The Holy Spirit embraces the diversity of Jerusalem

Here's the Pentecost sermon that I shared at St Catherine's Wickford this morning:

The Day of Pentecost is the turning point in the history of Christ’s Church. The believers have gone from gathering together in fear of the authorities to gathering together in readiness for the promised gift. They are waiting to be baptised with the Holy Spirit. Jesus has spoken to them about the Kingdom of God and told them that when the Holy Spirit comes upon them they will be filled with power and will be witnesses to him in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. That prophecy and promise is fulfilled on the Day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit enables the believers to God’s message to all (Acts 2.1-21).

We often think that Jesus’ words, “you will be witnesses to me in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth,” mean that they were to start with their own people and gradually move from there to the ends of earth. What we forget is that on the day of Pentecost there were Jews and Gentile converts living in Jerusalem who had come from every country in the world. The different countries or areas are listed for us in verses 9 – 11: Parthia, Media and Elam; Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia; Pontus and Asia; Phrygia and Pamphylia; Egypt and Libya; Rome, Crete and Arabia. Every country in the world was right there in Jerusalem.

There was a real diversity of nationalities present and of languages spoken in Jerusalem and the coming of the Holy Spirit enabled the believers in Jerusalem to engage with the diversity that they found in Jerusalem. As they were filled with the Holy Spirit they all began to speak in other languages as the Spirit enabled them. As a result, although the believers were mainly Galileans and not known for being multi-lingual, each person there in Jerusalem heard God’s message in his or her own language. The Holy Spirit embraced the diversity of Jerusalem and gave the believers the tools they needed to communicate in and through that diversity.

This was a reversal of the story of the Tower of Babel in the Old Testament. There, because the people were working together to arrogantly build a tower reaching towards heave, the people were given different languages so they were unable to work together and progress the tower. Here, God communicates in and through a diversity of languages to bring people to him and into a God-given unity of purpose and practice.

The diversities of nationality and language aren’t the only diversities mentioned in this passage, however. In explaining what God is doing at that time in Jerusalem, Peter speaks about a diversity of age and gender. Look at the passage that he quotes from the Book of Joel in verses 17-21 – there we find the Holy Spirit being poured out on everyone, young and old, men and women, so that all see visions, dream dreams and proclaim God’s message. God uses the diversity of age and gender among the believers in order to speak to the diversity of nations and languages in Jerusalem.

Now, think for a moment about our situation here in the UK. Doesn’t it seem similar to the situation in Jerusalem? According to the 2021 Census, the total population of England and Wales was 59.6 million, and 81.7% of the population was white. People from Asian ethnic groups made up the second largest percentage of the population (9.3%), followed by black (4.0%), mixed (2.9%) and other (2.1%) ethnic groups. The census found the following in relation to Religion in England and Wales: Christian (46.2%); No religion (37.2%); Muslim (6.50%); Hindu (1.70%); Sikh (0.90%); Buddhist (0.50%); Jewish (0.50%); and Other religions (0.60%). The census found that 91.1% (52.6 million) of residents, aged three years and over, had English (English or Welsh in Wales) as a main language. While the most common main languages, other than English (English or Welsh in Wales), were: Polish (1.1%, 612,000), Romanian (0.8%, 472,000), Panjabi (0.5%, 291,000), and Urdu (0.5%, 270,000). From this quick survey, we can see that the same diversity of ethnicities and language as was found in Jerusalem on the Day of Pentecost is also here in the UK. The world is right here in the UK, just as it was in Jerusalem.

Just as, at Pentecost, God poured out his Spirit on old and young, men and women, so we see a diversity to our congregations here in the Parish and also among the churches throughout the UK. That diversity is not given to us so that we can pat ourselves on the back and think how wonderful we are, it is given to us so that we can proclaim the message of God to people of every ethnicity, age, gender, disability, sexuality and religion. And we need the Holy Spirit’s power, gifts and enabling to make that happen.

We need to remember too that as the Early Church grew and as God’s message spread there were people who tried to restrict this wonderful new diversity. Even Peter, who led this move into diversity at Pentecost, on one occasion in Galatia tried to restrict the diversity of what God was doing and had to be rebuked by Paul. In the same way today, there are those both in the Church and in our society who want to place restrictions on this diversity.

In the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost God celebrates and engages with the diversity that we find in the world he has created. The Holy Spirit comes on all for all and we must not seek to restrict the Spirit’s coming but must enable all to hear God’s call on their lives and be filled by the Spirit just as occurred on that first Pentecost in Jerusalem when all the world’s diversity was gathered to see the pouring out of God’s Spirit on all and for all.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Delirious? - History Maker.

