Blah, Blah, Blah – How the Bullheaded Beginning Babylonian Braggarts’ Baked Brick Building Birthed Babble

Date: October 3, 2021

Audience: Grass Valley Corps

Title: Blah, Blah, Blah – How the Bullheaded Beginning Babylonian Braggarts’ Baked Brick Building Birthed Babble

Scripture: Genesis 11:1-9

Proposition: The people of God are called to obedience

Purpose:

Grace and peace to you all this morning. I want to let you know right up front that I’ll be preaching today’s sermon wrong. Well, hopefully not WRONG per se, but wrong from an academic presentation standpoint. Usually, I write to a framework of some sort, but not today.

I’m not really giving up any deep secrets of the craft here but let me pull back the curtain around sermon writing just a bit. Good teachers will hopefully have spent some time with God, planning out what they will be teaching about, whether it’s a certain topic or a passage of scripture or a freestyle rant about whatever it is their particular bent or inspiration or peeve may be.

Hopefully that choice of subject matter will be followed by a time of in-depth study. For me, the study is essential, because I take pride in being a careful and accurate researcher who can dig up something new for my audience – that’s you – to hear about anything I’m preaching.

Once the studying is done, a preacher will normally select one of many styles of presenting that information to their congregation. There are easily a dozen main formats which are commonly used to build a sermon, and there are three that I particularly rely on, one of which is definitely my favorite. They all have names but even if you’re a seminary student or another preacher those don’t really matter. They are simply different methods of getting the information from the scriptures out of the Bible and into your heads so that you understand the importance of growing closer to God and hopefully will have learned how you can do that.

Selecting a style can affect how the message gets preached, because some styles lend themselves to more exhortation while others may be prone to quieter, more introspective messages which lie down in your soul and take root slowly.

That means that as the preacher puts pieces of a message onto their framework, she or he knows what they will sound like, and that helps them to choose the words and illustrations which tie them together. For most of us, this is where the art comes in.

Parts of the job of writing a sermon seem very mechanical at times. It’s like using bricks to build a staircase. You can just pile them up until they reach the height you are building to, but by themselves they aren’t very stable, and any little imperfection will cause a tilt which could bring the whole structure tumbling down. So, you use words and stories and even hand gestures as the mortar which sticks the bricks together and hardens to make a level and solid set of steps.

Those steps, then, should be an artistically connected and reinforced pile of facts which are a sermon that hopefully any hearer can use to climb a little closer to heaven.

But today, as we read how a construction project in the early years of creation convinced God that they needed a little less understanding and more of a kick in the pants, I am abandoning my usual habit of using a blueprint to build a message.

Sarah Winchester was married to the son of the owner of the Winchester Repeating Arms Company and when her husband died in 1881, she inherited over 20 million dollars and a little more than half of the successful gun manufacturer. And a lot of ghosts. Or at least that’s what she thought.

Convinced that she was the bearer of some family curse, she moved to San Jose and bought a farmhouse which she began to renovate to make room for the spirits of everyone killed by one of the guns made by her company.

For 38 years, more or less continually, she had workers building the house without a plan. Instead, she directed them as they went, making changes day by day as she felt the spirits were directing her. The result, at the time of her death, was a complex and fascinating structure full of oddities and modern conveniences that were well in advance of their time, including flush toilets, push-button lights, forced air heat, and elevators which run sideways as well as those that go up and down.

If you choose the right path through the house, you will be entranced by the beauty of the furnishings and amazed at how it all came together. If you choose the wrong path, you are likely to step through a door to find yourself falling 30 feet to your death or climbing a stairway that leads straight into a ceiling.

I guess the point that I’m laboring towards here is that today’s message may be more of a Winchester House construction than it is a logically designed sermon. And, as if I was trying to bring that point home, though it really is more sensible than it sounds, we will begin our examination of Genesis chapter 11 by looking back at Genesis 9.

Genesis 9:7 (NLT2) 7 Now be fruitful and multiply, and repopulate the earth.” [1]

This was God’s command to Noah and his sons, and it parallels the one he gave to the creatures and humans in the original creation story. Increase on the earth. Grow, propagate, don’t sit together in one spot, but move, explore, and keep spreading out. He made this whole planet for his children, humankind, and he wanted them to stretch, not stagnate.

Which brings us to Genesis 11 and a story that I’m calling, “Blah, Blah, Blah – How the Bullheaded Beginning Babylonian Braggarts’ Baked Brick Building Birthed Babble.”

Genesis 11:1-2 At one time all the people of the world spoke the same language and used the same words. 2 As the people migrated to the east, they found a plain in the land of Babylonia and settled there. [2]

It only makes sense that they all spoke one language, as this story takes place just a few generations after the great Flood had washed away all but one family. While your family may sometimes be hard to understand, it’s rarely because you don’t speak the same language.

So, speaking one language with only one dialect and one set of words, the family began to grow out from the place where the ark had come to rest. In particular, the family of Shem, Noah’s oldest son, seem to have moved eastward, along with some of their cousins’ families. If we had spent time studying chapter 10, we would have seen that Ham, Noah’s middle son, had several sons of his own, the oldest of whom was Cush. But we hear more about his grandson’s accomplishments than we do about his son.

