tower of babel – Hopping Hadrian's Wall

Sermon for the Day of Pentecost

There are people in this world who enjoy a good fight, but I am not one of them.

I tend to enjoy conversations more when people with differing opinions can come together on some kind of common ground. As a result, I try to look for that common ground whenever I find myself in a debate with someone. I think that, if we can just identify the core values on which we agree, then we will see that we don’t really disagree, and we can work out the minor details of whatever differences we appear to have.

I imagine that I am a typical midwestern Episcopalian in this respect. We are nice people. We don’t go in for loud fights about rigid dogmas. We like everyone to get along. Our liturgical church tradition allows for a great diversity of theological interpretations. After all, we are descended from the Church of England, the land of good manners, so politeness is in our DNA.

Most of the time, this tendency serves us well. There are times, however, when it doesn’t. When I worked as a chaplain, I once had a patient who was a very bitter and bigoted man. He would rant for hours and use all kinds of ethnic slurs against the groups of people he didn’t like.

In particular, he believed that Hispanic people “would never fully integrate into American society” because they were too different from white people. The funny thing, though, is that this patient didn’t realize that I have one parent from Philadelphia and another from San Juan, Puerto Rico. With my light-colored skin and English last name, he assumed that I was just another white guy like him, but in reality, I am half-Hispanic. Our family integrated so well into “American society” that the dividing line between cultures ran right through the middle of my own body.

I could have said something about this to my patient, but I didn’t. This was partially because healthcare chaplains are trained to avoid controversial topics with patients, but it was also because I simply didn’t feel like dealing with it. By keeping silent, I allowed a part of my identity to be erased in the interest of keeping the peace.

I sometimes wonder what would have happened if I had politely mentioned the truth about my ancestry to my patient. Maybe it wouldn’t have changed anything at all, but then again, maybe that might have been an opportunity for the Holy Spirit to open up an avenue for growth in this man. I will never know because he passed away before I got to do another visit with him.

There are all kinds of ways that people build walls of protection around themselves. Sometimes, it takes the form of a hostile attitude that pushes other people away. Sometimes, as in my case, it takes the form of polite silence, with a smile and a nod. Sometimes, as in the case of today’s first reading from the book of Genesis, it takes the form of a literal wall around a great city and its mighty tower.

The legend of the Tower of Babel is a cautionary tale about the downside of human progress. The human race, as we read in the text, settled in the land of Shinar and spoke a single language. According to most traditional interpretations, God felt threatened by human progress, so they punished the people by confusing their languages and scattering them across the face of the earth.

I find this interpretation unsettling. Human progress, after all, is largely a good thing. In the last hundred years alone, humanity has cured diseases, ventured into outer space, and reduced extreme poverty to a fraction of where it was in previous generations. On the other hand, we have also continued to pollute the land, water, and air of our planet, constructed nuclear bombs with the power to destroy entire cities, and committed cold-hearted acts of genocide with industrial efficiency, as we did in the Holocaust. Progress, it seems, is a double-edged sword.

In the beginning of the biblical story, when God first created the heavens and the earth, they invited humanity to “be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth” (Genesis 1:28). But humanity, it seems, had another idea. They preferred to remain stationary, centralize power, and maintain a homogeneous culture in a walled city. This was the opposite of what God intended for the human race. God had made a huge planet for humanity to explore, with all kinds of diverse life-forms and creatures. God meant for the human race to be explorers, but we settled for being settlers in the place where we were.

This is the real reason why God confused the languages of the people of Shinar at the Tower of Babel: not to punish us, but to push us out of the nest and into the wide world. Diversity of language and culture is not a curse, but a blessing. It calls us out of our comfort zones to become the kind of people we were always meant to be.

Fast-forwarding to this morning’s New Testament lesson, from the Acts of the Apostles, we read about the day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit descended upon Jesus’ disciples and allowed their message to be heard and understood by people of many languages. Some interpretations of this passage have understood this miracle as a reversal of what happened at the Tower of Babel. The confusion of languages was resolved by the movement of the Holy Spirit.

