Several of the structural designers of the original World Trade Center was attending a conference in St. Louis. During the question and answer period a person asked to one of the chief engineers if he had any regrets about the design of the building. When asked this question, the chief structural engineer broke down and in tears he said, that he wished somehow they had made the buildings stronger. "If only", he said, "the buildings could have lasted another hour." Much of our efforts and accomplishments as humans are directed toward building monuments to our insecurities. The Great Wall of China, the Berlin Wall, the Israeli-Gaza wall, and the wall and the electronic fence being erected along the U.S. border with Mexico are all symbols of human insecurities.
Babel Tower was probably built about 100 years after the great flood at Noah’s time. After the flood, there were only 8 people of Noah’s family were left in this world. 1 Peter 3:20 “God’s patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through water.” After that flood, people multiplied. According to some calculations, the world had as many as 30,000 people at that time.
Robert Deffinbaugh wrote, "Behind the facade of achievement, accomplishment, bravado and self-assurance is the haunting spectra of leaving this life with no certainty of what is to follow. That in my estimation, is the real reason for the building of the city of Babel and its tower. The people of that day were willing to make nearly any sacrifice to have some hope of immortality." (Robert Deffinbaugh, The Book of Genesis, The Biblical Studies Foundation, http://www.bible.org/).
Man's efforts without God result in confusion. The word 'Babel' means “noisy confusion”. There was a lot of noise and more confusion. “Their languages were confused”. Until then, the whole world had one language and a common speech. As men moved Eastward, they found a plain in Shinar and settled there. They said to each other, "Come, let's make bricks and bake them thoroughly." They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar. Then they said, "Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth." (Gen 11:3,4). They built the tower to stop from getting scattered and be united to get to heaven by their own efforts.(Genesis 11:4).
God wanted Noah and family to spread throughout the world and enjoy cultural diversity without being afraid. If there is a condemnation in the passage, it condemns the idea that cultural sameness is the way to salvation. The Babel passage also highlights our human tendency to resist obeying God. Instead of being fruitful and spreading throughout the world, the inhabitants of Babel insisted on being a local tribe. It was the dispersion, which the people feared most. God had commanded them to spread out and fill the land. They were to disperse. (Genesis 9:1,7). “Then God blessed Noah and his sons, saying to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the earth." These people could not conceive of the blessing and security coming as a result of dispersion, even though God commanded it. They felt safer when congregated together. They saw a brighter future in unity. They could leave posterity a monument to their ingenuity and industry. Their hopes were on abstract words, nothing concrete, and so they placed their faith in bricks and mortar.
We build towers in our own life to make a name for family, children or even our church. We try to earn fame, wealth and strength by building up money, social network, megachurches. When everything is going well, we start building towers. George Bernard Shaw said, "There are two tragedies in life. One is not to get your heart's desire, and the other is to get it." The tower was not the primary evil, but only a symptom. Underlying cause for building the tower was to keep people united, in one language, and one culture and the fear of getting scattered. The whole earth used the same language and the same words” (Genesis 11:1). There is nothing wrong with a common language. It is not evil, nor is it the cause of evil. God’s gift of language, like other gifts of His grace, such as the Internet and social media are all often abused and misused. Rebellion, pride, and unbelief are evident in the story. But the underlying problem is one of fear of diversity; an intense insecurity of man. Man’s such intentions are curbed by divine intervention.
Denominationalism is a mindset by which we build cities, towers, and walls to keep people who are different out of our churches, out of our schools, out of our communities, and out of our lives. The Tower of Babel reminds us that we need to be disturbed, pushed to get attention. That which man most feared had come to pass as problem in the form of multiple languages. Human endeavor is never satisfying, never fulfilling. It cannot bridge the gap. Jesus answered and said to to the Samaritan Woman, ‘Everyone who drinks of this water shall thirst again; but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life’ (John 4:13-14).
Babel Tower was an effort that united them in unbelief. They believed that the work of their hands could assure them of some kind of immortality beyond the grave. Ecumenism is the watchword of religion today. Some regard unity as a goal worthy of any sacrifice including faith. True unity can only occur in Christ. Human effort resulted in an unfinished tower, a tower of shame, proclaiming the truth that human efforts cannot get you and me to God. God searcches for us and comes to us when we are lost. The Son of Man came to search for the lost.
Does not God like unity ? Unity is not based on languages or geographies. We are one people because we have a common Creator, not because we speak the same language or live in the same location. Our oneness lies in who we are before God, not who we are physically. God is breaking the barrier of diversity through the story. The rest of the Bible is a testament to that. Although humans come from one Creator and share common ancestry, we have stubbornly held on to the ancient fear of diversity.
The Tower of Babel confused their language so they could no longer understand each other. They were united in unbelief at the Tower of Babel - unbelief in a God who is uniting people. At Pentecost, this Babel confusion is reversed. They felt unity in diversity of languages. Acts 2:1-21 gives the vivid description of a community in diversity at Pentecost. At Pentecost the Spirit of God shows that we are not one people because we speak the same language. We are not one people because we live in the same country. We are not one people because we worship the same way. We are one people becasue we have one Father. "Do we have not one father? one creator? " (Malachi 2:10). Jesus prays for his people in John 17:21 "that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you." We are Pentecost people of different tongues, but one language - one that can be understood by all - the language of love.
