Sun Oct 7: Sermon - 'Building projects'

READINGS: Psalm 49:1-13,16-20; Genesis 11:1-9

SERMON ‘Building projects’
Let’s pray: May the words of my mouth and the thoughts of all our hearts
be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our strength and our Redeemer. Amen

Three words:
permanence;
power;
pride.

The first word:
Permanence.
Occasionally, in game shows or pub quizzes,
you might get asked to name popular songs that use a question for the title of a song.
And, putting you on the spot a little, sorry,
I’m wondering if anyone can think of one such song?
A song that uses a question for its title?
This is usually where I go blank...

Having done a quick check on the interwebz,
I was actually surprised at just how many there are out there –
There’s songs that ask for directions:
‘Where do the children play?’
‘Do you know the way to San Jose?’
and that old favourite –
‘Is this the way to Amarillo?’
There are songs about time:
‘Does anybody really know what time it is?’
‘How soon is now?’
‘How long has this been going on?’
There are songs about the weather that would have made even Noah proud:
this one before the Flood –
‘Have you ever seen the rain?’ 
and this one mid-Flood –
‘Who’ll stop the rain?’ 
Actually, both songs by the same group –
clearly a little rain anxiety there.
And, thinking of our friend, Noah, there are songs that ask questions about animals:
‘Who let the dogs out?’
‘How much is that doggie in the window?’
and ‘What’s new, pussycat?’ 
...although that last one might just be a stretch.
Many of the songs asking questions are ones invariably involving matters
of the heart - too many to mention.
And then, well, then, there’s Queen’s brilliant song,
wondering about permanence and impermanence –
a big life question sung with soaring, passionate, vocal intensity
by the late Freddy Mercury:
‘Who wants... to live ...forever?’
Permanence.

After the Flood, God asks that Noah and his descendants ‘go forth, be fruitful, and multiply.’
It’s the same command given way back in the Garden to Adam and Eve.
Humans are called to go out into the world –
every corner, every nook and cranny of it.
God has given the run of the world to explore,
to play in,
to inhabit.
In the giving is also the gifting of the creation itself:
placed in human hands to tend –
and to make use of for food when needed.
Several generations after Noah, after God’s call to scatter, we find many more humans:
they have indeed been fruitful and multiplied.
And we find them...
not scattered,
but hunkered down together in a place called Shinar –
roughly around the area of Tigris and Euphrates rivers –
for us, that’s in modern-day Iraq.
There they are.
And there, they’re determined to stay.
Strength in numbers.
A permanent place to call ‘home’,
to settle, to be comfortable in.
But, as they gather more things:
the latest model plough,
furnishings to make the house feel cosy,
maybe the occasional luxury item...
well, there’s the growing sense that all this treasure they’re gathering will need protected.
They want to be safe.
They want their stuff to be safe.
And that’s fine.
But along with the house and the various items they gather,
they know that life won’t go on forever –
that life is fragile,
impermanent.
The want a sense of permanence in an impermanent world.
They gather together and come up with a plan:
‘let’s build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens,’ –
and listen carefully to the reason why –
‘so that we may make a name for ourselves 
and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth.’

Permanence.
They know that at some point, each one of them will die.
They hope that they don’t slip unnoticed from the pages of history, however:
they want to build a monument that they hope will stand forever –
want to leave a legacy for all future generations to see,
and to understand, just how great these ancestors were.
If they can’t be immortal, at least their names will live forever –
‘Who wants to live forever?’
They do, and this tower is their way of trying to do it.

This is a plan that is hugely ambitious in scale.
This tower will be the biggest,
the brightest,
the best.
But it’s a plan that has at its foundation...
fear:
the fear of being forgotten, of fading away;
the fear of being insignificant,
of their lives not really adding up to much in the great scheme of history.
Putting their plan into action, harnessing the latest technology:
making bricks instead of using stone,
tar instead of mortar,
the building begins to rise from the ground – higher, and higher.
This tower will make a statement about them indeed...

But a tower is quite a specific building.
Has quite particular purposes:
A tower is also a place of safety;
it’s secure – a stronghold.
From atop a tower, you can see your enemies coming;
when all else falls, a tower is the last place standing – your ultimate refuge;
it’s the best place to keep your treasure secure because it’s the best place to defend yourself.
What statement does a tower make?
It’s a show of strength to enemies.
But, who are our builders afraid of?
They are one people, united in a common language,
made stewards of the earth –
in which everything has been given over to them.
There are no enemies out there.
Again we see fear as a foundation for building:
fear of premature death,
fear of losing what they’ve gathered over the years.
But, a strange fear, this, that looks for enemies and finds them,
even though they have no natural enemies at this point.
Perhaps another fear at play here, too:
fear of being dependant - for, if they build the tower, they can look after themselves –
which leads us nicely to the second word.

