Pentecost (C)

June 4, 1995

Living in a Fragmented World

(Genesis 11:1-9)

This story brings us to the place where God's plan of redemption begins with the call of Abraham. It's a beginning-again story. Genesis 1 and 2 tells of the beginning of everything. After the flood, we have a beginning-again of humankind. Now, we have a different kind of beginning, in the scattering.

On the surface, the story sounds as if it were an explanation of how we obtained languages. If you listen to it literally, it sounds as if God is the source of confusion in the world. But the truth is, the story attempts to deal with the theology of why the world is divided. Why are we so fragmented? Why is it so difficult for us to communicate with each other?

When you read the story like this where people can't understand each other any more and they drift apart, we think how difficult it is to communicate in our world. When you are in another country, where English is not the language spoken, just getting along is difficult and frustrating. The truth is that even when everybody speaks English but cultures are different, communication is also hard.

In 1990 the New York Times bestseller list contained a book titled You Just Don't Understand, written by Deborah Tannin. The basic tenet is that men and women communicate differently. Very often a man and a woman can be talking to each other but they come from such different perspectives that neither really understands the other. We didn't need this book to tell us that often in the family, where there is the greatest amount of knowledge and love, communication is difficult between parents and children, children and children, between us and our parents, or between us and our spouses.

This story from Genesis seeks to answer what is the ultimate source of confusion and division in the world. On the surface it looks as though God caused the confusion but if you read chapter 10 there were already different languages. Obviously, the story wasn't put there to say, "The reason we are so divided, and so fragmented, is God was jealous and He was afraid we would be God so He did this to us." That's not it. This is the story of what happens when a person or a people turn their backs on God and try in their own human efforts to achieve the building of a city, building of a life, or the building of a church. There are insights which could be helpful to you and me as we try to communicate and try to live in a fragmented world.

One of the interesting points is the fragmentation took place in the context of religion. We assume religion unifies or religion pulls us together. But this story is in a religious context.

We need some Babylonian background to understand the story. This event took place in what is today Iraq. Here were a people who wanted to make a name for themselves. They were interested in status, in security, and wanted an identity even if it didn't relate to God. A lot of us are like that. They thought this could be accomplished by building a massive project. They were going to build a great city and a great tower that would go up to heaven.