24th May 2026 

Come, Holy Spirit!

Almost at the start of the Bible, in Genesis 11, is the ancient story of the Tower of Babel. Early humans, wanting to make a name for themselves, founded a city and sought to build a tower reaching up to the heavens. But their efforts come to nothing because God, seeing what they are doing, scatters them by confusing their language, so that they can no longer understand one another. People who have come together for a purpose are now "scattered over the face of the earth".

How are we to understand this story? Is it, as many commentators would suggest, a reflection on human arrogance in thinking we can take the place of God. Is it, as some would say, the story of God not wanting humans to overreach themselves and - if so - is that because God knows the damage we can do to ourselves and is saving us from ourselves, or because God is insecure and doesn't want our competition? Or is it an origin story that explains an existing phenomenon - here, the presence of many languages - that, actually, all our human efforts and grand schemes fail because we're really not that good at communicating with one another?

Well, maybe a bit of everything. But, throughout the Bible, one thing is clear. All our human efforts to find a way to God or to become like God fail. God is not like us, and we can't, by our intelligence or by our moral purity or by simply desiring it to be so, find our own way to God.

Yet, God desires to find us. Throughout the Bible, God seeks a relationship with the funny, fragile, limited humans he has created and, despite everything, loves with an unlimited love. He starts with one man, Abraham, whom he invites on an adventure of learning to trust him and walk with him. He continues with a nation, Israel, whom he rescues from enslavement to a foreign power and invites to live as his people. He repeatedly calls the nation back through the words and messages of the prophets.

But, primarily, God comes to find us in Jesus. The story of God's relationship with us is the story of Jesus, born as a baby, living amongst us, showing through his words and deeds what God is like, dying and rising again for us before ascending into heaven. And before he returns to heaven, Jesus promises his first disciples that he will always be with them - that they will never again, by their own efforts, have to find their way to God because, in Jesus, God has found us.

The story of Pentecost reverses the story of Babel. At Babel, human beings sought to build a tower to find their way to God. At Pentecost, God comes down to earth to dwell in us forever. At Babel, the peoples of the world are thrown into confusion because they can't speak one another's languages. At Pentecost, the gift of tongues means that foreign visitors to Jerusalem can hear the wonders of God declared in their own language. At Babel, the peoples are scattered; at Pentecost, they are gathered in.

Anen. Come Holy Spirit!