Each in Their Own Tongue

Copyright 1995 by John R. Mabry

*This article previously appeared in an issue of _Creation Spirituality_ magazine.*

It is in Genesis that we read about the hubris of those who dared think they could build a tower big enough to touch God. "Here they are," says the Lord, "one people with a single language...henceforth nothing they have a mind to do will be beyond their reach.... Let us go down there and confuse their speech, so that they will not understand what they say to one another." (New English Bible)

We are used to thinking of this passage as being a parallel to its neighbor story in Genesis, the Flood. They are stories of punishment and wrath. If, however, we sever this story from the first, it does not necessarily speak ill of these people, but only reveals God's persistent penchant for diversity. We need only look to the world of Nature to see that the animals are wildly diverse in their colors, shapes and, more so even than we, in the multiplicity of their speech.

The Tower of Babel is not an icon on which to hang the blame for humanity's chaos and division, but the mythic starting point of the planet's varied cultures. After the flood, the myth goes, there was only Noah's family with which to repopulate the world. After a few generations, these many people, it makes sense to say, would speak the same language and be from the same culture, that which survived the flood on the ark. But Babel is the second creation of the human race, where we each have gone our own way and blossomed forth our uniquenesses wherever we found suitable space to flourish.

In Hinduism, we find that the diversity of the universe exists only as an illusion. All of Creation is a huge, spiraling dance of the Creator God of whom all things are members. The purpose of the universe for the Hindu is for all the fragmented and apparently separate "selves" to wake up and recognize their true identity: God. This is the joy of existence, for God to recognize Godself in perpetuity.

Likewise, in the myth of the Tower of Babel, the single body of humankind is disguised in the going forth and development of distinct cultures. The goal of our existence in a new and glorious global home, is to wake up and recognize each other as a part of our whole-and united -humanity.

The conclusion of the story of the Tower of Babel is found, I believe, in the account of the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. In this New Testament myth, scripture says "suddenly there came from the sky a noise like that of a strong driving wind, which filled the whole house...and there appeared to them tongues like flames of fire, dispersed among them and resting on each one. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to talk in other tongues, as the Spirit gave them power of utterance." This is a frightening and confusing scene, and we can only speculate what is meant in this passage by "tongues." But further on, at least, it is clear that "there were living in Jerusalem devout men and women drawn from every nation under heaven; and at this sound the crowd gathered, all bewildered because each one heard in their own tongue."

In this scene we have a great truth of the universe embedded in mythology that, because it is our mythology, we are often reluctant to dig it out and explore it. Like other great events in scripture, it speaks to us not as an isolated event that happened only at one point in history. Though it very well may have had a historical basis in fact, it is more important to us for what truth it can tell us about our experience as a body of humanity now and throughout all time.

It tells us that the Holy Spirit does not rest upon one head, but upon all that are present. It tells us that the Holy Spirit is familiar with the speech and culture of all of God's people. And not only is this an affirmation of our diversity, but the text says that each of those present heard what was said in their own tongues. The Holy Spirit is polylingual-she does not speak only Aramaic or Greek or Jacobean English. For how could it possibly be that the Spirit of God would abandon any peoples at any time, anywhere?

"Each heard in their own tongue." This tells us that God is not the exclusive property of the Jews or the Christians. All throughout history, the Holy Spirit has whispered, "and each one heard in their own tongue," their own language, their own symbols, their own culture. When the people of Babel scattered to the four corners of the Earth, none went alone. For the Spirit of God who constantly cares for us, who nourishes our spirits, and breathes life into the wombs of every people alike, was their light and their salvation.

One doesn't have to study the religions of the world for very long before it becomes obvious that the God who peers out at me from the tortured brow of the crucifix, is the same being who winks mischievously from the betrunked figure of the Hindu god Ganesh. This eye makes contact with my own, and I recognize in that gleam the loving greeting of my Beloved.

When the Lord in the Gospel of St. Matthew tells us to go into every nation and proclaim the Gospel, we need to remember that this was the command of God all along to the Jews, Matthew's intended audience. The Gospel, or Good News is the revelation of God as the Healer, the Redeemer, the Lover, and the bearer of Justice, whose faces we can recognize in every conceivable culture's art, and indeed, in every people's tongues.