Babel

Passage: Genesis 11:1-9

There has always seemed something a little unfair about the story of the Tower of Babel.  In it, a group of early humans endeavor to build a tower that reaches heaven.  God, observing their progress, says, “As one people speaking one language, there’s no limit to what they’ll be able to do.”  God proceeds to scramble the speech centers of their brains, so they end up talking different languages.  None of them can understand each other.  They go their separate ways, and are scattered across the face of the earth.  The beginnings of their magnificent tower become a monument to their failed effort. 

Why does God do it?  Is he nervous that they might reach heaven?  Of course not.  We know that God doesn’t actually reside in the sky.  Is there a possibility that humanity could become a match for God’s power and majesty?  Of course not.  God’s power is limitless.  No created thing is a threat to God.  Why would God do something as seemingly capricious as pulling the ace of language confusion out of his sleeve?

Perhaps it isn’t good for people to be without limitations.  I recently watched Chronicle, a film about three teenage boys who develop superpowers after being exposed to alien radiation.  They take the kind of delight you’d expect in moving objects with their minds and learning how to fly.  One of the boys develops his powers more quickly than the other two.  He is also the one of the group who has the biggest inferiority complex.  Suddenly his superpowers become a way of getting back at the kids who bullied him and the father who abused him.  Convinced of his superiority, he isolates himself from everyone – included his closest friends and family.  Without limitations, his powers become monstrous.

Is it possible that this is what happens to all people?  The unbridled growth of all our potentials includes the unrestrained expansion of our capacity to do evil.  To abuse those who are weaker than ourselves.  To consume more and more of the resources available to us.  Could it be that God’s boundary-setting at Babel was an act of love?  And could it be that when God imposes limits on you and me, he also does so in love?  The thing we need most in the world is an intimate connection with God.  The more powerful and independent we are, the more we buy the delusion that we don’t need God.  We are at our best when we accept our limitations.  And when, in our weakness, we rest in him.