City LIfe at Babel

The City & The Tower of Babel

We’re in need of a break. It’s summer and many are away, losing themselves in cottage life, hoping to put aside for a time the hurry and stress of life here in the city. That raises lots of questions for a reflective mind:
• If we are all made in the image of God, then why do many of us find refuge in the forests of the north, rather than enjoy renewal by gazing at people in a crowded downtown?
• If we are made in the image of God, why do we need the city, to live near other humans; why can’t we spread out at the greatest distances possible?
• If the references to “the city” in Genesis are negative, then should we not view the city as a place to be abandoned rather than inhabited, to be demolished rather than rebuilt?

Let’s take these in reverse order…
I. The negative references to “city” in Genesis do not reverse the positive intentions of God regarding urban life.
Gen. 10:32 ¶ These are the clans of Noah’s sons, according to their lines of descent, within their nations. From these the nations spread out over the earth after the flood.
Gen. 11:1 ¶ Now the whole world had one language and a common speech.
Gen. 11:2 As men moved eastward, they found a plain in Shinar and settled there.
Gen. 11:3 ¶ They said to each other, “Come, let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar.
Gen. 11:4 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 and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth.”
Gen. 11:5 ¶ But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower that the men were building.
Gen. 11:6 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.
Gen. 11:7 Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.”
Gen. 11:8 ¶ So the Lord scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city.
Gen. 11:9 That is why it was called Babel—because there the Lord confused the language of the whole world. From there the Lord scattered them over the face of the whole earth.

KA Matthews …unique in ANE literature.

a. There are negative references to “the city.”
i. Genesis 4:17—Cain built a city.
Gen. 4:17 Cain had relations with his wife and she conceived, and gave birth to Enoch; and he built a city, and called the name of the city Enoch, after the name of his son.

ii. Genesis 11—Babel expressed the first urban rebellion.
1. Rebellion by gathering rather than scattering.
2. Rebellion by building a “gate” to the heavens, reaching God by human means, rather than God reaching humankind. YET …
b. The city plays a central, positive role in Scripture.
i. Abraham was “looking for a city!
Heb. 11:9 By faith he lived as an alien in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, fellow heirs of the same promise;
Heb. 11:10 for he was looking for the city which has foundations, whose architect and builder is God.

ii. God sent Jonah to a city for the sake of its residents. Jonah 1-4
And in our destiny…
c. A city is the culmination of redemptive history.
i. The city comes down from God.
Rev. 21:1 ¶ Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and earth had ceased to exist, and the sea existed no more.
Rev. 21:2 And I saw the holy city—the new Jerusalem—descending out of heaven from God, made ready like a bride adorned for her husband.

ii. The city has a river.

iii. The city has a tree.
Rev. 22:2 …On each side of the river is the tree of life producing twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit every month of the year. Its leaves are for the healing of the nations.

God’s intention from before time was to build a city, a tree-inhabited city, a city where He himself would dwell, where the nations would come to worship, where all peoples would find life, where every nation would experience healing. The Garden of Eden was the first sprouting of that city.
It’s shocking, but : A REDEEMED LIFE IS AN URBAN LIFE.

#2 • If we are made in the image of God, why do we need the city, to live near other humans; why can’t we spread out at the greatest distances possible?

II. The city is intended to be a place for humans to thrive.
a. The city is a place of refuge.
i. Cain founded a city for his own protection. Gen. 4
ii. Moses established cities of refuge for those in need of protection.
Num. 35:6 “The cities which you shall give to the Levites shall be the six cities of refuge, which you shall give for the manslayer to flee to; and in addition to them you shall give forty-two cities.
Num. 35:11 then you shall select for yourselves cities to be your cities of refuge, that the manslayer who has killed any person unintentionally may flee there.
Num. 35:12 ‘The cities shall be to you as a refuge from the avenger, so that the manslayer will not die until he stands before the congregation for trial.

b. The city is a place where people achieve their potential.
i. Cain’s offspring invented musical instruments, metalworking, etc.
ii. By Babel’s time, new technology was in evidence.
Gen. 11:3 ¶ They said to each other, “Come, let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar.

iii. Cities today continue to be places for creative work.

c. The city is a place likely to stimulate spiritual seeking.
Gen. 11:4 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 and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth.”
i. In social, even rural, isolation, people tend to believe what they’ve been given.
ii. In a crowded place, people are often challenged to consider alien perspectives of life.
iii. God uses such settings to entice people to seek Him.
Acts 17:25 nor is He served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all people life and breath and all things;
Acts 17:26 and He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation,
Acts 17:27 that they would seek God, if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us;
Acts 17:28 for in Him we live and move and exist, as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we also are His children.’

So, if this is all true, then what went wrong at Babel?
iv. All the good of the city intended by God was set aside by those who gathered on the plain at Shinar.
1. They gathered when they should have covered the earth.
a. To make a NAME for themselves.
b. God said that those who gave themselves to Him would receive “A PLACE AND A NAME.”

2. They conspired against God by their desire to build a “gateway to heaven.”
a. 11:5 Victor Hamilton …even though they build the tower, it is so far from the heavens that God must come down to see it.
b. Cities were places built around the highest tower, worshiping the god of the city.
Today: Toronto’s tallest temples are built by banks, brokerages; it’s a place where the power of money is revered.
Ottawa’s landscape is dominated by the towers of Parliament: it’s a city where power itself is central.

#3 • If we are all made in the image of God, then why do many of us find refuge in the forests of the north, rather than enjoy renewal by gazing at people in a crowded downtown?

III. We need time away to lower the pressure, slow the pace, before we forget how to rest.

There is a fourth question:
• What is the central problem that shows up here in Babel and in our own lives?
a. To make a NAME for themselves.


APPLICATIONS:
1. Naming: Set aside your former method of finding your name & significance…
a. Your family name
b. Your vocation
c. Your reputation, your character, etc.

2. Naming: Understand the Name that Christ has given you…

John 10: I know my sheep and call them by name.

Rev. 2:17—I will give a new name, known only to the one who receives it.

a. In serving…others (helping them to find their own name!).
Eph 2:10—good works, prepared for you to walk in.
YOU are God’s workmanship (poema, POEM); you are God’s work of art.

b. In being part of a new community…(too close to know what I’m really like)
c. In being intimate with Jesus… (Mark 3:12—“appointed to be with Him”)

Mark 3:14 He appointed twelve—designating them apostles—that they might be with him and that he might send them out to preach
Mark 3:15 and to have authority to drive out demons.
Mark 3:16 These are the twelve he appointed: Simon (to whom he gave the name Peter);
Mark 3:17 James son of Zebedee and his brother John (to them he gave the name Boanerges, which means Sons of Thunder);
Mark 3:18 Andrew, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James son of Alphaeus, Thaddaeus, Simon the Zealot
Mark 3:19 and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him.

3. RENAMING IS THE GOSPEL: God gives us a name of our own.
Isaiah: yad vashem, a place and a name, even for the faithful foreigner, the upright eunuch, otherwise without seed.
Is. 56:5 To them I will give in My house and within My walls a memorial,
And a name better than that of sons and daughters;
I will give them an everlasting name which will not be cut off.

4. Renaming prepares us for The END of all things:
The nations will be called to Jerusalem to worship the Lord and to receive life.
Today, people are drawn to cities: over the past decade, we became an urban people [more than half the world’s population now lives in urban centres].
When the Kingdom of God is fully established, the New City will come down from heaven, and all peoples will find all that they long for as they come to that city.



Summary
a. In serving…others (helping them to find their own name!).
b. In being part of a new community…(too close to know what I’m really like)
c. In being intimate with Jesus… (Mark 3:12—“appointed to be with Him”)