Don: I have put on hold my plan to discuss biblical vignettes in which Jesus breaks down the separateness of our social groupings and tries to make vivid the idea that he is the god of all mankind, so that we can discuss points that arose last week.
It was suggested that the notion of one god for all mankind might not really be mystery. It is somewhat intuitive, somewhat self-evident. But then, the question arises: If we all recognize that there is only one god for all mankind, why is there so much strife among us? We determined that there is a natural and pervasive tendency to separate into groups of like-minded or kindred individuals. Society is built on such groupings as:
affiliation, alliance, amalgamation, association, band, bunch, bunch, cahoots, circle, clan, clan, clique, club, coalition, coalition, combination, combo, company, confederacy, confederation, congress, conjunction, connection, cooperative, corporation, coterie, crew, crowd, crush, faction, family, federation, fellowship, folks, fraternity, gang, group, guild, hookup, hookup, house, incorporation, insiders, joining, kinfolks, league, league, mob, mob, moiety, order, organization, organization star, outfit, outfit, partnership, pool, race, rat pack, relationship, ring, sect, set, society, society, sodality, sorority, stock, syndicate, tie-in, tie-up, tribe, troops, troupe, union, zoo….
We have so many words to denote the idea of separateness and isolation, but no matter how it is named, each group seeks self-identity. Identity is rooted in a way of life—in how we live, how we eat, how we dress, how we build and decorate our houses, in our habits, rituals, language, and especially in the way we express things of the spirit. These become ingrained in the group and form its identity.
We want these attributes to be uniquely ours, so we develop the viewpoint that our attributes and our perspective are so unique and special that they belong only to us and are not shared by others. Paul talks about the breaking down of these social barriers in Ephesians 2:4-12:
But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
Therefore, remember that formerly you who are Gentiles by birth and called “uncircumcised” by those who call themselves “the circumcision” (which is done in the body by human hands)— remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world.
This gives some of the background to the new revelation that god is the god of all mankind.
Paul continues (verses 13-16):
But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ.
For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by setting aside in his flesh the law with its commands and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace, and in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility.
Here Paul breaks down the walls between groups that heretofore had been isolated and had claimed the unique province of god, and recreates them as a unity. This seems good. Jesus is the barrier breaker; his sacrifice for all made all wo/men sisters and brothers. But if this is so, how did we get to where we are today? Most of us still feel more secure and comfortable behind the shield of our own group, tribe, class, etc., and excluding from it others not like us.
The very old story of the Tower of Babel may have some bearing on this subject. It takes place after Noah’s Flood, when Noah’s descendants start to repopulate the earth. We pick up the story in Genesis 11:1-3:
Now the whole earth used the same language and the same words. It came about as they journeyed east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. They said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks and burn them thoroughly.” And they used brick for stone, and they used tar for mortar.
The first thing to note is that technology is being used in the search for god—the making of bricks and the use of tar as mortar. Notice what they intended to use this technology for (verse 4):
They said, “Come, let us build for ourselves a city, and a tower whose top will reach into heaven, and let us make for ourselves a name, otherwise we will be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth.”
The building of a tower to reach heaven may be taken as a metaphor for seeking god. It is a picture of man’s attempt to reach heaven, using technology. Verse 5 then says:
The Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built.
Notice that although the men thought they had reached up into heaven, god had to come down to earth to see the tower, so they were in fact a long way from heaven. Verse 6:
The Lord said, “Behold, they are one people, and they all have the same language. And this is what they began to do, and now nothing which they purpose to do will be impossible for them.”
That nothing was impossible to them is reminiscent of god’s statement in the Garden of Eden that as a result of eating the forbidden fruit wo/men had become like gods. To prevent this, god decided (verse 7):
“Come, let Us go down and there confuse their language, so that they will not understand one another’s speech.” So the Lord scattered them abroad from there over the face of the whole earth; and they stopped building the city. Therefore its name was called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of the whole earth; and from there the Lord scattered them abroad over the face of the whole earth.
