Bibliography: Culture Shifts: A Bible Study of Postmodern Times, Lesson 2
For the next several weeks, we are going to be taking a look at the times we live in and the changes that have taken place in the way we think and act over the last 40 years.
Tonight we will look at how our society and our world has moved from relative order to chaos.
Forty years ago, it was understood that basically everything could be determined reasonably and logically. There was a set pattern to thinking and behaving. Somewhere, somehow, there was an understood code of conduct. But somehow our world seems to have lost the rule book and our rapidly changing world causes us to question everything that comes our way.
Nothing is sacred.
Everything and everyone is fair game.
Chaos is the norm for the world we live in today.
Our Bible lesson this evening is the story of the city and tower building at Babel. It too, is a story that goes from order to chaos.
The story of the tower and city built at Babel has been one of the most confusing one’s for me. It is an attempt to explain the diversity of languages and cultures in our world following a world-wide flood. The entire world, then, was populated beginning with Noah and his family. But it does not by any means comes across as a historical, documentary account of how we got to where we are.
If we go back to the 10th chapter of Genesis, thats what we’ll find there, as descendants from Noah and his family are listed, along with the races of people they eventually became.
Just as the two creation stories exist in the beginning chapters of Genesis, our 11th chaper of Genesis seems to be going back and retelling how the world was populated and diversified in a different way. I can’t see this story as anything but that - an ancient story. It is not a historal account of a tower built toward the sky. I don’t believe we can point to a spot and say,”This is the birthplace of ancient French, German, Latin languages, and so forth - instantaneously and simultaneously. Its a story that is suppose to tell us something about humankind and something about the nature of God, but the story of Babel takes careful looking at, to understand the moral for us there.
When we look at this story, it seems what the people are doing should be a good thing. What’s wrong with everyone speaking one language? Isn’t unity a good thing? Why is God concerned with the progress they are making? Why is the story of diversity in our world and the difference in our languages and cultures explained in such a negative reflection on humankind?
Often I do a comparison between the biblical times of our story and the similarities of our modern world. I find myself having difficulty exploring the days of the biblical account this time. Perhaps it is because a concrete time and existance is vague for our story. But when I read the story and apply it to our times today, our society and issues weave in and out throughout. The building at Babel definately describes a culture shift we are experiencing.
Now maybe that doesn’t make sense to you. The story says the people were all of one language. How can that possibly be true for us today with so much recognition of the diversity in our world today? We are well aware of the different languages that exist around the world. Let me see if I can share some examples of the “one language” I see.
Since the 9-11 attacks, there has been a commercial running on television with people from all different races and walks of life who, one after another, have the same line: “I am an American.”
That doesn’t seem so bad, does it? Unity in our country should be a good thing.
In an effort to keep peace and detour hate crimes, the national day of prayer had Christians and Muslims worshipping together. It was meant to keep peace, but it represents a growing trend to accept all religions as equally valid religions; each pleasing in their own way to God.
Yet, those other religions do not recognize a God who is Father, Son, & Holy Ghost because they do not recognize the person and Godhood of Jesus.
Equality among religions - one language.
To go to the other extreme, there are some denominations of Christians who draw their circle of unity very tightly. In the name and effort of unity, they have declared their understanding of Scripture and doctrine as the only true understanding. Anyone not a part of their denomination is not Christian. In some cases, anyone who is not a member of their church, well that persons salvation is in doubt.
In the days of Jesus, the Pharisees and Scribes were of one language. Certain classes and groups of society were excommunicated. One of their chief complaints of Jesus was that he associated with sinners. They sought unity, Jesus sought chaos - he broke with the developed and implied order.
In the same way, down through the ages, the church has taken what has meant to be a tool to lead us on in our Christian life and turned it into a dividing line.
In an effort to improve our Christian life, we no longer hang out with sinners because of our temptation and tendancy to sin. The result is often total disassociation and lack of understanding of the very ones we are suppose to be bringing the good news of Jesus to.
