Rebuilding Community Pentecost Day 2022

<strong><span style="font-size: 10pt;">Focus Readings: Genesis 11:1-9; Acts 2:1-21; John 14:8-17</span></strong><br /> <br /> In Douglas Adam's Science Fiction series, the Hitch Hikers' Guide to the Galaxy there is a fish called the Babel fish which can be inserted into the ear and which translates whatever is being said in any language instantly to your own. He writes "by effectively removing all barriers to communication between different races and cultures, has caused more and bloodier wars than anything else in the history of creation."<br /> - Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy <p>It's meant to be a funny line because often people argue that if only we really understood exactly what other people were saying, people of other cultures, languages, faiths, and so on then there would be world peace. I will be honest and say there are times when I don't say exactly what I think and there have been times when I have been very glad that people have misunderstood what I was saying because what I was actually trying to say was not good or perhaps just foolish.</p> <p>The Babel fish by translating exactly what people are trying to say would mean that we would hear and understand the best of what our fellow human beings are saying but we would also hear the worst. </p> <p>The Tower of Babel story is about how God gave us separate languages because we were trying to make a great name for ourselves. Instead of receiving and caring for creation as a gift from God we were seeking to do the very thing that Adam and Eve did in the Garden of Eden to be like God, to make ourselves great. This is what the Bible calls pride. Pride is not taking pride in the achievements of our work or craft or our children, spouse or family. Pride is believing that we are better than others. It is believing that we should have special privileges because of our knowledge, our wealth, our skill or our position. As Psalm 10:4 puts it "Psalm 10:4 (NLT)<br />     4 The wicked are too proud to seek God. <br />       They seem to think