"The Required Response"

     Dear Friends in Christ,  

            Have you ever been reading along in the Old Testament and been left somewhat confused, not sure what to say about the given text, or even how to say it?  Have you ever been left wondering how that particular event that happened thousands of years ago applies to you today?  Maybe it is that way for you with our Old Testament lesson today…the account of the Tower of Babel.  We may be tempted to ask what the Tower of Babel has to do with us today. This was more than four thousand years ago, halfway across the world, at a time when people wrote with wedges on clay tablets, and the latest technological breakthrough was the brick.  An event such as that, though it makes for a good retelling, can prove to be rather ineffective in eliciting application to your and my lives.  But all in all, this text speaks truths about human nature and about the nature of God that ring as true today as they did 4,000 years ago.

            By the time history arrives at the Tower of Babel, Genesis 11, one thing is becoming quite clear—the Fall into sin by Adam and Eve back in Genesis 3 was just that…a fall, a plummet, and when they fell they took all who would come after them with them.  We see the extent of human depravity in the account of Cain and Abel…where jealousy prompts one brother to murder another, we see it towards the end of Genesis 4 with a guy by the name of Lamech.  Lamech boasts of how he killed a man for simply hitting him.  By the time history arrives at the time of Noah in Genesis 6, the extent of human sin has moved past the wrongs and failures of individuals, but has now infected nearly the entire human race.  It is as the Lord sees in Genesis 6:5, “…the wickedness of man is great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart is only evil continually.”  And so it is that God judges that sin, He sends rain down from heaven for the first time and He floods the earth, killing everyone except the few that were on the ark.  And though Noah and his family were righteous people, faithful people, God-fearing people, they were still sinful people…they could not erase the sin from their souls, no more than anyone can, and so as they left the ark, going back out into the world, sin went with them back into the world and as is always the case with sin…sin produces more sin and more sin and more sin and it just keeps compounding until something is done about it. 

            Over the years, I have had the chance to sit in and listen to various motivational speakers, possibly you have too.  And each one has a different story, but the basic plot seems to always be the same—think positive, always find the good in situations, set your goals high and aim higher, and surround yourself with people who think in the same way.  Do those simple steps, many say, and success, if not guaranteed, well…is going to be darn near close, it will be yours for the taking.  A motivational speaker could look at the people in Shinar and say there is an example to follow.  Everyone is gathered in one spot, they all speak in the same way—they communicate wonderfully, they all have high ambitions, you better believe they set their goals high, they all want success.  And possibly we look at this story and we say what is wrong with that?  Those living there, working on building this great tower, surely knew that they were breaking God’s Law, the people of God had received the command to be fruitful and multiply the earth, as they were stepping off the ark.  But here they were all gathered together, intent on breaking God’s Law, intent on building this focal point that would keep them in one spot, justifying it all by saying that by doing so they would achieve something good--that all would be focused on them, that all would know of them—they would have a name for themselves.  For them the end justified the means.  It was all about them, their good, their pride.  And so God judged their sin.  He confused their languages, making them unable to communicate and then dispersed them throughout the earth.

            So what about us—what about you and me?  Is this just another great Bible story to read and share and recount and then stop there or is there something more to be found here?  Too often in this world today, we actively participate in or we simply stand quiet while human ambition shows its sinfulness time and time again.  There are any number of examples here.   Think about all that the medical community can do with genetics these days, working to do all they can to manipulate the genetic code in such a way that you can give birth to the baby that you want—a boy when you want a boy, brown hair when you want brown hair.  They want to manipulate genetics in such a way as to prevent diseases, to prevent suffering.  They work to create the ‘commodities’ that people desire.  And if the product does not turn out as promised, then abortion is always an option.  And you can try again.  Some ambitious people believe that embryonic stem cell research is the way to go exploring possible cures for diseases, all the while not seeming to care about or understand the enormous loss of human life that this procedure causes each and every time it is used.  You hear about these examples and you might be thinking, Gee, Vicar, a child with no disease, a child for those who for so long could not have children, what is wrong with that, people able to live without diseases, what is the problem here?  You’re talking about Genesis here and didn’t God say way back in Genesis 1 that we had control over all His creation?  So He must have intended us to use it, right?  We’re using it for good.  The end always justifies the means…right?”  My friends, our good is not always God’s good.  If God saw the construction of a 300-ft-tall tower in the city of Babylon as a symbol of man’s out-of-control ambition and evidence that “nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them” (11:6), what must He think of what we have done, of what we have been a part of?  And if God judged them by confusing their languages and scattering them across the face of the earth, what judgment must He have in store for us?

