There are plenty of things in life that are one-way trips. You do things that can’t be undone. In 1976 (or 1977 maybe), my girlfriend Susan and I went to see the Eagles on their Hotel California tour. If you remember the title song on that album, they talk about a hotel where you check in and you can never leave. This is one of those one-way trips.
I am told that once you let the cat out of the bag, it is hard to get it back in. Toothpaste famously once it is out of the tube does not go back either. A side of beef turned into hamburger for the freezer can’t be turned into roasts and steaks later if you change your mind.
You can think of other things in your life maybe that fall into this category. Robert Frost in “The Road not Taken” writes:
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
There is the option here at least that that Robert Frost thinks we could come back to take another path. It does not look too likely though.
I want us to think about the tower of Babel for a moment. In Genesis, the people in their pride sin. They say in their pride, “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.” They set out to make a name for themselves and unify themselves with a monument so they will
not be scattered. God causes them to speak different languages, and they disperse.
They try to find unity the wrong way, and lose the ability to communicate and be one people. This appears to be one of these one-way trips.
In the Ten Commandments, we have two sets of laws. The first four or so – depending on how you count them – deal with our relationship with God. The last ones deal with our relationships with our brothers and sisters. Sin is what separates us from God and our neighbor. The pride that went into plans for the Tower of Babel seemed to have broken the possibility of unity.
The Hebrew Scriptures are a series of narratives about this broken relationship and the conflicts faced by people who are struggling in sin to live in community. The problem is that we can’t do it on our own. Our effort is not enough. The Tower of Babel is what happens when we try to do it ourselves. We get it wrong and break the very thing we were setting out to establish.
What is it that we need to keep sin from being a one-way trip? How can we undo the brokenness we bring about through doing things the wrong way? Robert Frost may not think it is too likely we can ever go back, but the message of the Gospel is that it is possible. Through Jesus, we can get a fresh start and recover through grace. We can be redeemed.
Let’s talk about another one-way trip. It is baptism. The catechism tells us that our souls are permanently marked by our baptisms. We will renew those baptismal vows today, and Ernesto Zuniga will be baptized at the Spanish service. I will mark his head with the sign of the Cross and say, “you are sealed by the Holy Spirit in Baptism and marked as Christ’s own forever.” This is a one-way trip that is good. Jesus died for us and forgives our sins. This is permanent and unchanging.
Now let’s look at the reading from Acts. This is a beautiful reading, and it is a favorite of mine. The Feast of the Pentecost is one of those defining moments for the Church. The Holy Spirit descends on the apostles and St. Peter quotes the prophet Joel saying, ‘everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.’
The confusion and separation that was brought about by the different languages at the Tower of Babel is undone. ‘Each one heard them speaking in the native language of each.’ Through Jesus we can be united once more. We can be forgiven our sins against God and our neighbor. We can get a fresh start. It takes the movement of the Holy Spirit in our lives, and it takes Jesus. It takes grace because we can’t do it on our own.
We need grace and God gives it to us. He gives us the Holy Spirit. Jesus came and died for our sins so that once more we could find unity.
This is the unity we talk about when we say the Nicene Creed and affirm our belief in the one, holy catholic and apostolic Church. We are one in Christ, and the division that came about at the Tower of Babel has been undone.
How do we respond to this grace? How do we respond to the gifts of the Holy Spirit? How do we respond to Jesus?
My message today is that we are called to respond in the knowledge that we are one. Understand that our divisions have been undone, and we have been given a chance that is very unusual in human experience. We can start again.
Think of the places in your lives that you have been separated from God and your brothers and sister by sin. Humbly ask God to forgive you, and live in unity.
We are a people who have been given a second chance. Despite Robert Frost, we can take that other road, and we have a road map for the journey. That map is found in the baptismal promises we will renew in a moment.
We have been marked in baptism, and God has given us gifts for ministry. We have work to do, and we are not alone as we do the work. We have the Holy Spirit, and we have each other. We are blessed in so many ways.
`In the last days it will be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams.
Even upon my slaves, both men and women, in those days I will pour out my Spirit; and they shall prophesy. And I will show portents in the heaven above and signs on the earth below, blood, and fire, and smoky mist.
The sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood, before the coming of the Lord’s great and glorious day. Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.’
I have said these words in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Sermon preached by Fr. Tom at St. Thomas Episcopal – Plymouth
May 15, 2016; Pentecost Sunday
Acts 2:1-21
Psalm 104:25-35, 37
Romans 8:14-17
John 14:8-27