Towards Unity
The Tower of Babel
By Philip Burchill
Genesis 11: 1 ‘Now the whole world had one language and a common speech. As people moved eastward, they found a plain in Shinar and settled there. They said to each other ‘Come, let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly’. They used brick instead of stone, and bitumen for mortar. Then they said, ‘Come let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens so that we make a name for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered abroad over the face of all the earth.’ Now the Lord came down to the city to see the city and the tower which the men had built. And the Lord said, ‘Behold they are one people, and they all have the same language. And this is what they have started to do and now nothing which they plan to do will be impossible for them. Come, let us go down and there confuse their language, 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 stopped building the city. Therefore, it was named Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth and from there the Lord scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth.’
The Day of Pentecost
Acts 2: 1 ‘When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly a noise like a violent rushing wind came from heaven, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. And tongues that looked like fire appeared to them, distributing themselves and a tongue rested on each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with different tongues, as the Spirit was giving them the ability to speak out. Now there were Jews residing in Jerusalem from every nation under heaven. And when this sound occurred the crowd came together and they were bewildered because each one of them was hearing them speak in his own language. They were amazed and astonished saying , ‘Why are not all these who are speaking Galileans? How is it that we each hear them in our own language to which we were born? Parthians, Medes, Elamites, residents of Mesopotamia, Judea, Cappadoccia, Asia, Phrygia Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya around Cyrene, and visitors from Rome both Jews and Proselytes, Cretans and Arabs we hear them speaking in our own tongues of the mighty deeds of God. And They continued in Amazement and great perplexity, saying to one another, ‘What does this mean?’ But others were jeering and saying, ‘They are full of sweet wine!’
I have linked together two episodes in the Scriptures one from the Old and the New Testament to outline lessons we can learn about human nature, group structures and ultimately God’s plan of unity for humanity. In the first text Genesis 11 ‘The Tower of Babel’ we have one world with one common language, a group of people who build a tower that reaches to the heavens to make a name for themselves. In the second text we have a group of individuals who speak in different languages about the works of God. In Babel the group builds a tower to the sky, the individuals are uniform speaking one language and assert their will to power with an aim to become like god. To make a name for themselves entails glory, recognition and honor of oneself. The people in Babel are self-promoting and reaching for status beyond their lot. (Just as the billionaires raced to the stratosphere and have made this new Babel climbing a type of scientific pilgrimage). This is the opposite of the Christian stone masons who built cathedrals in the middle ages who remained anonymous in order to give glory to God.
The Self Exaltation of Babel versus Pentecost’s ‘Upside Down Kingdom’
In Acts, a multitude with various different languages speak in tongues and each hear Peter’s sermon in their own tongue. In this case we see a single message in one language miraculously translates into diverse languages for the different listeners. The subject points away from the self and to the works of God. In Babel the tower symbolizes the pursuit of the self to be above the world and the book of Acts takes place in fellowship on a common ground with the multitude. ‘The way up is down’, states the philosopher Heraclitus. Ironically the second group is on lower ground is closer to God who comes down to speak with and through the people contrary to those who would seek to reach God’s status by ascending the sky by their own will power.
At the Tower of Babel and Pentecost, we see two systems of group organization at work. These two stories analogically define two different forms of Unity for a group structure and outline initial characteristics of the difference between a totalitarian, monarchic political structure and a diverse democratic society. Each structure requires unity for the functioning and maintenance of the group, however they differ in method by demanding uniformity, a single language with one purpose versus the group in Acts is diversity of languages spoken with a common message.
‘There comes from heaven’ speaks of receptivity, gift and the posture of humility dependent as children upon their heavenly father. The different languages celebrate diversity and maintain equality each hear the message in their own tongue. In Jerusalem many nations gathered into one place to hear the universal message of the gospel. Pentecost demonstrates diversity of peoples, mutual understanding of truth and unity. The people meet in one place the Holy City of Jerusalem coming from different social economic ethnic backgrounds they respect each other’s difference and recognize a transcendent commonality is their faith and worship in God. The fire of tongues falls upon the worshipers which is the heavenly gift received. It is not a stolen gift as in the case of Prometheus who stole the fire of reason intellect and invention from Mount Olmypus. Those gathered at Pentecost are the antithesis of those who would climb mount Olympus for their individual gain by pure self-reliance, personal merit and self-righteousness. The multitude at Pentecost are pilgrims who made their journey by faith as to receive their mission humbly on a common level to extend God’s purposes horizontally across the earth.
