Image: 14th century manuscript, East Anglia
The story of Babel is one of the stranger ones in the Bible. It appears in the middle of two lengthy genealogies, which list Noah’s descendants and their repopulation of the earth. It is the last time God deals with all humanity directly in the Old Testament (setting aside the prophetic passages about the nations). From here, God focuses on one man and his family—Abraham—who will carry God’s promises of life and blessing to the world. And the telling is odd, with sparse, repetitive phrases. A united humanity uses a massive building project to generate fame, so that they won’t be scattered abroad. God, for God’s part, seems awfully concerned about the efforts of a group of puny mortals, warning, “Nothing they propose to do will be impossible for them.” S0, God scatters a united humanity by confusing their speech.
Now, you can read this story in a lot of different ways. You can read it as a cautionary tale against pride and overambition. You can read it as a story that explains the diversity of human language and tribes. The story can function as a stepping stone from Noah to Abraham. Or it could be a dig at the old Babylonian Empire—the one under Hammurabi—and their outsize cultural influence in the Ancient Near East. But perhaps we can read this story as another example of the cycle of sin.
There are some strange commonalities between this story and the story of the first sin in Genesis 3. We know that story so well, we can probably recite it in our sleep! The serpent engages Eve in a theological conversation: “Did God say you shall not eat from any tree in the garden?” After Eve responds with a stricter restatement of the original commandment (she adds “nor shall you touch it”), the serpent says, “God knows that when you eat it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” We have a united humanity here too, who want to take hold of something that will make them like God. In the Garden, it is the fruit that makes one wise. In Babel, it is the heavenly tower that will make them famous.
But there’s an element of fear behind the ambition of Babel’s denizens. They don’t want to be scattered. They don’t want to be lost to history. Greatness, they think, is the way to ward off not just irrelevance, but annihilation.
That fear is behind the ambitions of every empire through history. Every great power wants to be like God. Egyptian pharaohs and Babylonian kings claimed to be divine. Alexander the Great believed he was the son of Zeus. Roman emperors were divinized regularly. And there are contemporary world leaders who also act as if they were God. But, if we’re honest with ourselves, we’ll know that desire begins not in the great halls of power, but within the human heart. Now, we live in Minnesota, where having such ambitions is not generally considered polite! Long before it became a political insult, “special snowflake” was used around here as a term of derision for someone who thought they were better than anyone else. (I heard it plenty of times growing up—don’t ask me why!) There’s also that old favorite, “Someone’s getting too big for their britches!” If we have such ambitions, we are often loathe to own up to them.
But we have them. And we can especially have them on behalf of others: a nation, a leader, a child, even a congregation. We idolize someone or something else all too easily. And God does what God eventually does with all idols, including the great tower of Babel. Sooner or later, our illusion is shattered.
But God doesn’t shatter our pride, illusions, or idols because God is threatened. God does that because God wants real relationship with us. God also wants the people to have real relationships with each other.
Fast forward a few millennia. The day of Pentecost has arrived in Jerusalem, some fifty days after Jesus was killed and raised. This feast is one of the great pilgrimage feasts, which celebrated not only the wheat harvest, but also marks the giving of the Torah, God’s teaching. On Sinai, God communicated God’s laws in a way that could be understood by everyone. What happens on Pentecost is the fulfillment of God’s teaching. It is also the redemption of what happens at Babel. Out of the scattering of Babel comes the gathering of the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit descends on this small group of Galileans, who only speak one language (maybe two if you count pidgin Greek). And when this happens, they speak of God’s acts of power in language accessible to all the pilgrims present, from all corners of the Empire. There is no return to one holy, universal language. No, God is not going to straightjacket all diversity into a bland, boring sameness. Just as a good father or mother will try to communicate in a way their child can understand, God communicates with us as a good Father.
And even though they hear plainly, there is still some interpretation needed. And Peter provides it. God will pour out his Holy Spirit on all flesh—all people. Just as God scattered the peoples of the world, God gathers the people of the world through Jesus Christ, who draws all people to himself by his cross. In his humiliation and death, Jesus reveals the God of all creation more clearly than anything else could. And through him, God gives the Holy Spirit, which makes us all one—not in our supposed greatness, not in our ambitions, but in Christ alone.
And by this, we know that we are not God; that we cannot be God. But we are called to follow Jesus by the power of that same Spirit. And that following is marked by humility. By taking up the right amount of space in the world. By trust. And especially by love, mercy, and peace. Amen.
© 2025, David M. Fleener. Permission granted to copy and adapt original material herein for non-commercial purposes with appropriate credit given.