Power.
While they are powerful –
as evidenced by their building project,
they are no where near as powerful as God.
Why don’t they scatter?
Because there’s strength in numbers –
it’s using their combined strength that makes them powerful –
but in choosing to build the tower they use their power unwisely.
Here we have a snapshot of a whole society caught up in using their power
incorrectly, for the focus is wrong –
instead of putting their trust in God, they put their trust in themselves.
While they will be the first group of people to use their strength in numbers for
wrong reasons, they will definitely not be the last –
as evidenced by other monuments left by groups who
used their power to take power from others –
from crumbling slave plantations in the Deep South of the United States,
through to the barbed wire, barracks, and gas chambers of Belsen, and Auschwitz.
The tower of Babel is an attempt by its builders, to demonstrate that like God,
they, too are creative, and creators;
that they, too, are powerful;
that they, too, are, in their own way, indestructible.
They don’t want to be runner-up to God –
they want to be the biggest, the best...
Their drive for significance could be seen as a sign of a
deep-seated desire to ditch God, perhaps even replace God:
to be worshipped as gods by their descendants, a little further down the track.
The tower is a monument showing that they will do anything for power,
even compromise their very souls;
a monument suggesting – stating - that they are worthy of being worshipped...
which leads us to that third little word.

Pride.
Here, we need to ask some questions.
First: is there anything wrong with building a tower?
Well, no, not necessarily.
God isn’t anti-skyscraper –
remember, while the story of God’s relationship with human beings begins in a garden,
it ends with the heavenly city coming down to earth where God will dwell with all people.
Second: is there anything wrong with working together to achieve a common goal?
Actually, many places elsewhere in the Bible applaud it:
Jesus even prays that his followers are united in mind and purpose,
in the prayer recorded in John chapter 17.
Third: is there anything wrong with wanting to work to the best of your ability –
to stretch yourself, and set challenges?
Well, again, not necessarily.
What’s wrong is the motive behind what’s being done.
In the case of the Tower of Babel, the motive here is totally self-focused:
all their creativity and vision,
all their energy and passion,
everything they have,
is expended and extended on a project that’s for their sole benefit.
They’re focused upon their own achievements, their own satisfaction.
They want to make a name for themselves:
the tower is a ‘hey, look how at awesome we are’ monument –
a monument to themselves:
in essence, they’re putting themselves up on a pedestal
and, my word, they’re liking what they see taking shape.
But the plan goes against everything that they’re created for:
to scatter and to tend the earth.
And, from solely practical level, by staying in the one place,
they’ll very soon effectively deplete all the resources around them.
Scattering leaves a lighter footprint on the world.
Their pride will destroy them –
feeding on their own ego may lead to their actual starvation.

Permanence.
Power.
Pride.

While the story of Babel may at one level be a way of explaining why
human beings don’t all speak the same language,
at heart, it’s an odd story of a rescue.
Often, the scattering is seen as a punishment:
God slapping the humans back down for stepping out of their allotted place.
I wonder, though, if the scattering is more a sign of God’s mercy and grace at work.
God, once again rescuing humans from their very selves
and that habit for self-destructive behaviour?
God, once again reminding humans about what foundations
are best to build their own lives on.
The builders of Babel wanted to leave a legacy, and they did –
the world ‘Babel’ when translated means ‘confusion.’
They’re remembered for the greatness, sure,
but it’s the greatness of their folly, of their pride:
not for their mighty monumental building,
but for their monumental mistake in building upon the wrong foundations.

Over these last weeks, we’ve heard different stories about choices made.
Here again, we see choice at work –
where you choose to put your focus, your energies;
how you live your life and make it count;
and where you find meaning in it.
The builders of Babel chose to focus on themselves,
to trust in themselves,
their own strength,
to find their security in a tower –
and to hunker in there and stay safe from non-existent enemies:
to be an embattled community.
But we were created to be an emboldened community –
made to walk through this world with God by our side as friend, as companion –
to put our trust in him.
We have no need of bricks or tar to build a tower:
he is our strength,
our strong, high tower –
he is our security.
He is also the God who is One, yet Three –
the God of unity and diversity.
The God who calls us to be his people –
not as clones, but in all our marvellous, weird and wonderful difference.
It’s in God, where we find our unity.

‘Who wants to live forever?’ sang Freddy Mercury.
The tower builders wanted to leave behind a legacy.
But, what legacy do we want to leave behind?
Confusion and chaos,
or, kindness and care?
In Queen’s song, a song reflecting upon the impermanence of life,
permanence is eventually found –
not in the bricks and mortar of stuff,
but in the intangible, impossible power of love.
It is love that lasts forever because God is love –
God is the one from whom all love comes.
In the words of a prayer from the Scottish Episcopal communion liturgy:
‘God is love,
and we are his people:
there is no room for fear in love.
We love because God loved us first.’
In God, we find our permanence,
our power,
and can let go of our pride –
for he is our foundation,
and grounded upon that foundation,
we work together with our many gifts, in our many ways,
all one body in Christ,
and leave a legacy of love.  Amen