Technology is either the contravention to nature or a way to enhance it. This is one of the earliest examples of its use for reaching god. The people of Babel had three aims: Build a city, build a tower to heaven, and make a name for themselves. To stop them from becoming immortal, omnipotent gods, god divided them up, destroyed their social and linguistic unity. A major undercurrent of this story is that it is futile to try to find god and to seek godlike power, even with technology’s help. God will not allow it. Why not, and what does god hope to get out of this encounter?
A people unified through a common language and culture ought in theory to have a unified view of god. It seems that this is undesirable to god. Why might that be? What is the value in there being multiple different wrong views about god, including even erroneous views, rather than a single wrong view? Clearly, the break-up of the Babel clan, the disbursement of the tribe around the world, speaking different languages, would lead to multiple different views about god.
The difference between multiple languages and a single language was highlighted on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2:1-13):
When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly there came from heaven a noise like a violent rushing wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. And there appeared to them tongues as of fire distributing themselves, and they rested on each one of them.
This is a picture of the inner light being transported into some kind of visible, external, manifestation of the spirit. The story continues (verse 4):
And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit was giving them utterance.
Now there were Jews living in Jerusalem, devout men from every nation under heaven. And when this sound occurred, the crowd came together, and were bewildered because each one of them was hearing them speak in his own language. They were amazed and astonished, saying, “Why, are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we each hear them in our own language to which we were born? Parthians and Medes and Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the districts of Libya around Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs—we hear them in our own tongues speaking of the mighty deeds of God.” And they all continued in amazement and great perplexity, saying to one another, “What does this mean?” But others were mocking and saying, “They are full of sweet wine.”
In this passage from Acts we see god essentially reversing what he did at Babel by breaking down the language barrier and re-introducing a common language. Why did god create barriers, only (on at least this occasion) to remove them? Does it help us understand the mystery of a god of all mankind?
Lloyd: The major difference between the Old Testament story of Babel and the New Testament story of the day of Pentecost is pride. The people of Babel had their own way of seeking after god, they dispelled anything god wanted them to do. They disregarded his law. They thought they could reach the height of heaven their way, without god’s help. The apostles on the day of Pentecost, in contrast, were very much humbled and in awe at what had happened to them and recognized how far god would go to share his grace and love. In their humility they became of one accord, and god honored that, and thus helped them to understand one another.
David: The Marxist dialectic of thesis–antithesis–synthesis would explain the many-wrong-views-of-god thesis and one-wrong-view-of-god antithesis as necessary steps toward the synthesis of a new view of god. There may arise new theses and antitheses and more new (but still wrong) synthetic views of god; but eventually, the process will lead to the synthesis of the correct view of god. According to my good friend Karl. 😉
Robin: It seems to be a struggle with man’s ego. The people of Babel seem unable to humble themselves. They don’t just want to build a tower to heaven: They go further, and want to be superior to god. The sin of Lucifer was that though he was a created being he considered himself the equal of Jesus—of god. The Russians built a tower to heaven when they first went into space; then they declared that since they had reached heaven and found no god there, there was no god. Scientists claim they can create life now, but they cannot create it as god created it: With a Word. We don’t just want to be like god, we want to be superior to him.
Lloyd: There is a difference between being god and being godlike. Lucifer wanted to be god. Jesus taught us to seek to be godlike by taking on god’s attributes of love, kindness, and goodness. The people of Babel sought to be god; they sought to replace him, whereas the Apostles sought to be godlike.
Robin: We struggle with the character of god until we are converted in our thinking. We want the power of god. We want the worship.
Lloyd: That’s pride.
Jay: In Babel, god divided people; in Pentecost, he united them. The question is, why? In Babel, the people thought they could find their own way to heaven. Unified in thought, language, and purpose, they were a threat. In Pentecost, Peter gave a sermon validating the divinity of the ministry of Jesus. This was a commonality that god wanted to be sure everyone understood, hence his unification of the apostles and their 3,000 (according to the bible) listeners through a common language. It resulted in 3,000 conversions to Christianity.
