All Access Pass to THE Birthday
Acts 2.1-21 and Genesis 11.1–9, Loneliness today is not about technology but about transactional relationships. We must prioritize belonging over productivity.
Is this about birthing the church or about broadening it? What is happening in Acts? By that same token, what is happening in Genesis 11?
In an article in the Presbyterian Outlook, Dr. Kathleen Robinson pens an article about the present-day social phenomenon cutting a scar directly through the fabric of our communities. Swipes and likes: Redefining the Loneliness Epidemic describes the lack of community because something changed in the way that we relate to one another. It has been happening slowly during the 21st century. It was highlighted during the pandemic of 2020 and has only grown more rapidly during and after.
Our loneliness is not about technology although that only worsened the issue. It is about how, when, and where we find connection. Social media plays a roll in how we live and think about the world in the global sense today. Without it I would have no idea that one of my classmates from Poland was still living in South Korea and still painting. I would never know about the recent or past happenings of college friends off in New England. My mother-in-law and mother would never have been able to get fresh new photos of first school days or Halloween costumes through the years, but they did even with one in Pennsylvania and the other that resided on another continent.
Social media helped congregations and friends keep in touch while the world stopped dead in its tracks and we all sat in our various living spaces alone with family. Social media is not to blame, even though it may seem the likely scapegoat. To some extent it did perpetuate the problem and still does.
Robinson argues that loneliness “reflects a broader shift toward transactional relationships. To counter this, we must cultivate deeper, more intentional online and offline connections that prioritize belonging over productivity.” If I interact with someone to only get a particular reaction or outcome that will in someway benefit me, I am not connecting as a friend should. If I interact with someone solely to understand and be understood this can bring connection. When we spend time, energy, and our physical presence with someone we have the right ingredients to cultivate an authentic friendship.
Robinson goes on to say that “connective interaction fosters a relationship between time, energy and location. It is not easy or quick. It requires vulnerability and openness. It requires empathy.” The world today has a hard time with this level of openness. Empathy has recently and falsely been called a sin and vulnerability requires one to show weakness.
Weakness and empathy, erroneously called sin, are hard emotions to wear on our sleeves. We tend to hide things under rugs or in closets if we think they are undesirable qualities. Let me clearly expound that empathy and weakness in the face of death were traits that Jesus wore along with the crown of thorns. He cried out for mercy to God as he died in an act of vulnerability and felt empathy and compassion for the thief that asked for forgiveness.
We cannot hold people at arm’s length then tell them the Gospel and think they will believe. A sense of honest care and concern must be present. If you think that your sympathy is enough because you feel sad when you see someone in need, it is not. Empathy and true caring, the type that Jesus extoled, comes from the building of relationships. Spending time and effort to know how THEY feel. Not that you feel bad they don’t have the same life as you… They may not even like what you have. Empathy is understanding what THEY feel while sympathy is about what you feel.
It is a hard concept in our very individualistic society. It is all about ourselves, not the greater good of all. We tend to think in terms of who can I become friends with to help my career, networking. Who should I befriend to get more people in church that can contribute financially, recruiting. Who can I befriend to find more volunteers for the food bank, hobnobbing. Who can I get to know to help my family if we need a lawyer, making contacts. Or need a plumber, associating. Or to look better for the media, rubbing shoulders. Transactional relationships. Not all are bad, we do need some of those things… But is this really the only way we want to see and interact with other people or them to see us? A means to an end instead of a shoulder in a time of need and a person we share time and energy with that enriches our lives.
Ralph W. Klein bears a fresh look at Genesis 11:1-9. The account of Bable, not Babylon they are not the same. Instead of a God who saw challenges from humanity and scattered them. He argues that humanity did not want to be scattered and desired to all be one people. God instead values and celebrates diversity. All of creation has been a work of distinctiveness and variance. There is joy in the multiplicity of colors and textures that even one flower brings. There are variations even in the songs of birds and singing of the sea creatures. In Genesis 1 God and the wind or Spirit of God swept over the face of the waters as sky and land, plants of all kinds, bird and fish, beast then humanity were created. Each separated into something new and beautiful and when all was done and God rested they called it very good. For God is a Triune God. A God that is in community with themself.
As these few who had been saved from the flood would not “be fruitful and multiply, abound[ing] on the earth and have dominion over it.” As Genesis 9:7 asks of the descendants of Noah, God confused their language. Klein argues that “here the name [Bable] is explained as the place where YHWH mixed (balal) the language of the entire earth.” Later verses give the next descendants with “Japheth’s descendants, for example, we read: “These are the descendants of Japheth in their lands, each with its own language” (Gen. 10:5, author’s translation)”. Klein offers that this new understanding values differences and explains that cultural diversity is God’s design.
