Is God the eternal optimist? We might think so. No sooner had he made the covenant with Noah than the shenanigans begin again. In our last reading from Genesis in these weeks of the lectionary, we read of the attempts by some of Noah's descendants to build a great tower to reach up to heaven. Full of pride, they seek to make a name for themselves. We see here the temptation of the serpent in the garden again: the self-glorification of man and woman. We are back to where we started!
The story of the Tower of Babel is interesting on a number of levels. First, on a etiological level, the writer is trying to explain why there are so many languages. He equates this with division, a division God has imposed on humanity to prevent them getting in to even more trouble than they are already in. This division will be healed in Christ who incorporates all humanity in himself, in his body. When he is lifted up he will draw all people to himself, uniting them in his offering to the Father as he returns to the Father the kingdom he has been given.
The desire to reach for heaven is not wrong in itself - as we know from the example of the saints it is a noble desire. The problem for this lot in Genesis emerges when we see they want to do it themselves - they think they can storm heaven on their own initiative, which of course they can't. Not only are they overreaching themselves but they are committing the sin of presumption. I do not think we need to point out examples of this in modern life, they are all too clear. In humility, like the saints, we must recognise that Christ brings us to heaven, so we must not trust in ourselves and our abilities, but trust in him. In Christ humanity will indeed reach up to heaven, we will not need to build a tower - Christ is the tower.
Archeology tells us that the most likely model for the Tower of Babel was the ziggurat, the ancient temples of Mesopotamia. As we read this passage, can we see humanity constructing a temple to a pagan god and in this way - the worship of this being, they hope to attain heaven? As with the fertility rites of ancient paganism, they seek to bribe this non-existent god with a magnificent tower-temple. If we can read this as an interpretation, an ancient Jewish commentary on the worship of false deities, we may see an allusion to the later Golden Calf incident. Only the true God, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, is the one who lives, the one who saves.
Finally as we read this passage the story of Pentecost always comes to mind, for the coming of the Holy Spirit on the infant Church is the healing of the division we witness here. At Pentecost language was no longer a barrier to understanding, the power of the Spirit and the Gospel overcame the different languages, and so the apostles and disciples preached the Word and everyone heard them in their own language. As the people building the tower gradually deconstructed love as they laid presumptive brick upon presumptive brick, the Holy Spirit knocks down these walls and begins the construction of a edifice of love - the Church founded on Christ who offered his life for the sake of love.
At this point, Genesis is ready to begin the construction of that Church, first with Abraham, then Isaac and Jacob - the family. Then the sons of Jacob, particularly Joseph who brings them into Egypt where God forms a nation - in the desert he will make a covenant with this nation. Then, as they face the ups and downs, fidelity and infidelities of life in the Promised Land, they are prepared for the coming of Christ who founds his Church, a Church for all the nations bound in love to him and brought by faith, hope and love, professing the truth, back into the garden of paradise, not to hear the Lord walking in the evening, but to see him in the full light of his majestic divinity.
The story of the Tower of Babel is interesting on a number of levels. First, on a etiological level, the writer is trying to explain why there are so many languages. He equates this with division, a division God has imposed on humanity to prevent them getting in to even more trouble than they are already in. This division will be healed in Christ who incorporates all humanity in himself, in his body. When he is lifted up he will draw all people to himself, uniting them in his offering to the Father as he returns to the Father the kingdom he has been given.
The desire to reach for heaven is not wrong in itself - as we know from the example of the saints it is a noble desire. The problem for this lot in Genesis emerges when we see they want to do it themselves - they think they can storm heaven on their own initiative, which of course they can't. Not only are they overreaching themselves but they are committing the sin of presumption. I do not think we need to point out examples of this in modern life, they are all too clear. In humility, like the saints, we must recognise that Christ brings us to heaven, so we must not trust in ourselves and our abilities, but trust in him. In Christ humanity will indeed reach up to heaven, we will not need to build a tower - Christ is the tower.
Archeology tells us that the most likely model for the Tower of Babel was the ziggurat, the ancient temples of Mesopotamia. As we read this passage, can we see humanity constructing a temple to a pagan god and in this way - the worship of this being, they hope to attain heaven? As with the fertility rites of ancient paganism, they seek to bribe this non-existent god with a magnificent tower-temple. If we can read this as an interpretation, an ancient Jewish commentary on the worship of false deities, we may see an allusion to the later Golden Calf incident. Only the true God, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, is the one who lives, the one who saves.
Finally as we read this passage the story of Pentecost always comes to mind, for the coming of the Holy Spirit on the infant Church is the healing of the division we witness here. At Pentecost language was no longer a barrier to understanding, the power of the Spirit and the Gospel overcame the different languages, and so the apostles and disciples preached the Word and everyone heard them in their own language. As the people building the tower gradually deconstructed love as they laid presumptive brick upon presumptive brick, the Holy Spirit knocks down these walls and begins the construction of a edifice of love - the Church founded on Christ who offered his life for the sake of love.
At this point, Genesis is ready to begin the construction of that Church, first with Abraham, then Isaac and Jacob - the family. Then the sons of Jacob, particularly Joseph who brings them into Egypt where God forms a nation - in the desert he will make a covenant with this nation. Then, as they face the ups and downs, fidelity and infidelities of life in the Promised Land, they are prepared for the coming of Christ who founds his Church, a Church for all the nations bound in love to him and brought by faith, hope and love, professing the truth, back into the garden of paradise, not to hear the Lord walking in the evening, but to see him in the full light of his majestic divinity.
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