Once, a long time ago, the bible tells us, when all people spoke the same language, they tried to build a tower up to heaven. It was a great cooperative venture, everybody understood each other, they knew what they were going to do and how to do it, and the tower grew day be day, up towards the sky. Then God, so the story goes, came down to see what was going on. God saw the tower and the builders at work, and confused their language, so that they could no longer understand each other. The people stopped building and scattered over the earth into various language groups. This story was told to account for the different nations and languages that exist, and we could leave it at that, except for the fact that God is involved. We find ourselves asking, why did God confuse their languages? And why did God scatter them abroad over the face of all the earth?

One answer is that the people were proud and arrogant, wanting to challenge God, so God punished them. The confusing of language and the scattering throughout the world was God's curse on a disobedient people.

But there is another way of looking at this. Instead of approaching the story from the point of view of God as a God of judgement and punishment, let us look at the story assuming that God is a God of love, compassionate and merciful. Perhaps then the curse turns out to be not a curse at all. Consider this, you see your children playing with knives in the kitchen, someone is going to get hurt. What is the most loving thing to do? It could be to take way the knives and send them to play in the garden?

For the same reason God was concerned about where all this tower building was leading - 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."

Humanity had been fooled before. Remember the false promise made by the serpent to Adam and Eve? It tempted them to eat the fruit, saying they would be like God. Instead it brought death into the world. This tower building was another false promise. God saw that the falseness of the desires of humanity in building the tower would destroy them in the end.

God then acted out of love to save humanity from itself. Humanity needed to learn a most important lesson. Maybe humanity was punished for its presumption and disobedience to God, but the confusion of language and the scattering of the people was also a blessing.

How was the scattering of the people a blessing? Let us look back to God's command in Genesis chapter 1, to Adam and Eve. God told them to "be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth…" This scattering could be seen as the fulfilment of that command. However, the scattering could also be an opportunity and a command to learn about the wonders of creation. Gathered together in one place, concentrating on their own will and desires, humanity is incomplete and misguided. God scatters them to learn their place as part of creation. They are to learn how to live in different climates and among different animals and plants. Humanity is to learn to appreciate variety.

The confusion of language can also be seen as a blessing. Language and culture are closely linked, and the various languages of humankind have grown up in a multitude of cultures. This has allowed humans to explore in thousands of different ways the relationships which may exist between them. Having different cultures has given us the challenge of listening to each other and of understanding and learning from each other.

Let me give one example, which is appropriate today because of the Journey of Reconciliation which we have begun with the Indigenous people of this land. For tens of thousands of years, the Indigenous people, scattered by God in this part of the world, learned to live with the land. The land with its unique landscape, plants and animals became part of them and shaped their dreams, their customs and their language.

When Europeans arrived, they brought with them the dreams, customs and language of another part of the world. Some tried to learn from the Indigenous people, listening to them with respect. Most of them did not, and turned God's blessing into a curse. They did not respect the land or its people, they imposed their dreams, customs and language on the land, claiming it for themselves, forgetting that all creation belongs to God alone, and that we are God's stewards and custodians.

Today is the feast of Pentecost, when the gift of the Holy Spirit was given to the Church, like tongues of fire, and they told of the wonders of God in many different languages. "How is it we hear, each of us in our own native language?" the amazed crowd wondered, "We hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God!"

Sometimes the gift of tongues at Pentecost is seen as a reversal of the curse of Babel, but it can be seen also as the fulfilment of God's blessing. The various languages are not abolished, but affirmed. The variety of human culture is not removed; the people are still described as Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and the rest. The blessing is that the languages and cultures are respected and affirmed - God wants his wonders to be told in every language and in every culture. And more than that, God wants us to hear and to listen. In the reading there is emphasis on hearing. Each person heard what was said… they were amazed at what they heard… and they heard of the wonders of God.

So, for us, on this day of Pentecost, as we remember the Journey of Reconciliation with the indigenous people of Australia, the most important thing for us to do is listen with respect. God has scattered us all over the earth to learn God's wonders in Creation, God has given us language so that we can tell about these wonders. Let us not be always speaking. There is a time to listen. We can listen to and learn from each other, in the community of this church. We can listen to and learn from people from other cultures when we meet them. In particular we can listen to and learn from the indigenous people of Australia. In this way we can be like the crowd at Pentecost and hear the wonders of God told in every language under the sun.