Once again, though, I find this interpretation unsettling. It is based on the former assumption that what happened at Babel was an act of punishment. But, if I am correct in thinking of the diversification of languages as a blessing, then what happened at Pentecost is a fulfillment of that original blessing. Under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, the people were able to discern a single message that was being communicated through multiple languages. Underneath the diversity of cultural expressions was a common thread of understanding: One Spirit speaking one message in many different ways. This interpretation of the Tower of Babel and the Day of Pentecost has profound implications for how we practice our faith as Christians today.

We live today in a world that is both more connected and more isolated than ever. Through the miracle of telecommunications, we have the ability to talk to people on the other side of the world in real time. Through the magic of the internet, we have access to a vast supply of information that previous generations couldn’t even dream of. However, our human tendency to gather in homogeneous groups of people who think alike, look alike, pray alike, vote alike, and love alike has led us to seek shelter from the vastness of the universe in echo chambers of people who will only confirm what we think we already know.

Kindred in Christ, I think it is past time for us to reclaim the double blessing of Babel and Pentecost in our own day. The price of remaining isolated in sheltered towers of like-minded individuals is nothing less than the survival of our species itself. As the great American intellectual Benjamin Franklin once said, “We must all hang together, or assuredly we will all hang separately.”

God is once again calling us to discern the voice of the one Spirit speaking in diverse tongues. What this requires of us is that we listen intently to the voices of our neighbors who speak different languages, practice different religions, vote for different candidates, and love different partners than we do. It requires also that we speak courageously, tolerantly, and lovingly from our own perspectives on these issues.

Let us not hide in fear behind walls of hostility or politeness, when it comes to the questions that matter most, but “speak the truth in love” (Ephesians 4:15) so that we might discern the voice of the one Spirit who speaks through many languages. Let us place our faith in God, who inspired St. Paul to write:

“There are varieties of gifts but the same Spirit, and there are varieties of services but the same Lord, and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.”
(1 Corinthians 12:4-7)

Beloved kindred, let us not give way to the cynicism of this age that despairs of finding common ground and sets humanity on a common course toward oblivion. Let us instead place our faith in Christ, who came that we “may have life and have it abundantly” (John 10:10). Let us take the risk of speaking our truth and listening with love, that we too might hear the voice of the one Spirit who speaks in many ways.

Amen.

This morning’s sermon from First Presbyterian, Boonville.

The text is Genesis 11:1-9.

Who here has seen the movie (or read the book) Jurassic Park?

It was one of the epic stories of the 1990s. Scientists find a way to bring dinosaurs back to life and put them on display for tourists. How is that possible? No problem! They cloned them using dino-DNA from prehistoric mosquitoes trapped in fossilized tree sap. How do they control the dinosaurs? No problem! Genetic manipulation makes it so that the dinosaurs can’t reproduce while high-powered electric fences keep them safely contained. However, those who are familiar with the story know what happens next. The genetic manipulation doesn’t take and the dinosaurs start breeding. Then a power-outage deactivates the electric fences. The tourists’ initial wonder gives way to terror as they are chased and eaten by hungry prehistoric predators!

The scientists of Jurassic Park thought they had the answer to everything. They thought they had absolute control over their situation. But life turns out to be just a little bit more complicated than the scientists expected. Their control gives way to chaos. In the end, Jurassic Park is a classic story about human progress gone wild.

This morning, we read from another classic story of human progress gone wild. It’s the story of the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11. The story begins on a positive note. The human race exists as one family with one language. They are explorers and inventors who bravely probe the depths of human creativity and ingenuity. They settle new territory and develop new technology (i.e. bricks). All in all, it sounds like a pretty utopian society, kind of like the United Federation of Planets in Star Trek. But the Bible, it seems, is a bit more realistic than Star Trek. It doesn’t take long before this “masterpiece society” develops a dark side.