Joyce: Were the people of Babel originally told to unite following the Flood, or in building the city were they disobeying an instruction to disperse? Were there other towns and villages in the area? In Pentecost, there was a purpose in having 3,000 disparate people hear a unified message: It was to spread the Word around their towns and villages—around the world. But in Babel, were there no other towns and cities? Was there no wider world?
Jay: It seems to me the purposes of Babel and Pentecost respectively were antithetical. The apostles’ purpose was to spread the commonality of god to all people, whereas the purpose of the people of Babel was to show that god was theirs.
Joyce: So why not let the people of Babel just get on with what god knew was a pointless exercise—their tower could never reach heaven—and leave them to discover their error on their own? Why did god bother to come down and make all that fuss?
Lloyd: It seems to me god was being almost facetious in saying that unless the people of Babel were stopped, they would become a threat to his power. God surely could not think that. He was upset at their attempt to seek godlike status on their own, without god.
Charles: “In the Beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.” And: “He was with God in the Beginning. Through him, all things were made. Without him, nothing was made that has been made.” I am constantly reminded of a concept of unity and of a single source for all of creation. All of creation is a manifestation of that source—of god. From biblical descriptions of humanity, it seems that trouble always arises when humankind tries to interpret creation in the light of human intelligence and reason. This is where division and splintering occurs, and where god seeks to pull things back into unity.
The Fall is the first example of severance, and god’s desire to bring things back into unity depends upon a unified view of god. But humanity went off into an orgy of polytheism to try to explain nature and creation through self-centered, human will and reason, which to them required no divine component. Modern science still interprets nature through individualistic and reasoned perspectives and will not admit of a divine component. The Fall explains a lot. Once the unity of will in the Garden became divided, god initiated the process of reconciliation, which led to Christ, whose body—the church—was designed to restore unity at the end of the age.
The idea of a chosen people seems simple to explain. The Israelites believed in one god and were destined to pave the way to reconciliation, ultimately through Jesus Christ. The notion of a god of all mankind was there right at the beginning, so I do not see it as a mystery. It perhaps became a mystery once wo/man opted to follow their own individual wills and developed a subjective need to understand creation and nature from their new-found individual perspectives. Hence, the parochial fragmentation of views about god. But it was not there at the beginning.
Jay: To me, the Babel story says that the kingdom of heaven is not about a singularity, not about commonness, not about having a common, singular purpose. Indeed, the story shows that having such purpose is destructive. The kingdom of heaven is about the ministry of Christ, which is about the opposite of everything we think and do: Love your enemy more than you love yourself; go to the end of the line, not the front; whoever you think is a sinner is not, and whoever you think is not a sinner has no place in the kingdom; to be in the kingdom you have to be like a child; and so on. This is true community. These differences are not barriers in the kingdom—they are revered. In striving for unity we lose what the kingdom of heaven is about.
Lloyd: Paul’s problem with Peter was that Peter was trying to convert Gentiles into Jews. Paul said that’s not what it’s about: We are all brothers and sisters, no matter our differences.
Joyce: But we would not have had these divisions unless god had made them. The people of Babel might have persisted for generation upon generation in trying to reach heaven. But we can’t do it, and that is what Pentecost tells—that Christ can do it for us.
Jay: A key principle of the kingdom of heaven is that we cannot know god, but he knows us. When we ask at the Judgment: “When did we do this or that?” we are admitting our ignorance of god.
Chris: To me, Babel and Pentecost are not different: They are the same. In Babel, I see a common people trying to attain god through their means. In Acts, I see a common people—Jews—trying to attain god through their own means. Both had to be broken down so they could get a better understanding of who god is. The people of Babel were trying to reach god, and so were the Jews, through the laws they established. But god said: You don’t get it. That’s not the way, and if you continue on down it you never will reach your intended destination.
Charles: I see the stories as being quite distinct. Trying to obtain divinity via the Tower was an error. But Pentecost suggests that the only way to correct it and get back on a course toward unity with god is through a divine revelation that re-establishes god’s role in our salvation. Babel represents god putting a spike through man’s error, while Pentecost is god’s gift toward the re-establishment of relations and reconciliation with god through Jesus Christ. In a sense, Babel marks a beginning, and Pentecost an ending, to man’s error.
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