Genesis 10:8-10 8 Cush was also the ancestor of Nimrod, who was the first heroic warrior on earth. 9 Since he was the greatest hunter in the world, his name became proverbial. People would say, “This man is like Nimrod, the greatest hunter in the world.” 10 He built his kingdom in the land of Babylonia, with the cities of Babylon, Erech, Akkad, and Calneh.[3]

So, in reading this, it seems that Nimrod the hunter was also Nimrod the builder and that the first center of power he built was a city that would become known as Babylon. But what was the command God had given the people? Spread out, don’t just sit. Here, only a few short generations later, Nimrod and those he led have rejected that command in favor of building a city and the beginnings of an empire.

Nimrod was descended from Ham. Shem had sons too; at least five of them, including Arphaxad (are-fax-add).

Genesis 10:24-25 24 Arphaxad was the father of Shelah, and Shelah was the father of Eber.

25 Eber had two sons. The first was named Peleg (which means “division”), for during his lifetime the people of the world were divided into different language groups. His brother’s name was Joktan. [4]

So it is here at verse 25 that we hear of the earth being divided. That’s after Nimrod built Babylon, but before he moved on to plant other cities along his path. We’ll leave Peleg here for today, but remember to listen for his name next week, because it is through his line that we will eventually come to the story of Abram, with whom we will end our trip through the beginning of the Bible. That comes later, though. Today it is enough to know that Nimrod has moved east to Babylon, which is also called Shinar (shay-nar), and with the help of his close and extended families he is about to build a city there.

Let’s go back to Genesis 11:3 3 They began saying to each other, “Let’s make bricks and harden them with fire.” (In this region bricks were used instead of stone, and tar was used for mortar.)[5]

This passage describes the creation of a new technology for building: Man-made bricks. Where stone had previously been the standard, those in the Shinar just plain didn’t have it. What they did have was clay, and lots of it.

Placed in forms and fired by the sun or in small kilns, they created an almost endless supply of uniformly shaped construction materials.

Crude oil deposits, which lay close the surface in that region, had bitumen or tar seep upwards into vast, sticky pits of asphalt which could be harvested and used to fuse the bricks together as well as mortar. It was an ingenious advancement which became a useful tool for humankind from that point forward right up to modern times.

There is a problem here, though. That problem’s NOT that they invented better building techniques; it’s what they decide to do with them in the next verse.

Genesis 11:4 4 Then they said, “Come, let’s build a great city for ourselves with a tower that reaches into the sky. This will make us famous and keep us from being scattered all over the world.”[6]

God’s command was to spread out. Their decision was to gather together. More than that, they were gathering specifically to make a name for themselves. There’s a connection there to the surrounding narratives too. This story is recorded here in the middle of the genealogy of the family of Shem. Shem was the leading line of descent – He was Noah’s oldest son and the one through whom the promise of God was to come true. His name, in Hebrew, means “name”. Seriously.

And while that may have little obvious significance to us, remember that names were deeply meaningful to ancient peoples. The fact that, in Hebrew, in the middle of a description the line of Shem, we are told a story of a rebellious branch of the family gathering together to make a shem for themselves, told those ancient hearers of this story that this family group, including Nimrod the mighty, were choosing to attempt to dethrone God.

They are disobeying his order by building a city. They are trying to reach him by building a tower that reaches heaven. And in doing so, they plan to make their own name great rather than that of Shem.

I bet they didn’t expect this:

Genesis 11:5 5 But the Lord came down to look at the city and the tower the people were building.[7]

That God needed to come to them to see their work tells us how ineffective what they have built has been at reaching Heaven. That he has come to see the rebellion tells us that judgment is at hand.

This is an image repeated again and again, from the Garden of Eden though the end of the book. God makes his relationship with us personal, not distant. He comes to see for himself. He grants us time and opportunity for repentance. He extends mercy to those who ask. And he passes and enforces judgment on those who have rejected him and do not turn back.

Here his children aren’t just rebelling. They’re building a tower so they can attack him in his home.

Genesis 11:6-7 6 “Look!” he said. “The people are united, and they all speak the same language. After this, nothing they set out to do will be impossible for them! 7 Come, let’s go down and confuse the people with different languages. Then they won’t be able to understand each other.” [8]

I’ve heard people suggest that God was worried humans might succeed in their plan to overthrow his authority. I don’t think so. It certainly isn’t the way this passage was originally read. Instead, there is more of the tone of an exasperated parent; a sort of, “What will these people do next?” idea. Like when you hang out with that one particular friend who is always able to talk you into anything, here God has identified that there is no obedience in this particular group and that if they stay together, they will never learn. So, he makes it impossible for them to communicate. And then he put them all in separate time-outs.

