I’m preaching through a series right now called The Better Story.  It’s a series all about the stories in Scripture that call us into the bigger and better story of God.

This past Sunday I talked about the strangely fascinating passage in Genesis 11:1-9. It’s what we typically call The Story of Babel and I believe it offers the Church in America a timely word.  

First, here’s the first part of the text from Genesis 11:1-4 in case it’s been a while:

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.”

 

Here’s one reason this story is so timely.  Many of us want now what they had then.  We want a place that is fortified, where everyone speaks the same language so we can make a name for ourselves.  In short, to many folks Babel is the American Dream come true!

Here’s one of the reasons this story is so strange.  God viewed all of this as a bad thing.

 This is made clear by God’s response in Genesis 11:5-7

But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower the people were building. 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.”

 

God’s people had seemingly achieved the triple crown of unity: location, language, and legacy, but all they had really accomplished was uniformity. 

In their desire to settle down, they settled for a story that fell short of God’s vision for them and the rest of the world (see Genesis 1:28-29).

Don’t misunderstand me.  As a former athlete I can tell you how helpful uniformity can be!  If you’ve ever played a game of pick up basketball or backyard football, then you know how easy it is to mistakenly hand the ball over to the wrong player or how easy it is to get duped by a player from the other team because they look too much like your own player.  

Uniforms make it possible for us to tell who is on our team, who belongs, and who gets the ball.

The trouble with this idea in life is that the things we use to solidify uniformity make unity possible only for one’s own team and – don’t miss this – makes it impossible for unity to happen between our team and the others.

But what if God has something greater in mind? What if unity is rooted in commonality instead of uniformity? That is, what if the thing that keeps us from fearing separation (location) and being sorted out (language) and the thing that allows us to be a part of something bigger than ourselves (legacy) is our ability to understand each other based on the things we share in common?

I came across a video of  Ty Kohen’s story last week.  It went viral across the spectrum of social media because Ty, the winning pitcher of a high school baseball game, went to hug the guy he struck out to end the game before he went and celebrated with his teammates!  It turns out the player for the other team was his friend.

Why?  Here’s what Ty said:

“I knew the game was going to keep going or it was going to end right there,” he added. “I knew I had to say something. Our friendship is more important than just the silly outcome of a [State Championship qualifying] game.” 

“I had to make sure he knew that before we celebrated.”

He embraced the other (in a different uniform) before celebrating with his team (those dressed in the same uniform).

Ty put commonality over uniformity.  Literally.

The Better Story, the story of Jesus, the story of Pentecost, and the story of Paul’s work in the early Church reminds us of all that we share in common with each other rather than what separates us.  The Better Story frees us from the fear of protectionism and isolation, the fear of being scattered and mixed up and instead empowers us to live out this Better Story alongside others!

Here’s something I missed for years – the city built on the plains of Shinar became the city of Babel, not because they all began to speak a different language, but because it became the place of confusion and misunderstanding (see Genesis 11:7).  Language alone will never prevent God’s people from understanding each other (see Pentecost in Acts 2 where people of different language understand each other), but settling for a vision of the world that is less colorful and beautiful that what God intends will sure stunt our ability to participate in the Better Story of what God is wanting to do in our church, our city, and our country!  

Ultimately, the story of Babel is the story of nation’s failed project.  It failed because they could no longer understand each other.  I can’t help but wonder if America isn’t on the brink of becoming a modern day Babel – a place where we care more about building something than understanding each other.

In the days to come, may we seek to understand each other more!

May the Spirit of God renew our vision of what the world can be.  May we not find ourselves settling for something less than what God longs for – a world full of The Better Story – a world full of a common understanding of what gives us our identity.  It’s not our language or location, but our common likeness in God’s image shared by all people of every language everywhere!