A Church On Fire Week One: Scattered Smothered & Covered

It’s the Birthday of the Church!  Happy Birthday, Church.  

You look fantastic for being two millennia and change years old.  This is Pentecost Sunday, and the beginning of the Season of Pentecost, which will take us all the way through the summer.  

The  Season of Pentecost is when we learn what it means to be the Church in the world. 

For the next several weeks, we will be engaging in a sermon series entitled A Church On Fire, which references the Spanish anarchist Buenaventura Durutti, who said: "The only church that illuminates is a burning church." 

He was right, though not in the anti-clerical sense his remark was intended to have. Pentecost is a time for the Church to reflect on what it will be in whatever age it finds itself. 

Drawing on the image of fire from Pentecost, we will explore what it means for us to be a part of a church burning for the zeal of the Gospel.  

Today, we will kick off this series with a study of Pentecost itself and a reading from the Old Testament story of the Tower of Babel.  

Did you know that the Church was meant to be like Waffle House hash browns at their finest?  (Scattered, Smothered & Covered)

I’ve always wanted to fit a Waffle House analogy into a sermon.  

Allow me to wax eloquent on the nature of hashbrowns and why the Waffle House hash browns are superior because they are scattered, smothered, and covered.  

If you want hash browns, you don't want them cooked as a homogeneous glop of potatoes with little seasoning and served up in a solidified chunk on your plate next to your sunny-side-up eggs, am I right?

No, you want them chopped up a bit (scattered), with fried onions in the mix (smothered) and with a slice of American cheese on top, melted to perfection into every scattered, smothered crevice (covered).  

The Church was never meant to stay put, comfortable, or bland. 

From the beginning, the Church began moving out into the world, just as Jesus told his followers to do: from Jerusalem to Judea, to Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.  

Interestingly, the Old Testament reading for Pentecost Sunday is from Genesis chapter 11, and the strange story of the Tower of Babel.  

This story, shrouded in myth and legend, was a way for the ancient people who passed it down from generation to generation to make sense of the numerous languages spoken in the world.  

The story of the Tower of Babel has long been interpreted as a story of a curse, when in fact it was the story of a blessing, realized at Pentecost. 

THE POWER OF PENTECOST IS UNITY IN DIVERSITY

Genesis 11:1-9

Now the whole earth had one language and the same words. 

“The whole world” had the same language - overstatement.  

2 And as they migrated from the east, they came upon a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. 3 And they said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks and fire them thoroughly.” And they had brick for stone and bitumen for mortar. 4 Then they said, “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.” 

Technology becomes “god."

Sameness = Success 

5 The Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which mortals had built. 

“But the Lord came down…” a bit of ancient Hebrew humor. 

6 And the Lord said, “Look, they are one people, and they have all one language, and this is only the beginning of what they will do; nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. 

“Nothing they plan to do will be impossible” - no reason to trust God. 

7 Come, let us go down and confuse their language there, so that they will not understand one another’s speech.” 8 So the Lord scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city. 9 Therefore it was called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth, and from there the Lord scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth.

Confusing the language was what got them out of their sameness.  

The symbolism of Pentecost is that it represents the Gospel becoming the standard language for a diverse and scattered people.  

Interestingly, there was a common language in the "known" world at that time: Greek.  Most people could speak it, at least enough to get by. They would have also had a basic understanding of Latin.  

But the Gospel is spoken in all of the different languages on Pentecost as a sign and symbol that it truly was a universal message, one that did not deny the diversity of the people who were hearing it.  

Lessons from Babel & Pentecost

1. Far too many churches have a Babel mentality when it comes to their mission.  

2. The purpose of the Church is to contextualize the Good News.  

3. Diversity isn’t a woke idea. It’s God’s idea.  

THE POWER OF PENTECOST IS UNITY IN DIVERSITY