One language - seperatism & segregation resulting in discrimination.
We even use one language in exclusionary forms, grouping everyone else in a group as reasons to excuse ourselves from our responsibilities.
“Its people like you who keep me from attending church.”
“Its because of that very attitude that I don’t volunteer.”
“If the church only had ‘this.’” or “If only ‘this program’ or ‘this service’ was better, we’d come back to church.”
This is also one language. Its another form of the language of seperatism. Its exclusionary language.
We could go on and on. There are many examples in our world today where we strive for one language. I believe it is a result of the loss of unity over the last forty years. We feel isolated and vulnerable. We seek to belong and we do so, so badly, that we end up creating illusions of unity and one language that are not real, built upon fantasy.
Now perhaps the building at Babel is making a little more sense to us. But there is more.
Out of their sense of unity, the building project begins. They build a city and a tower with its tops in the heavens. One of the common misunderstandings of this story is that the people wanted to build a tower to reach heaven so that they could be like God. They didn’t.
It was a common description of a common building. The Egptians built them thousands of years before Jesus. So did the Incas. A common form was a step pyramid. A ziggurat. Archeologists have found them worldwide. So what was the purpose of building at Babel?
Progress. To make life better. To do something in the midst of an uncertain world and an uncertain future.
We can understand this. Thats what technology is all about. If we can only learn enough and event enough, we can make the world a better place and end all our problems.
We can solve our energy & resourse problem. We can find cures for diseases like diabetes, cancer, & aides. Yet with each of these discoveries, we have not eliminated problems, but created new issues and controversies, new problems to cope with.
We will someday be able to reach the other side of our universe as we continue exploration of space. How’s that for ‘building a tower to reach heaven?”
In every way I believe we have strived to create order out of chaos; to attempt to make our world get back in line with the created order of things.
But I also believe we will find ourselves guilty of the same mindset of those building at Babel.
They built for progress. They built to make life better. They built to make a name for themselves.
I don’t mean for individual greed or fame.
I am reminded of the news article I shared a few weeks ago when a labratory cloned a human embryo to the 6th cell division level. Almost of more interest, was that the same lab was able to get a human egg to divide with no fertilization at all.
John Rennie, editor-in-chief of Scientific American magazine was quoted as saying, "You hesitate to describe it as a virgin birth, but it is sort of in that vein."
Have we come to believe that we are on the same creation plane as God?
Do we not believe, as God accused those of our Bible story, that there is nothing that we can’t do, even create a virgin birth, even create life where there was none before?
Making a name for themselves meant dependance upon themselves. They didn’t need God. They could take care of themselves. That was what the race of progress was all about.
I wonder if our technologically advanced world isn’t guilty of the same sins as the technologically advancing day of Babel, where more has been put in store in the ability of our progress than in the power of God.
Oh, I don’t believe any of us would admit that, would claim to believe it. But George Barna shares in his research there is an alarming percentage of people who believe the Word of God includes the phrase, “God helps those who help themselves.” But that is so out of line with God’s gift of grace. That phrase is not Scripture.
Such belief and such comments as the one made by John Rennie are telling of our subconcious thought.
We do believe that there is nothing that we cannot do; nothing that we cannot achieve.
It sounds like I am against all technological advances. It sounds like I might ought to be living as the Amish without any inventions of convenience. Its not the case. A visit to my home would tell you this is not the case, although there might be something the Amish have caught on to that we have missed. We’ll come back to this in a moment.
What happens next in our Bible story causes us to ask some more questions. What does God do when humanity has gotten “too big for our britches?”
God comes down. God comes down to see the building taking place at Babel and what is taking place in the hearts of people. God decrees that what is happening is not good, and so God makes a decision to come down and correct the situation. God creates chaos out of order. God created divine chaos out of human order, confusing the one language of those present so they can no longer understand one another, and scatters them throughout the earth.
