Genesis 11: 6-8; Acts 2: 1-6

There is an anecdote of a patient lying on the couch dressed in a medieval costume people wear in theater productions and saying to his therapist:” If only all the voices in my head could combine.  I would have a light opera chorus.”  There are so many voices in our lives.  Genesis 11 is about voices, the voices of people at Tower of Babel who are building a tower so high that they would be even greater than God. God decides to have some mischief with them. God doesn’t crash the tower, or make the cement crumble or do something else that is destructive, God simply confuses their language, Suddenly no longer communication is possible. So the bricklayer does not understand the foreman’s commands and the carpenter no longer knows which measurements are required and so the projects is halted and stalls in mid-air. It’s a great story. Human communication is a wonder and a mystery. Even the really smart mess it up, like that Mars lander that crashed because the people on one side of the Atlantic were using different measurements than the people on the other side of the Atlantic.   But then there is the passage in Acts where the young Church has a powerful experience.  There are tongues of fire and a rushing wind.  It is a transformative experience. The communication is restored. Everybody in the room is suddenly on the same page.

Today we remember the voices of those who has left us in the past year. The sounds they made are still so vivid to us.  A month or so again in Coachuilla during a concert a hologram of murdered rapper Tupac Shakur appeared.  He was clearly heard saying: “hello Coachuilla.”  It made people a bit uncomfortable, for not only has he been gone quite a long time, but he has a kind of cult following still.  So many voices have left, Davey Jones the boyish lead singer of the mischievous “Monkees.” Who of our generation does not remember “Daydream Believer” or “I’m a Believer” and “Last Train to Clarksville.”  Whitney Houston’s voice is another one that will no longer create new harmonies only she could muster.  Just last week Robin Gibb of the BeeGees, the band with the highest pitch male voices, left us.   Here in our congregation and in your families and among your friends voices have disappeared.  We all have voices that will always stay in our head: Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman, Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh, Cary Grant and Greta Garbo.  But there are many voices we still hear even after so many years, encouraging us but maybe also criticizing us.

Friends, there are two main lessons Pentecost teaches us about voices of people.  First that God can make us understand each other’s voices and that the Holy Spirit can help create communities where we understand and appreciate each other’s voices.  In that sense the experience of Pentecost restores what has been lost in the Tower of Babel story.  Pentecost makes the language of people intelligible to each other whenever they are speaking about God.  The Spirit makes it possible to reconnect with people, to comprehend and to be comprehended.

Second, Pentecost teaches us that the voices are never quite gone, that they remain with us, that they keep taking and singing, but just in another place. Think of a great opera, of a great musical production.  It could end with a requiem, a sadness, a memory, or it could end with a burst of joy, with a Hallelujah chorus.  This is what God has done In Christ. God has boldly changed the story that almost always has a sad and sometimes even a horrifying ending to a story that ends well. It is a story that continues. The singing does not stop.  The song goes on. This is radical news. Without this faith at most what we have is a resignation to the fate of a body that finally gives out when there is no more mileage. That’s sad that all we have to hope for is to be resigned. No, God says: it doesn’t end here. There is more. What the details are exactly, on that the jury is still out, but the sad ending has become a happy ending.  The young Church knew that and believed that, but at Pentecost they felt it. So friends, in this memorial day weekend we remember the voices in our lives that have been stilled, but we are comforted because those voices have not really disappeared. Let us celebrate today that Pentecost gives voice to our relationships, makes them meaningful instead of confusing, for the Holy Spirit is at work.  Let us also celebrate that the voices we miss and cherish the most are in a sense still with us and always will be.  The story has a happy ending. Thanks be to God. Amen.