God is mystery not an object of knowledge or a secret code to hack the mysteries of reality as in science. Scientific knowledge is concerned with how the world works, religion is concerned with why, meaning and the ethics of human action. Spiritual knowledge extends into a way of living that brings one into personal relationship the Creator. Christ and the early church initiate a tidal wave of redirecting humanity’s will back to God and tip the world upside down’.
In Genesis 11 we see the people are bound together in one uniform language with one purpose to reach heaven. In stead of receiving a gift from God the people are striving to become like God, to reach his throne and attain a universal panorama view to stand above the rest in pride. They say ‘with one language nothing will be impossible which they purpose to do”. Mankind at Babel create their own limitations, they are not searching for the truth they create it. As they are creating this tower brick by brick to transcend their own limitations. In the attempts to take God’s throne as a schemer would unjustly attempt to usurp the throne of a King. The scenario of The Tower of Babel leads to a scattering confusion unlike Pentecost that ends in a consciousness of truth and a commission of God’s purpose in the earth. In Babel the story starts in unity and ends in dispersion of people, confusion and madness. Where Acts starts with dispersion and ends in unity. At Pentecost it was preceded by dispersion a scattered people gathered drawn into one place in unity before God.
Historical Context & God’s Plan of Redemption for Israel & The Nations
Wind and fire were both elements present at Sinai where Moses gave the law. Wind the Hebrew Ruach means breath in the Greek pneuma is synonymous with God’s spirit. It is referred in the psalms ‘the winds are his messengers. Fire is symbolic of the Holy Spirit who will be the people’s comforter who will dwell in their hearts guide and instruct them. Pentecost is a collective baptism of Spirit and a picture of the New Earth a down deposit and picture of what God’s plan of redemption ‘On earth as it is in Heaven’. Jesus Kingdom is both ‘now and not yet’ the disciples as we experience the presence of God in part until we meet Christ in his second coming where he will establish a new heavens and earth where every tribe nation and tongue will declare Jesus Christ is Lord.
God chose Israel as a single locus to initiate universal redemption among mankind and thereby reversed the scattering division at Babel. At Pentecost God draws the multiplicity of different nations into one place to hear the universal message of the gospel. God chooses a particular people to extend his universal message. Rewriting the attempt of attaining the universal leading to scattered disconnected individuals. Israel is God’s stake in human history, Rabbi Abraham Heschel puts it. The chosen are for the unchosen as we are blessed to be a blessing. God’s spirit is leaven beginning in Israel spread through Jesus Christ into the yeast of the nations. It starts in Pentecost where God’s purpose in a single place simultaneously reaches all the nations. God did not intend Israel to be a final singular arrangement isolated to hoard his blessing and favor for themselves on an island. Israel is God’s particular entry point in the center of the earth to reach the entire world. Through the prophet Isaiah the Lord says, ‘Enlarge the place of your tent, stretch out the curtains of your dwelling, spare not, lengthen your chords and strengthen your chords.’
Pentecost is a fulfillment of what we read in Isaiah 60:3 it says ‘nations will come to your bright light and kings to the brightness of your rising and the wealth of the nations will come to you.” The single people of Israel open the way for the redemption of the world through the entry of Jesus Christ into time. The particular connects and contributes to the transformation of the whole world. God’s plan of redeeming mankind back to himself is not for a selected few elite individuals or a preferred ethnic group. And the mission we receive is not to remain as islands of self-gratification. For ‘the door to happiness leads outwards’, Kierkegaard tells us. In alignment with God’s design for humanity is gift, community and our purpose well described in the Hebrew is tikkun olam ‘to repair the world’. This story of salvation history that we profess to faith in which we belong as Christians is little Christ and as the early church was first referred to ‘followers of the way.’
This new order of existence in Pentecost is the reverse of Babel, what theologians have called ‘the upside down kingdom’. Christ says, ‘he who wants to be the greatest shall be the least. And ‘For the son of God came to serve not to be served’. In Philippians 2 it states ‘he being equal with God did not regard equality with God something to be grasped but emptied himself taking the form of a bond servant and being in the image likeness of men. The pattern of God condescending from the wealth prestige of heaven to dwell in the lowly creation to perform a Greek word kenosis the emptying of oneself. ‘His humiliation is his exaltation’ states theologian Karl Barth. We are called to this same pattern of living and it is the antithesis of climbing the height of Babel to build our own Kingdom. Further in Philippians we are told striving not to be greater than others but considering others more important than oneself’. The philosopher Roger Scruton wisely surmised this reality when he said , ‘All suffering comes from striving to be greater than others and consolation comes when one relaxes into something greater than oneself’, which is God the infinite whom we rest in , the very definition of faith.
