"Tight lines" is a blessing fishermen offer each other, a wish for lines taut with the weight of good fish. May God grant that the lines written here be taut with His blessings.
Wednesday, 19 May 2010 | |||
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Babel to Benediction | |||
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One of the latest chapters in Arizona's struggle with a huge
Hispanic presence was its Department of Education's crackdown on teachers
of English with heavy accents. Such instructors have the option of taking
classes to improve their English usage, but may lose their jobs if
sufficient improvement is not forthcoming. Unity of language is generally considered a blessing, and, at least it seems in Arizona, something to be fought for when it is threatened. People without a common language may also lack common values and goals in many arenas, political, social and personal. We all recognize the problems that arise at home when we encounter someone who does not speak English or when we travel to a place where English is not generally spoken. Thus it's surprising that the story of Babel in Genesis 11:1-9 not only does not value linguistic and social unity, but appears to deem them a threat to right relationship with God. On the surface of it, the tower-building endeavor has several qualities we would be inclined to admire. It is creative and ambitious and it does a fine job of unifying human beings and centralizing civilization. Not unlike the American space program in the 1960s and 70s, it gathered a national identity around an exciting, but peaceful project that calls for ingenuity, sacrifice and a spirit of adventure. Yet the text shows that God regarded the Babel project as presumptuous and misguided. He steps in to unravel that precious time of human unity with a confusion of language and a geographic dispersal of the city's inhabitants. The primary sin involved in Babel appears to be pride, the desire to "make a name" for themselves in a way that seeks to rival God (hence the intent to have the tower reach the heavens). However, the text also displays God wanting to scatter human beings at this point. The end of the previous chapter speaks of the descendants of Noah and his sons, spreading out as nations over the earth. Babel is calculated to prevent that spread, to establish a human-centered unity, which God chooses to frustrate by both linguistic diversity and a "scattering" of the people. As we look toward Pentecost this Sunday, we remember that Acts 2:1-11 is often seen as a kind of reversal of the linguistic confusion of Babel. In contrast to the chaos and scattering we can picture at the end of the Babel account, we see everyone hearing and understanding the Good News in Acts 2, and a great in-gathering with the first mass conversion to Christianity. The unity and linguistic harmony destroyed at Babel are restored at Pentecost. But we must be careful in drawing this traditional (back at least to Chrysostom) connection between Babel and Pentecost. What was given through the Holy Spirit fifty days after Easter was not at all a relaxing of God's judgment on the false unity and pride of Babel. In fact, a unified language was not restored at all, but a unified understanding (hearing) despite the speaking of different languages. The unity of Pentecost is a unity of diverse people centered around an experience of Christ. In a sense, Pentecost does not reverse Babel but brings the grace of God into human life in spite of and in the midst of Babel. Pentecost may be a call for Christians to protest and resist harsh, uncharitable and merely human attempts at unity like Arizona's desire for linguistic purity. No matter how precious our distinctive linguistic and cultural heritages or how comfortable it might be to unify around a single language, our stake is ultimately in the God who confused the languages and scattered the peoples of earth so that He might bring them together in Himself. | |||
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I am the pastor of Valley Covenant Church in Eugene, Oregon. I love to flyfish and hike along the beautiful rivers in our area. I welcome your comments as I share sermon work in progress and occasional other thoughts.
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Ann F-R Steve, this is a very helpful blog! Thank you. My thoughts went to the problems of "nationalism" and ethno-centrism that exist in this world, and also to Paul's discussion of the unity in Christ of spiritual persons in 1 Cor. 12. (I consider that translation of the Greek more appropriate to the text than "spiritual gifts.") Rejoicing within our diversity as given and blessed by God in Christ is a much different picture than gathering around a tower of human construction, such as a nation-state, or affinity grouping. (05/19/10)