I attended private schools and often I heard about “Back East”– a place where many of the schools’ families had once lived. This legendary region was reputed to be our nation’s epicenter of high culture, intellectual superiority, and important opportunities. Not pausing to wonder why those advocating for its virtues were now living happily in the wild west, I became a believer. After my college graduation, in 1986 the Denver economy was on the skids and, with the curiosity, confidence, and naive desperation of youth, I decided to move to Boston. Acting on impulse, short on funds, and believing there was nothing to lose, I plunged into a world of pride, competition, and insularity. In 1620, John Winthrop had described Boston as a “City on a Hill”. As far as I could tell, 1980’s Boston was built on a hill of idolatry. Thomas Hobbes’ description of man’s natural condition before laws were established seemed more accurate: “ [C]ontinuall feare, and danger of violent death; And the life of man, solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and short.”
My instinct to look for opportunities in a city – and discovery of a world of chaos – was not novel. The search for an earthly city where human flourishing can reign goes back to Genesis chapter 11. Here, the people of the world decide to build a tower:
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 tar for mortar. Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth.” Genesis 11:1-4
The chapter goes on to say that God puts a stop to their effort by confusing their language. The place is called Babel, and it is forerunner of the archetypical city built on idolatry, Babylon:
…. Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.” So the Lord scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city. That is why it was called Babel—because there the Lord confused the language of the whole world. Genesis 11:5-9
Verses 6-7 are puzzling:
The LORD said, “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.” Genesis 11:6-7
Is God frightened that human achievement will surpass His own? That humans will successfully find their own salvation apart from Him?
Actually, God knows that judgement, competition, and transactional ruthlessness will thrive in a world independent of His guidance. He created us to be His masterpieces, but knows we will be distorted, undermined, and broken in such a place. Adrift without God’s anchoring and hardened by success, people fall prey to idols and build destructive systems. God made us in His image, but we crave the affirmation that comes from accomplishment. Trusting a God we can’t see and obeying His ways is a long process that requires discipline. Creating a place where man is the center and where a common language takes the place of prayer seems to be a wonderful substitute. This is an illusion..
When we push away idols and build our identity in God, we will be blessed and bless others. God loves us and His plan is to transform us, made in His image, into the likeness of Jesus. We need to be patient, knowing He will provide and shape and equip us:
For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. Ephesians 2:10
I Am Your Beloved (Lyric Video) – Bethel Music, Jonathan David Helser, Melissa Helser
by Sherry Sommer