A life lived according to virtue is a divine pattern in revelation and nature to outline a path for human flourishing. This new Kingdom of transferred from the darkness of Babel of competition, scarcity, win lose mentality. To the Kingdom of God as glimpsed in Pentecost we become other focused inclusive of difference. As people of faith we are citizens of heaven and recognize the image of God in humanity transcends, creed, race, ideology and political party. This new Kingdom inaugurated by Jesus Christ that is both now in the deposit of Pentecost and yet to come in its complete fulfillment of the New Heavens and Earth. The tent peg of God’s spirit from Israel and Christ will be stretched unto a new way of existence in every tribe nation and tongue who will confess Christ is Lord.
Division from Technology
One might be inclined to wonder why is this unity so important? this notion is a great ideal to aspire to yet all around us see a contrary reality. We are paradoxically the most connected and lonely society in human history. This is in part to do with social economic forces of western capitalist individualism in combination with evolution of technologies that mediate communication and set up walls of screens between people. Today there is less involvement in church, community groups, and live entertainment for the diluted compensation of Netflix, Amazon, Youtube or any other media platform. There is less face to face contact and rarely someone looks you in the eye.
Much of society is busy curating their online galleries of selfies and their attention is eclipsed by the digital mirror of themselves during facetime. We neglect ourselves and deny others the basic psychological need of attention and acknowledgement. We are absorbed into the virtual vortex creating an increasing lonely, isolated, less trusting and indifferent society. This is why the picture of Pentecost community is so important, it is a model for being unified across difference and directed towards a transcendent goal. As my former Pastor and the pioneer of Alpha would often say, ‘What unites us in Christ is infinitely greater than what divides us.’ In Christ we discover a noble purpose for the good of self and community is the first step toward repairing the world.
Before we take out the speck in our brother’s eye outside the church we must look inside toward ourselves. In the Protestant Church we have upwards of 33,000 denominations. Many are wrapped up and divided by the slightest nuances of theological doctrines, political correctness and social issues neglecting the commandments to love our enemies, neighbors and to deny ourselves, to give to those in need, visit widows and take care of orphans. It is convicting but necessary reminder to recall the Apostle John when he said ‘for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has seen’ (1 John 4:20).
We must overcome disunity in the church recognize our higher allegiance to love supersedes doctrine, denomination, political affiliation and stances on social issues. We must focus on the purpose we have been given to be instruments of peace and to seek to understand as St. Francis outlined. The consequence of further disunity is to undermine the very work for which we are called to and to sever the branch we are perched.
Unity in Nature
I’d like to turn to a domain outside of Revelation in the Scriptures into nature where we find mirrors of truth we see in Pentecost. In nature we can see this pattern of unity in diversity affirmed in recent scientific research that has uncovered the relational organization of forests as an interdependent network of trees sometimes referred to the ‘wood wide web’. Forester Peter Wohlleben has spent twenty years of forestry research with scientific investigation and close observational studies of German forests found trees are connected in their root systems for up to 200 miles, like a forest type of internet. Wohlleben notes in a chapter entitled Friendships that he discovered a stump of a tree in a beech forest that was surrounded by nearby beech trees was being pumped nutrients through their root system to keep the stump alive. ‘Scientists in Harz mountains in Germany discovered this case of interdependence. It appears that nutrient exchange helps neighbors in times of need is the rule and led to the conclusion forests are superorganisms with interconnections.
‘On its own a tree can establish consistent local climate in this protected environment trees can live to be very old. If every tree only looked out for itself then quite a few of them would not reach a very old age. Gaps in canopees allow for storms to get in and uproot trees. ‘Every tree is valuable to the community to keep around as long as possible like the herd they look after their own, take care of the sick and weak back onto their feet. The average tree grows its branches until it encounters the branch tips of a neighbor with the same height. ‘A pair of true friends is careful not to grow overly thick in each other’s direction. They don’t want to take anything from each other. Such partnerships are so tightly connected at the roots they will die together.”
This research is astonishing and endless in its analogies for the development collaboration for flourishing as groups in church, culture and a political system. To preserve difference, interact cooperate take care of one another respect protect the development of each and work for the good of the whole. This is an ideal worth aspiring to mirrored the early church an ideal and written in the book of nature. God’s blueprint for humanity champions difference, support the whole toward our divine goal who shall along the way mend together in eternal communion. The glimpses we find in scripture and nature show us this reality is possible and happened. In close I’d like to take us to where we began on unity and multiplicity in nature before we arrive home to our final conclusion.