            Yes, God responds to sin…He has to…remember, He is holy and righteous and just, cannot stand in the presence of sin, whether it be the sin of a community of people 4,000 years ago or the sins that you commit, or the sins that I commit.  Yes, God responds, He has every right to, but you see, His response is not always what you might expect.  Yes, one response to the Tower of Babel we have already discussed, language confusion and then scattering throughout the earth. But the larger response to all this is found just a few short verses after our text with the call of Abram.  It is through Abram, who would later become Abraham, that God promises to bless all nations, all peoples of the earth. (Genesis 12:3).  Because of God’s love for His children, because of God’s love for you, His ultimate response to sin is not to destroy, but to save.  You see, my friends, sin has to be punished; it has to be dealt with.  Left unchecked, it leads to dire consequences.  You cannot enter the kingdom of God unless you have been washed clean, you will die eternally without something being done about it, as St. Paul writes and reminds us, “The wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23).   Rather than destroy the sinner for his sins, God our heavenly Father intends to deal with the sins of the Babylonians and He intends to deal a final blow to your sins, by not punishing you, but by sending Jesus Christ to the cross.  For as Jesus mentioned to Nicodemus immediately following that beloved portion of Scripture, John 3:16, “God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the word, but in order that the world might be saved through Him.” (John 3:17). 

            To seek and to save the lost, to save the world, that is why Jesus Christ came down from heaven, to save you from your sin, and that He did on that Good Friday as He hung upon the cross and died, taking the punishment that your sins deserve…that He did on that glorious Easter morning as He rose from the dead, fully alive, having defeated death itself and passing His victory crown to you…and that He did on that first Pentecost celebration, pictured in our second reading this day, as He and the Father sent the Holy Spirit into all of the disciples gathered in Jerusalem, giving them the ability that day speak the message of Jesus Christ to all who gathered there, despite so many different languages being there.  All this was done that day to fulfill the promise given to Abram so long before that all would be blessed, that all would be a part of the kingdom of God, to bring together all that was scattered, lost, and confused because of sin.  Today, on this Pentecost celebration, it is no different.  You and me, like the disciples live in the midst of a world which is confused, too often the ways of this world and the people of this world go astray from God through their own ambitions and by following their own will for their lives, and when the people of God, the creatures of God, leave God and His Holy Word confusion ensues, communication with each other, but more importantly communication with God becomes disrupted and disjointed.  And even for us, the redeemed children of God, the church, we still live in the midst of that world—sometimes it doesn’t seem like much has changed since the time of Babel does it? Maybe the account of the Tower of Babel rings true after all.  And at times as we are surrounded by a world which, in many cases has shut off communication with God, we can become confused.  Wondering why it is we can’t have some glorious experience like the disciples were a part of on that first Pentecost…why we can’t have some peace in the midst of all this confusion.  My friends, peace is yours.  Jesus Christ, even when He was preparing to leave this earth and return to His throne in heaven, spoke these words found in our Gospel lesson this morning, “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you.”  I’ll grant you that we may not experience it in the same awesome fashion as they did that day, tongues of fire and the like, but peace is still poured out on you through the same Holy Spirit, you who come to this God’s House, who read and listen to God’s Word, you who partake of His sacraments.  Through these means and through the proclamation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, God is bringing together in His church what He had previously scattered to the ends of the earth so that one Day all mankind may praise Him again in eternity with one tongue. 

      Amen.