Rupert Loydell: The Tower of Babel

Mercurius magazine have recently published Rupert Loydell's essay and a selection of painting images from the Tower of Babel project he undertook in 2010-2012. The essay was first published as part of a box containg postcards, a paperback poetry anthology, and this essay in pamphlet form, by Like This Press. A limited edition in a wooden box also included a small original painting. The paintings were shown at Falmouth University and in Truro Cathedral.

The anthology of poems included features work by: Philip Terry, Sheila E Murphy, Andy Brown, rob mclennan, A.C. Evans, H.L. Hix, Angela Topping, Paul Sutton, Peter Dent, Camille Martin, Ian Seed, David H.W. Grubb, Seren Adams, Andrew Moorhead, Jane Routh, John Mingay, Luke Kennard, Steven Waling, Alan Halsey, Peter Gillies, Bill O’Brien, Mike Ferguson, David Hart, Martin Stannard, Rupert M. Loydell, Mark Goodwin, Natasha Loydell, and Ira Lightman.

Loydell is Senior Lecturer in the School of Writing and Journalism at Falmouth University, the editor of Stride magazine, and contributing editor to International Times. He is a widely published poet whose most recent poetry books are Dear Mary (Shearsman, 2017) and A Confusion of Marys (Shearsman, 2020). He has edited anthologies for Salt, Shearsman and KFS, written for academic journals such as Punk & Post-Punk (which he is on the editorial board of), New Writing, Revenant, The Journal of Visual Art Practice, Text, Axon, Musicology Research, Short Fiction in Theory and Practice, and contributed to Brian Eno. Oblique Music (Bloomsbury, 2016), Critical Essays on Twin Peaks: The Return (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019), Music in Twin Peaks: Listen to the Sounds (Routledge, 2021) and Bodies, Noise and Power in Industrial Music (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022). His paintings were first shown in Northern Young Contemporaries 1985, and since then he has had solo exhibitions in the UK, USA and Russia, and art in numerous group shows.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

News From Babel - Arcades (Of Glass)

Commerce and climate change

Today's Guardian and Evening Standard both have stories of fascinating sculptural pieces in London.

Barnaby Barford was inspired by the story of the Tower of Babel to create a teetering tower at the V&A formed of 3,000 china replicas of retail outlets from every postcode in London. He says, “I thought how London is like hundreds of different countries and languages all in one city, how this is expressed through our shops, and how I could build a tower that would be both a celebration and critique of commercialism.”

The second is a 'sculpture, entitled The Rising Tide, has been installed near the bankside of Vauxhall bridge and is the work of Jason deCaires Taylor, 41, a British artist best known for creating the world’s first underwater museum in Cancun, then again in the Bahamas.'

'The installation, which sits less than a mile from the Houses of Parliament, comprises four life-size shire horses, standing as a symbol of the origins of industrialisation but also as a warning for the bleak future it is creating for the world by their representation of the four horsemen of the apocalypse.

While the bodies of the figures and horses are moulded from real life, each of the horses’ heads has been replaced by the “horse head” of an oilwell pump – a political comment on the impact of fossil fuels on our planet.'

'At high tide, you might barely know they’re there. But as the water level of the Thames comes and goes twice a day with the tide, the four ghostly heads – and the horses they sit atop – slowly emerge fully into view.'

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

T. Bone Burnett - Humans From Earth.

Rupert Loydell: The Tower of Babel

The Tower of Babel by Rupert Loydell is a limited edition hand-stamped book-in-a-box, including a set of 24 original print postcards, an essay, and an anthology of poems. A deluxe edition in an edition of 25 with original art is also available.

The anthology of poems included features work by: Philip Terry, Sheila E Murphy, Andy Brown, rob mclennan, A.C. Evans, H.L. Hix, Angela Topping, Paul Sutton, Peter Dent, Camille Martin, Ian Seed, David H.W. Grubb, Seren Adams, Andrew Moorhead, Jane Routh, John Mingay, Luke Kennard, Steven Waling, Alan Halsey, Peter Gillies, Bill O’Brien, Mike Ferguson, David Hart, Martin Stannard, Rupert M. Loydell, Mark Goodwin, Natasha Loydell, and Ira Lightman.

Available from January 2013, the individually numbered special edition of 25 wooden boxes including one original painting costs £30 while the limited edition of 500 cardboard boxes costs £15. Enquiries to: nikolai@likethispress.co.uk and orders at: likethispress.co.uk/publications/rupertloydell.

Rupert Loydell is Lecturer in Creative Writing at University College Falmouth. He studied painting and writing at degree level and later specialised in creative writing for his MA. He is particularly interested in process and collaborative writing, and has several books of collaborative poems and poem-sequences in print, as well as volumes of his own solo writing such as An Experiment in Navigation (published by Shearsman). Rupert is the editor of Stride, an online magazine with a worldwide readership, and he also writes book and music reviews for several magazines.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Mumford and Sons - Babel.