masters of our domain: a Pentecost reflection
30 June 2013
Throughout human history, there have been numerous times when our intelligence outran our wisdom. This can be seen in many different fields. For example, a few days ago I saw a commercial for Pizza Hut’s “Crazy Cheesy Crust” pizza. It features a ring of cul-de-sacs in which they pour even more greasy cheese. But hey, it’s what the people want!
Unfortunately, and more seriously, our intelligence outrunning our wisdom is often seen in weapons of warfare. Or maybe I should say, if there’s been a way to militarize an invention, we’ve been very quick to do so.
But there is one event in human history that I want to especially highlight. It’s still within the living memory of a very tiny number of people. In the late nineteenth century, great strides were being made. Among many other things, radioactivity and x-rays were discovered. The field of psychology was blooming, with the birth of psychoanalysis. On a multitude of fronts, science and technology were making unheard-of advances. At the dawn of the twentieth century, a whole new world was being born.
Here’s that bit about intelligence and wisdom! A feeling began to grow that there was nothing that the human race couldn’t accomplish. It might take a little while, but nothing was beyond our reach. The problem with that type of mentality is that, as a whole new world is emerging, it’s easy to forget just how fragile it is.
We can be seduced by our tools. We can easily become arrogant, and this brings me to the event I mentioned a moment ago: the First World War, the most vicious and bloody conflict the human race had ever seen.
I have a history book which reads, “Throughout Europe jubilation greeted the outbreak of war. No general war had been fought since Napoleon, and the horrors of modern warfare were not yet understood.”* The very discoveries and advances which inspired a new way of thinking were tragically turned upon us: in this case, airplanes, submarines, tanks, mustard gas. It had been almost a century since any major war was fought in Europe. So, we are masters of our domain. We will fight this war, the war to end war.
In Genesis 11 we find the human tendency to trust our technology. It’s understandable if that seems far-fetched. At first glance, our story looks like it’s about something totally different. It begins, “Now the whole earth had one language and the same words” (v. 1). Well, apparently there’s no need for translators! Everyone can understand each other. Except, that’s not really the case.
In chapter 10, we’ve just been told about the various “languages,” “lands,” and “nations” that have arisen (v. 31). Just as today, the words that come from people’s mouths are only understood by some, not by everyone. The “one language and the same words” of chapter 11 shouldn’t be taken in some wooden, literal way.
What’s in view is not linguistics, or even history in the way we think of it today; it’s about theology—it’s about God and how we relate to God. We have a picture of a group migrating from the east to a plain in Shinar, an ancient name for a place in Mesopotamia. It’s there that they consider a building project. They have the necessary material for bricks and mortar.
Here’s what they decide: “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” (v. 4). We know that the Mesopotamians built pyramid-like structures called ziggurats. Some people say that the tower is one of those. Still, the concern here is not an analysis of architecture.
As one writer has said, “The issue here is not the building of the tower itself, but the reasons for building it.” So why do the people build a city and a tower with a top that reaches up to “the heavens”?
Actually, just as the case was with them, there are those today who have the same ideas. Let us make a name for ourselves. We are masters of our domain. But there’s more to it than that. They are insecure. There’s a fear that if they don’t get this done, they will be scattered. They will not achieve the unity they desire. And who is it that frustrates the unity that they’re striving for? What keeps the builders of Babel from their ribbon-cutting ceremony?
“The Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which mortals had built. And the Lord said, ‘Look, they are one people, and they have all one language; and this is only the beginning of what they will do; nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them.’”
What is God’s deal? Is the Lord afraid of competition? Surely not, so what’s the plan? “‘Come, let us go down, and confuse their language there, so that they will not understand one another’s speech.’ So the Lord scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city” (vv. 7-8).
We might symbolize it today as breaching their firewalls and crashing their computers. Anyway, what’s going on here? Why is God punishing them? That would be one way of looking at it, especially for those who believe that God does indeed ladle out punishment.
Another way of reading the story is to see God’s grace at work. When the Lord says that “this is only the beginning of what they will do,” there’s that sense of intelligence outrunning wisdom. When people put their trust in the wrong direction, there can be a feeling that “nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them.” God acts to save us from ourselves. Nazarene minister Dennis Bratcher says, “This expresses the idea that when human beings go against the purposes of God the result is confusion.”
In Hebrew, the word for “Babel” sounds like the word for “confusion.” It’s a joke built into the scriptures. (Actually throughout the Bible, we see the comedic art form of the pun, the play on words!) Bratcher goes on, “The arrogance and self-centeredness that compels us to define the world in our own terms results in a world in which we can no longer even talk to each other.” That makes sense.
We can use the same words and still not connect, especially if our main interest is making sure that our opinion gets heard. “Even when we try to be united,” he says, “if the basis of that unity is only ourselves and our own ambitions and goals, we will find that we cannot even communicate adequately. There is left nothing but babble, confusion, and disorder.” We can see “the ‘one language’ [in the story]…as a metaphorical way to talk about that false unity,” the way we foolishly assert that we are the center of the universe, that we are masters of our domain, that we need nothing outside of ourselves to guide us.
Pentecost is a reversal of Babel. With Pentecost, there are different languages, but a single heart. With Pentecost, there is a diversity of speech which is embraced and affirmed, but there’s also a unity of spirit, a unity of Holy Spirit. This prompts a question: are there any towers of Babel that we are building? If so, what are they?
Remember, the question doesn’t concern the structure (be it a literal structure or a figurative one), the effort put into it, or whatever else we set our hands to. Rather, the question concerns our motivation, our reason for doing what we do. The focus shifts from “what are we doing” to “why are we doing it.”
Bratcher finishes his thought this way: “We do need the same [Pentecostal] infilling of our hearts that will so fill us with the love for God and each other that there will be no more room for pettiness, for selfishness, for arrogant ambition, for sin.” You know, all of the skills that we spend too much time honing!
But instead, “When we wait for that enabling power from God, and employ it for [God’s] purposes in the world rather than ours, it may just be that ‘this is only the beginning of what they will do; nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them.’”
A divine infusion of wisdom is ours for the asking, so that our intelligence doesn’t run away with us. What a wonderful and awesome thing that would be; and indeed, it is!
* The Western Heritage, Donald Kagan, Steven Ozment, and Frank M. Turner, eds.
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