High and Lifted Up

This is one passage in the Bible that almost everyone who went to Sunday school has heard before. In fact, I remember hearing it in Sunday school myself, and I only went to church a few times a year as a child! We love to read stories like this and reflect on what they mean for history. “Aha! This is why we speak so many languages today!” or “Ahhh, now I see why there are so many different cultures and people groups.” To reduce the story to a mere history lesson, however, is to miss the bigger point God is trying to reveal to us. This is about more than the origin of language. It is, like much of Genesis, a deep theological reflection on the conditions of the human heart.

They Built a Tower

The sons of Noah got off the ark. Humanity has, once again, migrated to a new land. They’ve come from the Garden of Eden, out east of Eden, then Cain settled even further east, in the land of Nod, then Shem, Noah’s son, continues on further east, and now humanity finds itself, once again, further east in a place called Shinar. This eastward movement not only tracks the migration patterns of humanity across the land, but also their migration further and further away from the blessings and protection of God. Bible scholar Bill T. Arnold puts it this way,

“It matters little whether humans are in the Garden of Eden, east of the Garden, or settled in the plains of Shinar. The problem is not geography, but humanity itself.”

But what is it about the tower of Babel that elicits such a strong response from God? What’s the big deal about building towers?

This story actually starts out, seemingly, pretty good. The humans come together, and it seems as if they are living into their role as creatures made in the image of God. They begin to use God language with one another, “Come, let us make… Come let us build...” Yet, very quickly, we see that the motives of the people aren’t quite so pure. Their speech is not oriented toward God afterall, but toward themselves. “Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves; otherwise we shall be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.” So, while the humans’ speech mimicked God’s, it was distorted and twisted. When God spoke “Let there be...” his language was oriented toward the other. He spoke for the good of his creation. He made the sun, moon, stars, and plants for the benefit of His creatures. He blessed his creation, and his “Let us create...” was an act of selfless love. Humanity’s speech, however, is selfish and oriented towards their own good.

The tower they build, in fact, sounds a lot like a Mesopotamian Ziggurat. These Ziggurat towers were built in the ancient world as great temples to the gods. The word “Ziggurat” means “gate of the gods”. They were built as great stairways that reached up to the heavens, so that the gods could come down to earth. The idea was that, if the humans built this marvelous temple and provided food and luxuries in the Ziggurat to the gods, then the gods would come down on the stairway and bless the people. This was, of course, a very selfish act of worship, as most pagan worship was. There was a kind of unspoken agreement between ANE worshippers and their gods, “I scratch your back, you scratch mine”.

Perhaps this is the same thought that the people in Shinar had behind their tower. They would build up to the sky in hopes that, through the blessings they recieved, their name would be made great.

Perhaps most telling of the state of the peoples’ hearts is not the building of the tower itself, or even a desire for a great name. No, it is their fear that they will be “scattered abroad upon the face of the earth”. In the beginning, God created humans and blessed them, saying “Be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it.” Now, however, this blessing of God to “fill the earth” is seen as something to be feared by the people. They want to sit right where they’re at, nice and comfortable. “We can make our name great from right here,” they say.

Ironically, God does in fact come down from the heavens to see the tower the people have built. Unfortunately for them, there is no blessing from God for what they’ve done. Instead, he scatters them over the face of the earth, just as they had feared would happen. And so, because of human rebellion, God’s blessing is once again made a curse. Humanity was meant to fill the land, but not like this. They were meant to be unified, but not in the way that they wanted to be unified.

The real sin of the people, then, is not in building a tower. It is in trying to manipulate and control God himself. Their tower became a kind of idol of humanity’s own selfish desire for power over life. They wanted God to come down, but only if he did things their way. They set themselves in the clouds, high and lifted up, they attempted to exalt themselves even above God.

Much like the humans that came before them, it was not so much the ends of the humans that was wrong as much as it was the means. God certainly wanted humanity to have a great name for itself. He certainly willed that we should be united together as well. But humanity did not want to go about obtaining these things via the route that God had laid out. They wanted to do things their way. And so God made the high places low.

At the Right Hand

This story reminds me of another. As Jesus drew closer to Jerusalem, two of his disciples, James and John, approach him. “Would you grant us a favor?” they ask him. “Let us sit next to you when you are glorified.” Jesus responds, “You don’t know what you’re asking! Can you drink the cup that I drink or be baptized with the baptism I’m baptized with?” James and John respond, “Oh yes, we are able!”. Then Jesus answered, “You will drink my cup, and you will be baptized with my baptism; but who sits at my right and left hand in my glory is not for me to decide.”

You see, little did James and John know, the people “seated at his right and to his left” would be two criminals. Because Jesus’s throne of glory was a cross. They really didn’t have any clue what they were asking! But James and John didn’t have a bad idea. Jesus is the Messiah. Who wouldn’t want to be seated next to the King? Who wouldn’t want to be seated next to Jesus? Their motive and means, however, were not so pure. As it made clear in the following passage, these two brothers wanted to sit next to Jesus for very selfish reasons. They also assumed that they could get to that seat the way they wanted to. They will overthrow the Romans, win a grand military victory, and sit at the right hand of the king.

No, no, no! Jesus says. That’s not the way to make your name great! “whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” For Jesus, to be “high and lifted up” first meant being brought as low as one could go: the cross. James and John could be great like they wanted, but they couldn’t attain greatness in the way that they wanted. To be lifted up, they had to make themselves low. To reach the heavens, they were not to build a tower, but to serve both God and man on their knees as slaves of all.

The Mountains Made Low

The sin of Babel, like the sin of James and John, is one that has plagued humanity since the beginning. It is, simply put, the sin of idolatry.

St. Augustine, an African preacher in the 4th Century, defined idolatry as “worshipping anything that ought to be used, or using anything that is meant to be worshipped.”

The first form is often easier to spot. We can clearly see when someone is worshipping the creature. It’s not hard to spot when someone has made money an idol, or sports, or even an actual idol!

The second form, however, is often sneakier than the first. When we use what is meant to be worshipped, when we try to take advantage of God, this too is a form of idolatry. And, unbeknownst to us, I think it is just as prevalent and dangerous as the first, more obvious form of Idolatry.

It’s trying to do things our way, and telling ourselves that’s the way God wants it. It’s building a tower, or an altar, or even a church, telling ourselves we do it “in the name of God”, when really we’ve done it “in the name of ourselves”.