Salem Evangelical Lutheran Church

Dear Friends in Christ Jesus,

            When I was in high school I learned a poem, “Latin is a dead, dead language, it is dead as it can be, first it killed the Romans, and now it’s killing me.”   Learning another language is indeed challenging! It forces you to know your own language and then how to think and express yourself correctly in another language.  Of course the problems are when you can totally embarrass yourself when you pick the wrong word or put the accent the wrong syllable.  Knowing another language can build fantastic bridges; not knowing a language can totally separate and isolate a person.  Nothing can make one feel more all alone when you cannot make yourself understood.  I’ll never forget when traveling we thought we ordered vegetables and ended up getting pickled chicken toes.  The hazards of not knowing a language.  The greater hazard of not knowing a language is not knowing the God who has confused all the languages and our relationship with him.  The heavens declare the glory of God, the skies his handiwork.  But in our text mankind’s focus is not on God, but making a name for themselves.  On this Pentecost Sunday may we focus on reversing the story of the Tower of Babel and “Make a Name for Our God.”

As our text opens we are a few generations following Noah’s flood.  The best figuring on the location of our text is by the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, near what would be Baghdad today.  At this time there was one common language.  They had a special plan. "Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth."  Do you hear pride speaking?  What was the focus and purpose of their lives?  They wanted to be the greatest, the most important, people everybody else would look up to. 

This was another issue that God had to confront.  "Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth."  They did not want to be scattered.  They wanted to stay as one close knit group of their own kind of people.  This however was in direct defiance of the command of the Lord, their God.  When Noah got out of the ark, (Gen 9:1 NIV)  Then God blessed Noah and his sons, saying to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the earth.  Not only was their motivation wrong, they even decided not to comply with the commands and directions of the Lord himself. 

            What has happened to God!  In the beginning God was supreme and man was totally dependent on God.  Man recognized God’s absolute authority.  The rejection of God’s absolute authority followed.  Remember the question, “Did God really say…”  Next was followed with the questioning of the very existence of God and people did not know if there was a god.  Finally the fool had said in his heart, there is no God and we have the denial of the existence of God.  But what was to replace God, none other than man himself.  “You shall be as gods.”  Now man is the center of life itself and God is out of the picture.  A number of years ago there was a manifesto that stated, “we find insufficient evidence for the existence of a supernatural; it is either meaningless or irrelevant to the question of the survival and fulfillment of the human race.  As non-theists we begin with humans and not god.  Secondly promises of immortal salvation or fear of eternal damnation are both illusory and harmful.  There is no credible evidence that life survives the death of the body.  Humans are responsible for what we are or will become.  No deity will save us: we must save ourselves.”  “Come; let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves.” 

            How about today we change the message, come let us build ourselves a church that reaches to the heavens that we may make a name for ourselves.  Who is the focus of the worship life of the church?  Do people come to worship God or themselves?  Do people come to church to hear what God says or what they want to hear?  Do people want something that feels good, so that they can be lifted up in their own way, such that they can stand in church and say, God I thank thee that I am not like other people.  Human pride can build a tower higher than the tower of Babel, dedicated to self, to impress others.

            Another side to this whole story is when we look at our own personal lives, our own families and our own purpose in this world.  Is our life self focused, self serving?  Or is our lives as the Apostle Paul would describe…I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received.  Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love.  Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.

Confession

But the LORD came down to see the city and the tower that the men were building.  Was it too small to be seen from the heavens?  Is there irony in the words of Scripture?  Did God need a telescope in heaven to look down on mankind and wonder, what is that little thing they are trying to make?  Man thought it would be so great, but God could hardly see it. 

            So where do we find the love of God!  You do not find the grace, mercy or peace of God in this story until you realize…God did not destroy them.  He confused their languages, but did not wipe them from the face of the earth.  One of these families would end up being the family God would chose to bring forth the Savior of the world, the family of Abram, Abraham, from the city not far from Babel, the city of Ur of Chaldees. 

            In world that the people are self centered, self focused and self serving, what can God do that he gets the praise, honor and glory that belongs to him?  He has to tear down towers of pride and idols of self and make a new building.  This is the work of the Holy Spirit.  On this Sunday when the Christian church marks the 50^th day after Easter, the festival of Pentecost we find the amazing reversal of the Tower of Babel: (Acts 2:6,11 NIV)  When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard them speaking in his own language--we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!"  When the people reflected on what God had been doing they were shocked about their own relationship with Jesus whom they had crucified.  They asked, “What shall we do?”  Then they heard the story of repentance, faith and baptism.  Jesus then got the glory and the birthday of the Christian church was started.  Three thousand baptized Christians were added that day. 

            Last Sunday at confirmation we heard the class confess their faith.  We added them to the communicant membership of Salem.  But when they first were brought to know Jesus they were made part of the most important building project of the Lord, The Holy Christian Church.  Writing about the Holy Christian Church Paul states, (Eph 2:21-22 NIV)  In him(Christ) the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. {22} And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit. The tower of Babel was an effort of man to praise self. On this mother’s day do you pick a card that says what a good child you are or if you get one for your wife, the mother of your children, does it say what a great husband you are on this mother’s day?  Should not the attention be towards mothers?   When we end up praising Jesus as our Lord and Savior, there is no room for human pride.  When we know that no one can say Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit we realize our salvation, our faith all are to the credit of God.  There is no room for human pride; our God gets all the glory.  Amen.