Pentecost
June 8, 2025
Now the whole earth had one language and
the same words.
And as they migrated from the east, they
came upon a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there.
And they said to one another, "Come,
let us make bricks and fire them thoroughly." And they had brick for stone
and bitumen for mortar.
Then they said, "Come, let us build
ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a
name for ourselves; otherwise we shall be scattered abroad upon the face of the
whole earth."
The LORD came down to see the city and the
tower, which mortals had built.
And 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.
Come, let us go down and confuse their
language there, so that they will not understand one another's speech."
So the LORD scattered them abroad from
there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city.
Therefore it was called Babel, because
there the LORD confused the language of all the earth, and from there the LORD
scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth.
**********************************
When
Jesus ascended to heaven, he left the disciples with the promise that he would
return. In the meantime, he expected
them to carry his work forward. He would
not leave them unsupervised and flailing around like a choir without a director,
though. The Holy Spirit would fill that
role, so that the gifts that are shared out among them could each be put to
work in a harmonious and beautiful way.
The
catch is that we would have to beware getting caught up in the idea that we can
do great things because we ourselves are great.
The story of the Tower of Babel gets put next to the account of
Pentecost in part because of the whole language thing. In Babel, human pride led God to knock us all
down a notch by giving us all different languages. On Pentecost, the Holy Spirit’s presence
meant a restoration of understanding, even as the languages continued to vary. Another part of the contrast, though, is that
while at Babel people were working to “make a name for” themselves and
God had to confuse their work, among the disciples in Jerusalem the Spirit was
working to help them overcome obstacles to let all people “hear them
speaking about God’s deeds of power.” [Acts 2:11]
What
is done in God’s name has to be done for God’s glory, not for anyone else to
make a name for themselves. The miracles
that God does are done by him. The good
news that is shared is good news of his love, his power, his compassion. The good news isn’t about us.
Have
you ever noticed how much trouble starts when people want, as the Bible says of
the builders of the Tower of Babel, “to make a name for” themselves? Those folks were not the last ones to get the
idea of building a tower or even a city and giving it their own name.
Here’s a map[1] of Alexander the Great’s
empire. Over a period of thirteen years,
he built or refounded dozens of cities, and a whole bunch of them were named
Alexandria. There’s the big one in
Egypt, and one on the Persian Gulf, and two on the Gulf of Oman, then four or
five running along the northwestern edge of India and up into Pakistan there’s
another at the edge of India. You can
follow a whole trail of them back through northern Persia all the way to
Greece.
Lots
of places are named after the person or family that founded them: Pottstown,
Coatesville, Devault, Kimberton, Norristown, Audubon, Douglassville, Chadd’s
Ford, Royersford, Frick’s Locks. But to
conquer an area like he would do, and then to stamp it as his own possession by
imposing his name on the landscape, “Alexandria” over and over and over again –
that carries a kind of arrogance with it.
At our peril, we forget that behind each Alexandria are thousands and
thousands of people who were killed so that Alexander could make a name for
himself.
God’s
commentary on the building project at Babel is usually taken as preventing them
from (at least in their own minds) rivalling him.
“And 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.’”
But it seems to me that could also be read to say that
there is nothing that God wouldn’t put past them if they didn’t quickly get a
dose of reality, a reminder that humans are not God. When it becomes about us, disaster follows. So God intervened to close off that dangerous
path. And God will close down, for our
own good, the projects of any type that are for our own vanity, executed at the
expense of others.
What
God calls us to do is to build is his kingdom, to his glory, and the good of
his children far and near. For that he
gives us tools that do wonders. He gives
us ways to speak to one another so that we overcome not mere misunderstanding
but total incomprehension. That is when
he shows us ways to bind up wounds that refuse to heal. That is when he gives us insight into our own
weaknesses and people whose strengths can compensate, if we’re not to proud to
let them help.
When we stop building our
own little kingdoms, that is when the King of kings gives us the opportunity to
be part of something bigger than we could ever imagine.
No comments:
Post a Comment