Now why did God ‘come down’? Had God not been around, would this building not have happened to begin with? Our story seems to paint a picture of a God who is distant and aloof until humanity starts thinking too much of themselves. Yet I would suggest that God was present all along, and what we have in the human telling of this story, is the human tendancy to fail to notice the presence of God in our lives. Have you noticed the lack of interaction between God and humanity in our story? There is no relationship exhibited. Humanity does not consult God, does not address God at all in the story. Humanity simply continues building its own self-reliance in the form of progress.
But God came down, and intervened. The Bible is a record of God’s constant attempt to enter into the lives of human in order to have a relationship with us. And one day, in a barn in the sleepy little town of Bethelehem, God came down, and intervened in the lives of humanity. God came down, and became one among us. God came down, and entered the human condition of chaos searching for order; searching for meaning; searching for security; searching for salvation.
That night in Bethelehem, God came down, and through his ministry and teaching, through his death and resurrection, scrambled and scattered our self-created illusion of reality; showing us instead that true order can only come through the power of Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, and a relationship with him.
In an effort to understand the Babel story, all that I have read suggests the great sin that took place at Babel, was a desicion by humankind to ignore the command by God following the worldwide flood to scatter throughout the world, to be fruitful, multiply, and fill the earth. Their decision to isolate and unify themselves at Babel represents a decision to refuse the command of God to participate in the creation order.
It is an accurate accusation of us. God meant there to be life. We instead have chosen death. God meant for there to be a relationship. We instead have chose self-reliance and independance.
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If we choose to strive for Christian perfection; if we choose to be more faithful followers of Christ; if we seek to explore what such a commitment might mean for our life, what do we do with the story of Babel? How do we apply what we have learned here to our faith seeking journey?
We are called to place our relationship with God first.
In Matthew’s recording of Jesus life, he shares Jesus teaching with his disciples where Jesus instructs us not to worry about what we will eat, where we will live, what we will wear; but to seek God first, and all the rest will be given to us.
In other words, don’t worry about seeking order. Seek a relationship with God, and order will come through the relationship.
The story of Babel calls us to be selfless, rather than self-obsessed. Jesus also once said, “Those who seek to save their life will lose it.” The right kind of unity occurs only when we consider and encompass the concerns of the entire world; when we love God and our neighbor as we love ourself.
Another story concerning the diversity of language comes to mind that occurs in the New Testament. Following the resurrection of Christ, on the day of Pentecost, the disciples had gathered together to celebrate the worship and religious feast associated with the day. On that day, the Holy Spirit descended upon those gatthered for the festival. The light of Jesus shone from the disciples as if they were candles lit in a dark, dark world.
They began to share the story of Jesus, his life and resurrection. And everyone there heard the story in their own language. That day, the diversity in language and culture is not abolished. Rather, it is affirmed. The gospel message is shared, and each is able to hear it in their own language. Three thousand people were baptized that day and accepted Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.
At Babel, their unity saught self-preservation at all costs. But God’s confusion of their language and the scattering of the people throughout the earth, was God’s way of reversing the technological trend of their day, to get on with the business of creating, spreading life throughout the earth.
As we consider faithfully following God, the story of Babel calls us to consider where we stand in light of the technologically advancing world we live in. It doesn’t call us to forsake all technological advances and devises created to make our life easier. It does, however ask us to examine whether our reliance on them both consciously and subconsciouly is seeking self-preservation at all costs, or are we seeking first the Kingdom of God?
At the end of Matthew’s record of Jesus life, we are once again scattered throughout the earth. Once again we are given the command to go out and spread life throughout the world. God’s creative order is restored in the Great Commission record there, where Jesus instructs us to make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and teach them to obey all that Christ has taught to us.
As we strive for Christian perfection, we must ask ourselves what does our life reflect? Are we engaged in speaking the one language of humanistic order, persuing progress in the name of a better way of life,
or are we a part of the creative order and life of God?
What changes must be made in our life?
How must each of us live so that the true focus of our life shines through?
Do we seek human order, or do we seek divine chaos?
In Jesus name, Amen.
