Pentecost - B

My brothers and sisters, to understand what happened on the day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit came upon the apostles and then they could speak many languages and they could understand each others, we can compare it with the thing happened when God confused the builders of the Tower of Babel. In the Bible, it is said that God made them confused. But that is biblical language. But what happened exactly with the Tower of Babel?
The Tower of Babel is a symbol of human pride and arrogance. They said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the sky, and so make a name for ourselves …” If there is arrogance in our heart, what we think is only our ego, ourselves, our name; what concerns us only ourselves, our benefits, our pleasure; and we don’t care about the others. So the language that we use is only the self- message: I, me and my or mine. We don’t speak about you, yours or others. It means that we are egocentric. If this happens in our lives, so there will be some Towers of Babel, and we will not understand each other anymore, even if we live in the same house. This is not only a story that might happen but truly we can find a family like this where there is no communication between wives and husband, parents and children. Because they have their own language, they don’t understand each other and they build their own city with high wall around them. No communication, no talk, no telephone call, no letter and no love … there is only hell. Can you imagine a family like this? Or may be this is your experience? I hope not.
My brothers and sisters, this is human experiences, whose life is contaminated by sins, by egoism, by hatred, by anger, by wounds ….
And Jesus came to restore it. The descending of the Holy Spirit is the completion of Jesus mission. He is the Spirit of truth, who will guide us to all truth that Jesus has taught us. And his principle truth is: God is love and so we have to love one another. If the Holy Spirit guides us to the truth, he will guide us to love, and love can change everything. Love can destroy the wall of our arrogance and the language of love can be understood by all the people.
Do you know what impressed me first when I come here in the US? I tell you: I like jogging in the morning. And while jogging, I usually meet other people jogging too. And they always say: hi or good morning, smiling at me. We don’t do that in Indonesia to anyone we don’t know. I think that you are very nice and that is a language of love. We can understand each other; I feel not as a stranger anymore, I am one of you. You know, I experience Pentecost here, I can speak other language, you can understand me and I can understand you. How about you? Is there any Pentecost also in you, in your family?
My brothers and sisters, we have received the Holy Spirit. But please let the Holy Spirit work in you. Don’t tie the Spirit that is going to renew our lives. Open our heart. If you remember someone, your son or your daughter, or maybe your Mom and/or your Dad or someone else, that you haven’t talked since a long time, because you and he or she have built your own city and your own tower, now it is the time of Pentecost coming! It is the time to understand each other; it is the time of reconciliation. Pentecost is not only a mere celebration in the church. We have to live it in our lives. So after the mass, you can destroy your tower by calling him or her, even though it was not you that caused the separation. It was God who made confused our language because of our arrogant tower. Now it is God also who wants us to restore it again, to make us unite one with another.
There is a song in Indonesian that I want to sing for you, just the refrain: Alangkah baik cemerlang dan damai, hidup bagai saudara; Indah bagai cakrawala, menebarkan terang di bumi, cinta diri tlah dikalahkan, demi saudara. It means: how nice and wonderful to live as brothers and sisters.
Yes, the Pentecost makes us all brothers and sisters. There are no more walls of separation. There is no more the tower of arrogance; there is no more hatred and anger. Bad people and sins are still there because we are still in this world, but if people are going mad, we don’t have to be mad too. We have to pray so that the Holy Spirit may come also to the whole world, that many people can find the truth that Jesus taught; that many people can find peace and joy. Amen
Let us pray together the Prayer to the Holy Spirit: in … page …