Seeing all the red being worn here today I know who are the regular faithful and who are so familiar with the reading from Acts. This is the Sunday of the Holy Spirit that leads us to the Sunday of Trinity. It is a Sunday when many will hear who and what the Holy Spirit is. It is a Sunday when many parishes will acknowledge some form of cultural awareness and when at least once a year other languages as a form of that cultural diversity revealed to us in today's readings will be heard. It is a Sunday when many in our church recognizes that there are other people than themselves who come to worship together as a community and they look, dress, act and speak differently.

But of course this parish has been ahead of the game for decades by living Pentecost every Sunday as you celebrate your Easter every Sunday, too. You strive to embrace the diversity of the peoples that surround you in this valley and that is one of your greatest gifts of experiencing the presence of our Lord in your midst. I say it is a gift because unlike the parishes that parade out people who speak other languages on Pentecost Sunday, to read a lesson in their own language as if to react the excitment and scene of Jesus' followers, you know that the miracle of Pentecost is actually a living, every day experience, if you want it to happen.

There was and I think there still is a movement to make English a national language of this country. There, I believe is resentment, if not openly, here about hearing and seeing "foreign" languages on radio, signs and television. It is becoming somewhat common to see on television shows some character remark that this is America and why can't people speak English or that they don't understand a word being said anymore in the neighborhood stores that they have been regulars at for years. If we go back to the beginning of our readings we will find in Genesis (11:1-5) a story of these people, but I don't think they will like the comparison, for it is the infamous story of the Tower of Babel.

Before the Tower of Babel was to under go construction, you may recall, we are told there was only one people and one language and it was their arrogrance that they could build a tower to the sky as gods that led to the diversity of peoples and languages. So, for many diversity of cultures and languages is a direct a result or punishment of being arrogrant. I don't think so and I don't believe so. I think and believe it is actually God's gift to confound the hard head behavior and desire of some to lord it over others. And they do not like because it makes everything so hard and complicated, afterall wouldn't it be soooo easy and loving if everyone could speak my language and do things my way!

This world had to experience over 60 years ago that same arrogrance in Europe. My mother's younger brother, a man I never got to know or met, died in combat to stop that kind of thinking and behavior. Did we not learn from that experience? Or were we there save Western European civilization and not the world from Nazisim?

The grief and struggle of the story of Babel, like the fighting and bloodshed 60 years ago, comes to a closure today in the act of Pentecost. The difficulty and problems of diversity of cultures and languages is liberated with the result that no one is speaking the same language but people understand each other even if they are speaking someone else's language; that is a big point to understanding on this day of the Holy Spirit. It is well stated, in, of all things, a T.V. commercial I once saw that said, "A person of wisdom is some who learns someone else's culture."

God declares to us on this day that diversity is good! It is achieved not through arrogrance but through forgiveness, wisdom and love. Those are the choosen weapons of the Trinity. And when they are invoked we are in the presence of our of Lord. One of the Gospel readings for this day recalls that in Jesus' followers hid in fear after Easter, but he appeared to them saying "Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you." And we cannot stop there for he continues, "Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained." (John 20:19-23) And in another of today's readings we are told by Paul that it is a gift of the Spirit to be able to know "various kinds of tongues" and "the interpretation of tongues." (1 Corinthians 12:3b-13)

And as you have heard me say before before when we look carefully at the story of revealed at the end of the Bible we find that the new Jersusalem is not entered by one nation and one people but by the nations through twelve gates. On this Sunday of Pentecost God affirms that diversity is the expected future!

Just the other day our verger at Cathedral expressed his personal opinion based upon twenty five years of being at services there of his desire to see us worship as one group to which he said, in his experience, was so loving. It was from his statement that I was inspired to put down these words for he is wrong! It is a struggle for our Cathedral to have three different services; it is taxing on the staff; and it is hard for them to conduct a native service since they are not native peoples, but the word we receive from Pentecost is that being a follower of Jesus is all about. It is learning, knowing and enacting the most powerful weapons of our faith: forgiveness, wisdom and love, and it is not easy, but a life long challenge.

My sisters and brothers in Christ, each time I visit you there is always a troubling question about how this community of faith will sustain itself and grow. All I can say is that if you realize the gifts that you have, the depth of understanding of our faith, and the practice of weapons, no our tools of faith and put all of that in your daily life and the daily life of this parish, they will come. Yesterday was a tremendous day of fun and sharing, but how can you share that will more people if you do not invite those who do not know and have not experienced it? Jesus preaches to us on the mount that we cannot hide under bushel baskets or hide a great city that is already on a hill.

It is now the time for all of you to go forth and share throughout the world by preaching the Gospel, that it may reach to the ends of the earth.

Amen.