Genesis 10:32-11:9
Psalm 2

Brothers and Sisters in Christ, grace to you and peace from our Creator God, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Let us pray …

Please open your Bibles to Genesis, the end of chapter 10.  We have moved through the flood and seen how it runs parallel to the story of creation in many ways.  We have a new creation – a new start – after Noah and his family emerge from the ark.

Do you recall the first thing that follows the creation story?  It is the fall of humanity into sin, and we get that same thing after the flood.  Last week we heard about Noah getting drunk and apparently acting in shameful ways – which his son Ham witnessed.

And then in Chapter 11, verse 4, we have all of humanity working together to build a city and a tower.  This is no small city.  It is a city that will make a name for the people – bring them glory and honor.  And this is not just any, ordinary tower.  This is a tower that will stretch all the way up to heaven – a temple really, a way to reach up to heaven, a way built by human hands.  Their goals are to be powerful, to be known world-wide, and to have influence all the way to heaven!

Once again, we see humanity trying to become like God.  It seems to be a perpetual problem for humans – they want to be their own gods, rather than following the one true God – they want to claim power or glory or wisdom or whatever else seems so appealing … they want to claim it for themselves, rather than giving the credit and the glory to God.

The last time this happened, humans were banned from the Garden of Eden – when they rebelled against God, they lost many of the blessings that had been given to them during creation.  Death and destruction came into the world because of the first recorded rebellion against God.

This time, we see that the result is a scattering of the nations.  Rivalries between nations began with the descendents of Shem, Ham and Japheth – Canaan became an enemy of his cousins.  These rivalries are solidified as the nations develop their own languages and spread throughout the world.

It seems that humanity has not learned from past mistakes.  Humans seem to think that if they work hard enough, they can indeed become like God.  And they set their priorities in order to gain all the glory that they can before they die.

We no longer believe that we can build a structure tall enough to physically reach heaven.  However, we may do things that seek to take the glory and honor away from God and place it upon ourselves.

International politics are often based on being sure that no other country sees our country as weak – and this applies to many nations, including the United States.  When good things happen, national leaders want to claim the credit.  When bad things happen, those same national leaders want to pass the blame along to someone else.  Nations rise up against nations – when they feel that their way of doing things is right and others are wrong, when they feel that what is important to themselves is not being honored by other nations, when they feel that some other country is receiving special or privileged treatment in the midst of international negotiations.

Nations are rivals, just as we see in the story of Noah’s descendents and the people of Babel.

States, counties, cities, ethnic groups – even within church bodies such as the ELCA – no matter what community we look into, we see that humans want to gain power for “their side” and to be sure that “the other side” doesn’t gain in stature or influence.

Whenever we become rivals, whenever we choose sides, whenever we claim glory or honor, we show that our goals are like those of the people of Babel.  We have already begun to walk down the path toward claiming divine privileges or pretending to be God.  After all, Genesis chapter 1 reminds us that ALL humans are created in God’s image – NO human has power or privilege over another.  Only God the Creator can claim such glory and power.

The Rev. Mark Hanson, Presiding Bishop of the ELCA, expressed similar ideas in his letter of greeting for All Saints Day.  
He writes …
On this All Saints Day we remember the saints who have gone before us and give thanks for their lives of faith and commitment.  I particularly ask you to join me in giving thanks for all whose faith has led them to take a stand on civil rights, including Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Jr., and the thousands of others, including many clergy and lay leaders in this church, who risked and sacrificed because of their belief that all people are made in God's image.

As presiding bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), I am deeply troubled by the number of incidents in the last three years that involve symbols and acts of racial hatred.  I write to you today with grave concern about the "spiritual crisis concerning race relations" that we continue to experience in this country.  This spiritual crisis affects both church and society and calls us to respond with the [same] urgency and strength as those who have gone before us.  As the ELCA social statement, "Freed in Christ: Race, Ethnicity, and Culture," says, "We are torn between becoming the people God calls us to be and remaining the people we are, barricaded behind old walls of hostility." …
     On this All Saints Day, "Therefore, we confess our sinfulness.  Because we are sinners as well as saints, we rebuild walls broken down by Christ.  We fall back into enslaving patterns of injustice.  We betray the truth that sets us free.  Because we are saints as well as sinners, we reach for the freedom that is ours in Christ.”

Bishop Hanson reminds us that we humans continue to build walls that resemble the walls in the Tower of Babel.  We are sinners who continue to set ourselves above others.

Hear again the words in Genesis 11:4.  “The people said, ‘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.’”

Let us claim the power and the glory.  Let us assure that we will be known and respected.  Let us stake our claims to this place, because it is OURS.  Their goals in building the city and the tower are very different from God’s goals in creating the world.

And notice that the result of their efforts is exactly what they are trying to prevent.  They don’t want to be scattered abroad, they want to claim a part of creation as their very own.  And in verse 9, we see that their efforts to rise in glory and power and their claims to be owners of God’s creation result in EXACTLY what they feared … The Lord scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth.

[pause]

Today’s lesson for us is that we need to be careful when we set our goals.  We need to be aware of God’s goals and God’s values as we set goals for our future.  We need to pay attention to our planning, so that we don’t wind up claiming power and glory and honor that is not ours to claim.  We need to give glory and honor to God – recognizing that we are made in God’s image … SAINTS … and yet we are sinners, too.

The Tower of Babel reminds us of the terrible tragedy that comes out of human efforts to climb our way into heaven.

The Good News is that God can and does reverse that tragedy through the power of the Holy Spirit.  As on the Day of Pentecost when peoples of all nations heard the apostles speaking each in their own native tongue, God still has the power to change sinners into saints.

All praise and glory and honor be to God.

Amen.