Babel Minded versus Mysticism
In the tower of Babel we see a psychological syndrome of what G.K. Chesterton diagnosed the modern scientific minded is the madman and not the poet. ‘Poetry is sane because it floats on an infinite sea, reason seeks to cross the infinite sea and make it finite.” Those building the tower of Babel seek the view of the infinite to hack the earth’s codes to capture the absolute point of view of knowledge of the universe within and comprehend it with a finite mind. Whereas, ‘The poet get’s his head into heavens the logician seeks to get the heavens into his head and it splits.’ The same outcome of the tower of Babel that ends in dispersion, a collective split. The builders attempted this same knowledge to effectively capture the tower of Babel in one’s mind and this brings about modern madness. The bridge of what we cannot grasp by reason, we walk by faith and receive the gifts of heavenly fire to unite the world. Unlike the kingdom of the world who will grasp, strive compete for what is unattainable that leads to the head split of madness and division.
Chesterton states the antidote to this madness is mysticism, ‘The whole secret of mysticism is man can understand everything by the help of what he does not understand.’ This is the necessity of faith and mysticism it keeps one sane for their soberly recognize the gift of limitation. That there is an infinite qualitative distinction between God and man. To attempt to bridge that gap on one’s own is an unnatural and impossible stretch of one’s being. God is mystery, and like the sun we see it know its there for it’ light gives perception to our senses and the clarity to navigate our direction. We do not directly behold the sun for its radiant glow is to bright and perfect. This led C.S. Lewis to beautifully summarize, ‘I believe in Christianity as I believe the sun has risen, not only because I see it but because by it I see everything else.’
A Picture of Community:
I’d like to approach our close with an example of a community who is living this reality of unity, simplicity and peace that is a small monastic order of brothers called Taize started by Brother Roger in the 1940s who first offered asylum to jews hiding and refugees. Their mission is to offer Christian hospitality to anyone who shows up, reconcile division within the church, bring peace to the world by living a communal life of prayer, simplicity and trust. Taize is a contemporary flicker of the flame first ignited at Pentecost. Everyday, the Taize brothers sing Gregorian chants of simple and illuminating prayers in numerous languages of Latin, German English, French, Hebrew. The songs are simple cyclical meditations deepen one’s roots in attachments to God. Thousands of young people from all over the world especially from Europe come to Taize for the sense of warmth, belonging care safety, evidence of love mutual cooperation and common mission of charity. Each service comprises of about 30-40 minutes with songs, a scripture reading and a ten minute meditation in silence.
The brothers of Taize are a light shining on the hill for the world weary in exile, discouragement, stress and the disorienting trials of life. Taize is a spiritual well in which brothers united in prayer given to a life of sowing unity, simplicity, trust and love ripples into the lives of those who witness this harmonious community such as myself affected to this day. For myself this was a encouraging to see the love of God transcends finite boundaries of political parties or denominations that choke the spirit of unity especially in the united states. Their power is listening. I’d like to end here with an excerpt from Brother Roger the founder of Taize who states ‘His Love Is A Fire’ this fire is the gift of God received by the apostles at Pentecost it is not the fire of reason in the story of Prometheus to scientifically solve the riddles of the universe. St. Thomas tells us ‘love is more unitive than cognition.’ For this reason, the fire of Pentecost is faith and the gift of the Holy Spirit that empowers us as the Apostles to spread the light of God’s love into the darkness of the earth.
Let us conclude with a story from brother Roger entitled, ‘His Love is A Fire’
‘Every human being yearns to love and be loved. But the question remains: why are some people aware that they are loved while others are not? When we are listened to, wounds from a recent or distant past find relief. This can be the beginning of a healing of the soul.
Listen in others to what makes them feel bad about themselves. Try to understand what lies beneath their hearts. And little by little, even in a ground ploughed up by trials, God’s hope can be sensed, or at least a fine human hope. It happens that when we accompany another person, the one who listens is led to the essential themselves, although the other may be unaware of it.
Listen and keep on listening… Those who make use of their intuition throughout their lifetime become able to understand almost without words those who come with something to confide. Listening in this way can contribute to a very broad vision of human beings, inhabited by both fragility and radiance, by fullness and the void.
Some years ago I met with a young priest from Italy everyday for a week. In him I saw close at hand Christ’s holiness in a human being. At times I could not say anything but ‘Dare to weep!’ Once I even took a handkerchief from my pocket for him.
Weep, because it is not possible to bear alone in stone silence, the struggle he had to wage.
Face to face with him, I could touch on what it can mean for a person to be abandoned. There exist people of silence who radiate communion.
As the days went by, the face of Christ appeared in that man so harrowed by his struggles. The depth of his gaze could conceal nothing of his successive ordeals. He brought me into the heart of one of the greatest mysteries- the gift of one’s entire existence for love.’
Amen.