Then here comes a mighty wind… Spirit. The same Spirit from the beginning to do yet another new thing. With a variety of cultures and languages within the Jewish believing community the time was ripe. Not only because of so many immigrants in the city of Jerusalem but because it came at conclusion of The Feast of Weeks or Shavuot. The third most celebrated feast holiday of the harvest of the first fruits. Jewish culture and tradition was always to honor the Lord God YHWH with the first-born calf, the first sweetest grapes, or the early and most tender of the grain and produce of the land. The land was indeed a gift from God and so it was only right and good to give back from that bounty.
In this setting, the new thing, the holy event, was well placed by time of year and location. Jerusalem was filled with Jews that spoke Greek as subjects of the Roman Empire. But each sect or household culturally different had their own tribal language which would be spoken only with close relatives in their houses or private spaces. Their own culture suppressed because of the diaspora that resulted because of Rome.
With a rush of Holy Wind “no nationality of dispersed Jews is excluded from the proclamation, as Luke’s rollcall of the peoples makes clear”. (Interpretation: Acts, pg. 30) Not just that but the languages that are spoken at Pentecost are not the ‘spiritual language’ that 1 Corinthians 12-14 describes. The languages are those of the surrounding immigrants in their own tribal and cultural language spoken within their intimate spaces. No one is left out of understanding the good news. Margaret P. Aymer states that, “Luke affirms that on that particular Pentecost—when all Jesus’ followers, named and unnamed, women and men, young and old, were given the power of the Spirit of God to bear witness in every language of the good news of Jesus Christ”. Not in one unifying language but in each language of each household and individual within hearing. “The Holy Spirit has a tendency not to discriminate based on human standards”.
Michael Jinkins reminds us that, “In the image of the God who, as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, is eternal and living community, differentiated in person, united in love, we are ourselves created for community, and never fully live in God’s image until we live in communion. Communion assumes difference—not uniformity, not conformity to a single idealized form of life, or nationality, or ethnicity, or tribe.” The beauty and ability for personal and social growth comes from those differences.
Bable gave diversity and richness to our ancestors as we grew in numbers and geographical locations. Pentecost creates a new community that embraces our multicultural distinctiveness.
Our Triune God of community and love moves among us with creation power and inspiration for every member of our society. The Spirit blows and changes wherever they want to blow and in whomever they want to fill and call. Our purpose is set forth to go and make disciples of all people. Not by making everyone like ‘us’, but by embracing differences that inspire growth and change of our own selves so that we grow our faith with the Sprit’s direction. We share the gospel so that everyone knows they are loved just as they are. We share the gospel by spending time, using energy, and being present with others. To not be limited by our fear or expectations of who can be filled or who is worthy of being called. No one should be denied fellowship or membership as we are all welcome created diverse children of God.
If Peter, who denied Jesus three times, is the preacher of the first Christian sermon and then becomes the rock of the newfound church, there is hope for us too. I asked at the beginning: Is this about birthing the church or about broadening it? I think for myself it is about both. We cannot broaden something that hasn’t been born. The Spirit being poured out on all there to hear in their own language and then include the gentiles as the Acts of the apostle’s plays out. This is a happy birthday to the Church and an all-access pass of welcome included.
I call out, come Holy Spirit, come. Inspire us anew on this Pentecost to hear, see, and feel your power. The creating power of the beginning, the birth of Jesus, the ascension of Jesus unto heaven, and the gift of the Spirit. To be poured out for all of us, even when we think in 2025, it can’t really be all that drama of rushing wind and flickers of fire. Come Spirit and be among us, Holy Spirit, so that we may spend time with, exert energy on, and physically be with You in the community of The Church, this bold new people. Amen.
Bibliography
https://biblehub.com/greek/2078.htm
Barlett, David L., Barbara Brown Taylor, Editors, Feasting on the Word YC Vol 3, Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009. Kindel Edition.
Gutzke, Manford George, Plain Talk on Acts, Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 1975.
Jennings, Willie James, Acts a Theological Commentary on the Bible (Belief Series), Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 2017. Kindle version.
Robinson, Kathleen, Swipes and likes: Redefining the loneliness epidemic, The Presbyterian Outlook, Vol. 207 No. 6, June 2025, pg. 16.
Willimon, William H., Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching: Acts, Atlanta, GA.: John Knox Press, 1988.
