Pentecost, truth-telling, and the kind of community the Spirit creates Acts 2:1-24, 36-47 Sunday, May 24, 2026 Rev. David R. Collins Watch | Listen How many of you like celebrating your birthday? How many don’t? And how many feel just kind of conflicted about it? I’m with the conflicted. On the positive side, there’s cake. And text messages. Maybe a little trip. On the negative side…well...sometimes the mirror is a surprise. But there is something about getting older that I really do...

Most people confuse optimism with hope, and pessimism with despair. But they’re not the same things at all. Hope goes much deeper. And the hope of Abraham goes even deeper than that. It is not confidence in that things will go well. Hope is confidence in the faithfulness of God.

What if the Tower of Babel isn’t about punishment… but about liberation? In Genesis 10–11, Babel is stitched into a larger story of human diversity. Instead of explaining where languages come from, it exposes what happens when people consolidate power and build systems that depend on control. God doesn’t destroy the tower…God takes away the workforce. And when the system stops…people are set free.