The human race quickly gets ahead of itself in verse 4, saying, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves”. That’s quite a leap, isn’t it? One day, they’re inventing bricks and the very next day, they’re building downtown Manhattan, complete with skyscrapers! There’s no small amount of arrogance that comes with this new idea. Their new skyscraper will have “its top in the heavens”. Humanity literally intends to lift itself up by its own bootstraps. Also, they intend to “make a name” for themselves. They want to be feared and respected. By whom? We don’t know. Theoretically, this group comprises the entire human race. But that’s just one more reason why we’re not reading these stories as literal and historical fact. They’re stories that are meant to tell us something about who we are and who God is.

What’s the reason for this sudden and huge undertaking? Why build this urban metropolis? The people tell us why in the second half of verse 4: “otherwise we shall be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.” They’re afraid. They’re afraid of being scattered. The flip side of their arrogant pride is a paralyzing fear. Do you know anyone like this? Some big and tough person whose macho attitude is just a cover for feeling afraid and insecure? Bullies like this are everywhere: from high school locker rooms to corporate board rooms. They’re all motivated by fear. In fact, if we’re honest with ourselves, I think we can all identify with that impulse to hide our fear with pride. It’s no different for the humans in this story. Their big building project is motivated by fear.

The ironic thing is that this fear becomes a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy. The text tells us in verse 8 that, in the end, “Yahweh scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth”. The very thing they feared is what they brought upon themselves through their efforts to relieve their fear. It’s kind of tragic, isn’t it?

But is “scattering” really so bad?

In order to answer that question, we should first look at the reason why God decided to do it. Everybody was safe, happy, and getting along with each other in Babel. Why not leave well enough alone? God gives a hint in verse 6, saying, “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.” Now, that might not sound so bad at first, but think about the kinds of things that humans tend to do when they get together and make big progress on big projects. Midway through the twentieth century, humanity unlocked the secrets of the atom. The very next thing we did was make a giant bomb and use it. We then spent the remainder of the century living in the shadow of the mushroom cloud, terrified of nuclear annihilation and “mutually assured destruction”. That’s the kind of thing that human beings do when “nothing that they propose to do [is] impossible for them.” So God, interrupting this progress-gone-wild and scattering the human race, was actually saving people from themselves.

Also, according to the text of Genesis, “scattering” itself may have been part of God’s plan for humanity from the beginning. In Genesis 1, God says to humanity, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth”. God says it again in chapter 9, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth.” And yet again, only six verses later, “And you, be fruitful and multiply, abound on the earth and multiply in it.” Is it just me or is God sounding like a broken record here? Do you think maybe there’s a point that God is trying to make here? Yeah, I think so too.

I think God is trying to say, “Hey everybody, get out there! Go out into this amazing world and be who you were meant to be! Don’t let fear hold you back!”

Traditionally, the invention of languages in this story is thought of as a punishment for the human race, but I’m not so sure about that. I see it as a blessing. God sees human beings imprisoning themselves behind walls made of brick and fear. God is a like a mother eagle who gives her little birdies a push out of the nest in order to teach them how to fly! The push out of the nest in this case is the confusion of languages. In other words, God challenges humanity to become who they were meant to be by giving them the gift of diversity.

In many ways, things aren’t so different for you and me. We build our own protective “towers” of ideology. Whether you’re fearful about the economy, social justice, church attendance, or family values, the temptation is the same: to imprison yourself behind the brick walls of arrogance and fear, blurting out easy answers in convenient, bumper sticker-sized slogans, and surrounding yourself with people who talk like you, look like you, think like you, and believe like you.

Enter God. God sneaks behind the walls of your tower of terror with this brilliant gift of diversity.

Through this gift, God shows you that life is far more complicated than your easy answers would have you believe. Through this gift, God meets you with the realization that you really don’t understand the human being sitting right next to you at home, at church, or in line for the voting booth. And if you ever hope to understand that person, it’s going to take a long and difficult process of patient listening.

But if you can rise to the occasion, if you can receive God’s gift of diversity, and if you can accept God’s invitation to embrace real unity rather than simple uniformity among your fellow human beings, you’ll discover that being “scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth” isn’t so bad after all as God leads you out from behind your walls of fear and into this amazing world and the fruitful life that God has always meant for you to have.

Hopping Hadrian's Wall

Tag: tower of babel

The Blessing of Babel

The Gift of Diversity