Genesis 11:8-9 8 In that way, the Lord scattered them all over the world, and they stopped building the city. 9 That is why the city was called Babel, because that is where the Lord confused the people with different languages. In this way he scattered them all over the world. [9]

If you’re paying attention to the details in this short history, you notice there is a lot of repetition going on. The people say, “Come, let’s make bricks; Come, let’s build a city,” and God responds with, “Come, let’s go down to confuse their language.” The people say, “Let’s keep from being scattered, and the LORD scatters them all over the earth and then we’re told this was how he scattered them all over the earth.

Actually, there’s a third one of these statements about the LORD scattering people, but it’s a bit obscured by our translation. The people literally say they don’t want to be scattered over “The whole land,” but then God scatters them from there to “all over the whole land,” and then we are told that from there the LORD, “scattered them all over the whole land.”

Using sets of three is part of ancient Hebrew numerology. It is intended to point to the supremacy of God. In this instance, it is also intended to denigrate the founding of Babylon, a city which will be a thorn in Israel’s side throughout history and into the end times.

The very name of the city – Babel, baw-behl when pronounced in Hebrew – is very close to the Hebrew word for confusion: balal (Baw-lehl).

Ancient stories often use a lot of wordplay to make their point – stuff we often miss because it doesn’t translate. Here’s another one: The Babylonians claimed their city was named Babel – bob-ell – which meant “The gate of god”. As I’ve noted in the past, some of the Mesopotamian stories seem to be borrowed and corrupted from Biblical accounts, and the Babylonian mythology about the creation of Babel is one of those.

It was said that the great gods came together and engaged in a brick making project, carefully inscribing the name of the god Marduk on each brick, then fitting them together into the great city and a tower where people would meet with their god. The city was then lowered to its resting place on earth.

Two thousand years later, after Israel’s near-constant struggle with the lure of sin and decadence and the continuing threat of destruction which come from Babel, a prophet named John would record his vision of the End of Days. Included in his Revelation is a description of the final end of the city of Babel. But John also describes a city of gold, the home of the One True God and his people, being lowered to earth in the final victory of good over evil.

What, exactly, is the point of these various narratives, particularly today’s passage in Genesis? I think we can draw many conclusions from it, but the key idea is that the people of God are called to obedience. We are to be united as God’s people, unique in the world, and even if we are scattered throughout the world, speaking different languages, we are to be united in our obedience to our Creator.

As Christians, we interpret that obedience based on the example of Jesus Christ and on the written Word of God as we have it in the scriptures.

Jesus said in John 14, “If you love me, you will obey my commands.” What were his commands? To love the LORD your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to do so by loving others. Do that, he said, and everything else will follow.

What we see in Genesis 9 is Nimrod leading people to love themselves more than they love the LORD. Rather than loving others, they wished to exalt themselves above others.

What we see in the world around us today is people being led to love themselves more than they love the LORD. Rather than loving others, the world encourages exalting ourselves above others.

Which leads us back to the question which has dominated every discussion throughout our study of these early chapters of Genesis: Do we choose to walk with God or do we choose to walk away from God?

I mentioned earlier that God is always calling us to return to him. However far you believe you’ve gone, he says all we need to do is turn back toward him.

That’s not a decision any of us gets to make for you. You make your own decisions. God doesn’t choose for you – you decide. Do I choose to walk with God? Do I want to go towards the source of creation and life, or do I rebel against him and try to make a name for myself?

I believe these instructions about being the people of God apply to us individually, but also to us as a church body. Do we go out, or do we turn inward? Is our role to spread out and share our knowledge of the LORD or is it to build a place where we set up our own tower and proclaim own name? There is joy in The Salvation Army, but if that joy doesn’t come from the LORD, it’s meaningless.

That’s it. I’m done for the day. The choice is yours to make. Not just right now, but every day and a hundred times a day. What you should decide right now is how you plan to make those choices when they come. With God or against him? Walk towards or walk away?

If you wish, you can come to the altar and speak with God about the choices you get to make. These places of prayer are always open. If you feel called to speak with him or if you feel conflicted about the choices you have made or will make, this is a great time to come and pray.

While you chew on that, I’m going to pray for us all.

[1]Tyndale House Publishers. (2015). Holy Bible: New Living Translation (Ge 9:7). Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers. [2]Tyndale House Publishers. (2015). Holy Bible: New Living Translation (Ge 11:1–2). Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers. [3]Tyndale House Publishers. (2015). Holy Bible: New Living Translation (Ge 10:8–10). Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers. [4]Tyndale House Publishers. (2015). Holy Bible: New Living Translation (Ge 10:24–25). Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers. [5]Tyndale House Publishers. (2015). Holy Bible: New Living Translation (Ge 11:3). Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers. [6]Tyndale House Publishers. (2015). Holy Bible: New Living Translation (Ge 11:4). Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers. [7]Tyndale House Publishers. (2015). Holy Bible: New Living Translation (Ge 11:5). Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers. [8]Tyndale House Publishers. (2015). Holy Bible: New Living Translation (Ge 11:6–7). Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers. [9]Tyndale House Publishers. (2015). Holy Bible: New Living Translation (Ge 11:8–9). Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers.