Day of Pentecost 2007

Genesis 11:1-9

Psalm 104:24-34,35b

Acts 2:1-21

John 14:8-27

Picture, if you will, a nation in control. A nation that is wealthy, educated, and ambitious. A nation that is eager to control the resources of the world. A nation eager to make a name for itself. To prove itself by its building projects and its scientific advances.

That would be Babylonia at the time of the telling of our Genesis story. The Babylonian Empire was trying to dominate the earth. Babylonian religion including the building of huge Ziqqurats which were thought to unite heaven and earth. Let us reach for the sky! Get closer to the heavens….while we spread our culture around the world.

Yes, indeed, Babylonia and the rulers of Babylonia were out to make a name for themselves. So they built tall towers…and large armies.

And God saw this and scattered them. God unraveled the work that they had done. Because God saw they were trying to make a name for themselves built on the backs of slave labor and domination over other countries.

God saw that they were trying to do it all on their own for their own glory. And God came and scattered them.

Powerful story for the oppressed people of Israel. They would have gotten the name play…Babylonia, Babel…the towers that were pagan Ziqqurats…the scattering of people that become too trusting in their own power…trying to make a name for themselves…

They are unraveled. Not destroyed, but unraveled in order to be rebuilt.

The image of “unraveling” has been in my mind this week after a conversation in which someone asked about “unraveling” and then caught themselves and said, “No, that’s not it, I really meant “blossoming”.”

But I stuck with unraveling.

I learned to knit last year. I had knit before, once, about 20 years ago. Not very successfully I might add. I tried a sweater and the back went like this: (wavy).

But last year I started again. The first thing I knit was supposed to be a square. Looked like the moths had eaten it. Not pretty at all.

But it was a start. And with practice I left the unintentional holes behind and evened up.

But still, the last thing I started knitting was sloppy. So I had to unravel it.

Pull this yarn and there it goes, wound back into a ball.

Then I start over. Same yarn, new pattern. Neater this time. Not perfect. No, never perfect. But better. Useful now. Even beautiful.

That’s what the stories of Pentecost Sunday are about. The Spirit of God taking a sloppy world, sloppy people. People full of dropped stitches…uneven edges. People who have tried to make a name for themselves. And ended up with a mess. A tangle of insecurity and shame. A knot of selfishness or self-righteousness.

God comes and gentle pulls at us, unravels us until we are laid bare. Wound in a ball. Then The Spirit comes and knits us back together again. Same yarn, new design. One of beauty and usefulness. Neater this time. Not perfect. No, never perfect. But better. Useful now. Even beautiful.

And we go along for a time, in our new pattern. Having to unravel a few rows now and again when we drop a stitch. God picks it up for us and helps us move on.

Notice in our first lesson God scatters the people. God doesn’t destroy them. Just sends them out to start fresh. Same people, new language.

In the Acts reading the Spirit arrives in all it’s glory and opens peoples ears to hear a new thing! The word of God in Jesus Christ and in the Holy Spirit. And the pattern of life changes again as the early church takes root and grows, knit into a pattern of many colored threads.

In the Gospel of John, Jesus is bodily leaving the earth. The disciples fear their life will unravel. But in his leaving Jesus sends the Spirit, the Advocate, to keep the pattern alive and growing.

The Spirit is still at work today, all these years after the Genesis story was first told. All these years after Jesus spoke in person to his followers; all these years after Peter preached the first sermon on that first Pentecost.

The Spirit is still at work knitting us together, unraveling, unknotting, and reworking. Creating a pattern that is always changing and always new.

Sometimes only a few rows are pulled up to be reworked. Sometimes we are unraveled back to the beginning and are given a chance to start over.

Always, always, the most beautiful useful work is what the Spirit does in our lives. Not what we do to make a name for ourselves. But what the Spirit does through us in the name of God.

For it is God who makes a name for us. Beloved, God’s chosen. Holy people.

People of the Spirit, knit together in a beautiful, always growing, community of faith.

So I’ll work on this piece of knitting, starting over with the same yarn.

And the Spirit will continue to work on us and on our community and on our world.

Until we stop trying to make a name for ourselves, like the Babylonians. And let God name us.

Beloved.

Amen.