looked successful from the outside but were tearing themselves apart from their mouths.

St Paul says: “There are varieties of gifts, but the same spirit… If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together.”

If we are connected by the spirit of God, when we speak ill of a brother, we are not only hurting them, but hurting ourselves.

My brothers and sisters, here is the good news of Pentecost: Babel ended with people who couldn’t understand one another. Therefore couldn’t love each other.

Pentecost begins with people who suddenly can.

At Babel, God came down to .scatter

At Pentecost, God comes down to .gather

And He doesn’t gather us by making us all the same. He doesn’t erase our personalities, our families, our backgrounds, our languages, or even our wounds.

He simply pours His Spirit on top of all of it — and suddenly the same mouths that could divide a community become the mouths that proclaim the wonders of God.

That is the miracle we celebrate today.

Not that the apostles became perfect.

Not that their weaknesses disappeared.

But that their tongues — the same tongues that denied Christ, argued about who was the greatest, and ran silent on Good Friday — those same tongues were set on fire by the Holy Spirit and began to speak life and begin the church Christ established and preach the Gospel to the four corners of the earth.

And that is exactly what He wants to do with us.

He wants to take the tongue that has spoken harshly to a spouse and make it tender again.

He wants to take the tongue that has gossiped about a neighbor and make it a tongue of blessing.

He wants to take the tongue that has been silent when it should have spoken up — silent in prayer, silent in forgiveness, silent in encouragement — and finally loosen it.

He wants to take the tongue that confesses Christ on Sunday and make sure it confesses Him on Monday too.

Because Pentecost is not a one-day feast. Pentecost is the beginning of the Church — and the Church only continues when our words continue what the Spirit started.

So today, as we approach this altar, remember:

the same tongue that receives the Body of Christ is the tongue that will leave this church and speak to someone in the parking lot, to your children in the car, to your spouse at dinner, to a coworker tomorrow morning.

Let it be a tongue touched by fire.

Let it be a tongue that builds, not breaks.

Let it be a tongue that sounds like the Holy Spirit and not like the world.

And if we do this — even imperfectly, even slowly — something beautiful happens:

our parish stops being a building and starts being a Pentecost.

Our families stop being households and start being little churches.

Our community stops being a group of people who happen to share a faith and starts being one Body, with one Spirit, speaking one language — the language of love. Amen.