Meanwhile, controversy raged. Do we really need the world's tallest building? What about the shadows it would cast? Might it produce serious wind currents in the streets below? On the other hand it was being urged that this would "put us on the map". It would show that we have "come of age". It would enhance our status in the world community.
Now, after the land has been vacant for some time, we see the more modest Mincomm Centre rising on the foundations.
Next Saturday, Australians go to the polls to vote in a referendum on whether we should become a republic. The "yes" and "no" cases are being forcefully presented to us. The opinion polls are sampling our responses as they go up and down. By the time we meet next Sunday the die will have been cast - even if the result is not yet clear.
It may or may not be a good thing to change our Australian Constitution in this way. I am not here to advise or persuade you one way or the other. Please, as always, make your own vote a matter of careful consideration and earnest prayer.
What has struck me is the extent to which the same kinds of arguments are being presented for this change as were being used to convince us that we needed the tallest building. Somehow we think it is time to "make a name for ourselves", to declare to the world that we are a mature nation that has "come of age". However, real maturity needs be expressed in the way we unite behind whatever decision is made on Saturday.
The Great Flood was over. The descendants of Noah were scattering throughout the world, fulfilling the divine decree, "Have many children, so that your descendants will live all over the earth…" (Gen. 9.1). In fact, Genesis chapter 10 gives a long list of descendants and notes, "All these peoples are the descendants of Noah, nation by nation, according to their different lines of descent. After the flood all the nations of the earth were descended from the sons of Noah" (v. 32).
But it didn't all happen as easily as that. "At first, the people of the whole world had only one language and used the same words. As they wandered about in the East, they came to a plain in Babylonia and settled there" (11.1-2).
As I mentioned last week all cultures preserve the memory of a flood from which one man and his family together with representative animals were the only survivors. For the people in Genesis 11, that was a close memory. They were afraid to be scattered. By uniting and pooling all their skills and resources they believed they could secure their future. It was a choice declaring disbelief in the promises of God and confidence in their own abilities to secure themselves against future major flooding - a spirit of independence and autonomy, "so that we can make a name for ourselves…"
Derek Kidner comments, "The primeval history reaches a fruitless climax as man, conscious of new abilities, prepares to glorify and fortify himself by collective effort. The elements of the story are timelessly characteristic of the spirit of the world. The project is typically grandiose; men describe it excitedly to one another as if it were the ultimate achievement - very much as modern man glories in his space projects. At the same time they betray their insecurity as they crowd together to preserve their identity and control their fortunes" (Genesis, Tyndale 1967, p. 109).
Such was the human view of the tower project. But from the divine perspective, this "tower that reaches the sky" was so puny that, so the record tells us, "the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which those men had built" (v. 5).
It was not the grand edifice that the people thought it was. It was, however, a danger, for it represented the aspirations of humanity autonomous from God. "Now then, these are all one people and they speak one language; this is just the beginning of what they are going to do. Soon they will be able to do anything they want!" (v. 6).
The issue, of course, wasn't that they were a unified group with a common language. Rather, it was that they were unified in defiance of God, in resistance to scattering and populating the earth. Their drive was to "make a name for themselves" - a name exalted against God's name. They couldn't really do it any more than they could make a tower which would really reach the sky. But they would have a name in their own minds and an autonomous mindset which refused to know God, to trust God, to obey God… A great potential for evil was being unleashed.
The one factor that would curb this evil ambition was the confusion of their language. "Let us go down and mix up their language so that they will not understand one another" (v. 7). We aren't told how this happened. The breakdown of communication made them incapable of fulfilling their plan. Their evil ambition now drove them apart.
"So the Lord scattered them all over the earth, and they stopped building the city. The city was called Babylon, because there the Lord mixed up the language of all the people, and from there he scattered them all over the earth" (vv. 8-9).
There is a play on words here. The name "Babel" which could mean "god's gate" sounds like the Hebrew verb balal which means "mix, confuse". Derek Kidner comments, "In the Bible this city increasingly came to symbolise the godless society, with its pretensions (Gen. 11), persecutions (Dan. 3), pleasures, sins and superstitions (Is. 47.8-13), its riches and eventual doom (Rev. 17,18). One of its glories was its huge ziggurat, a temple-crowned artificial mountain whose name, Etemenanki, suggested the linking of heaven and earth. But it was her sins that 'reached… unto heaven' (Rev. 18.5). In Revelation she is contrasted with the holy city which comes 'down out of heaven', whose open gates unite the nations (Rev. 21.10,24-27)" (ibid., p. 111).
God's purpose was redemptive - to draw people back to himself, to bring people back to true unity in their dependence on him. The scattering of the races hasn't stopped human sin, though it has curbed unified rebellion against God. In the meeting of races there has often been violence. Within racial groups ambitions have led to conflict.
During the twentieth century there has been a conscious effort to bring the human race back together. There have been many good things arising from this effort, with more still to come. We think, for example, of the great advances in medicine, agriculture and science generally. We believe that our "progress" is unstoppable - that "single-handedly together" we can solve all the problems of the world. But we need to see the warning in Babel - our attempts to unite without reference to God may well lead us to greater disunity.
Paul wrote to the Philippians about the attitude of Jesus, "He always had the nature of God, but he did not think that by force he should try to remain equal with God. Instead of this, of his own free will he gave up all he had, and took the nature of a servant. He became like a human being and appeared in human likeness. He was humble and walked the path of obedience all the way to death - his death on the cross. For this reason God raised him to the highest place above and gave him the name that is greater than any other name. And so, in honour of the name of Jesus all beings in heaven, on earth, and in the world below will fall on their knees, and all will openly proclaim that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father" (Phil. 2.6-11).
Of course, we are meant to care for one another. We are meant to study and understand the world and to apply that knowledge to how we live. We are meant to wrestle with issues that are part of the fallen creation and discover solutions… Our problem is in the urge to make a name for ourselves, to set ourselves up against God.
Do we really need the world's tallest building? I doubt it. Do we really need a republic? That's for you to decide next Saturday.
What we do need, however, is to submit ourselves to the one who has "the name that is greater than any other name" - the Lord Jesus himself. He alone is "worthy to receive power, wealth, wisdom, and strength, honour, glory, and praise" (Rev. 5.12). Too many times throughout history, individuals and groups have claimed that name but not lived under that authority. Truly living under that name is the only way to unity and life.
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