Sermon Title: “When we are on God’s side, the impossible
becomes possible”
Sermon Text:
Genesis 11:1-9
Sermon Date:
December 7, 2008
I have never used the scripture I am
about to read for Advent in my life. Nor
have I ever heard it used but when I was looking for the word “impossible” in
the scriptures, this one popped up.
Listen and hear to the story of the
1 Now the whole world had one language and a
common speech. 2 As people moved eastward, they found a plain in
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. 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."
5 But the LORD
came down to see the city and the tower that they were building. 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. 7 Come, let us go down and confuse
their language so they will not understand each other."
8 So the LORD
scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the
city. 9 That is why it was called
MESSAGE
Are
you as stunned as I was when I found this?
God said, “if “we” don’t stop these people from building this tower,
NOTHING THEY PLAN TO DO WILL BE IMPOSSIBLE FOR THEM! God said that?????? I was totally blown away when I found that. How had I missed that the other 50 times I’ve
read Genesis?
To
sort through these thoughts, I turned to my good friend Rabbi Audrey Pollack of
Temple Israel and here is some of what I learned:
First,
the “we” God speaks of here and in the first chapter of Genesis may be a royal
we or that God is speaking to an angelic court.
Not that God needs the input from the angels but the thought is that God
consulted to set an example that people should show courtesy to
others by involving them in discussions, and that it is unwise for people to
take decisions upon themselves without consulting others. What a concept!
Another
thing I learned was that the Torah says that “All the earth had the same
language and the same words.” One
possible rendering of the Hebrew, according to rabbinic commentary is that they
had the same language and separate tongues, reminding us that we can have the
same language and speak it differently.
For example, a former boss of mine moved to Tennessee as a newlywed. There a neighbor welcomed her to the area and
invited her to “see-it.” Ellie, being a
curious sort of person, asked, “See what?”
Puzzled, the neighbor said, “SEE-IT!”
To which Ellie again asked, “See what?”
Then the neighbor said, “See-it down!”
Same language, separate tongues.
I remember my daughter-in-law, the
electrical engineer, trying to explain a complex theory to me one day. I knew a good many of the words she used but
in that context they made no sense. Same
language, separate tongues.
Move to a different city and hear words like “PEFCU” and you have to ask
what that means. Same language, separate
tongues.
Another point Rabbi Pollack made was
that arrogance is a problem with the tower builders in this particular Genesis
passage. God isn’t really afraid of them
but they are coming to believe themselves equal with God. Still God says that they will be able to do
the impossible if they continue to speak the same language.
Look at other Hebrew Bible
stories: Adam and Eve’s desire to be
like God got them driven out of the Garden of Eden. The people of Noah’s time were considered to
be wicked, so the floods came and destroyed them. Now the people of Babel are arrogant,
believing more and more that they can achieve their goals without God’s
presence or blessing. Why does God
destroy the people in Noah’s time and only disperse the Babylonians? “Because,” 11th century Jewish
writer Rashi said, “the Babylonians said to one another, “Come, let us
build. They worked together in peace and
harmony. This distinguished them from
the people of the flood who committed violence against one another and were,
therefore, destroyed. The generation of
the Tower of Babel defied God openly, yet, because they practiced brotherhood
toward each other, they were merely scattered.”
(Rashi, 11th century)
Could
this happen to us? If we had a common
goal and all spoke the same language, would we come to believe we didn’t need
God to achieve our goals? Is today’s
Tower of Babel different religions instead of different languages? Would our egos take over like the tower builders
and would we become be more interested in making a name for ourselves and less
interested in listening to God?
But
of course even we Christians don’t believe in exactly the same things. In fact, believing the same thing may be
harder than speaking the same language.
We have over 100 different denominations of Baptists alone, not counting
the Methodists, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Catholics, Disciples of Christ,
Assembly of God, Nazarenes and everyone else I don’t have time to mention.
BUT
what would happen if we all agreed with God on at least one subject? What could we achieve if we agreed? I don’t agree with my dad on a few subjects
but we still love each other and can eat Christmas dinner together. Why can’t we do that as Christians?
Seriously,
if when we band together we can do the impossible, why aren’t we doing it?
Can’t
we find one world-changing subject that we can agree on? If nothing is impossible with
God and if we all speak the same language we can do the impossible, why aren’t
we doing it?
I’m
really serious. Jesus is the Prince of
Peace. Jesus died for us. Jesus wants us to love the least of these and
our neighbors as ourselves. Why can’t we
do that? What one thing could we take on
as a group of Christians that would make such a difference that people around
the world would say, “Wow, I want to be part of that.”
We
could take on poverty but I fear at this point we wouldn’t be able to agree on
how to do that. So let’s look at
something smaller. How about if we agree
that no child under the age of 12 should be left at home alone after school
because of the parents’ inability to pay for after-school care? Seriously.
This is probably close to my heart because I left my kids alone too
early in their lives. Nothing went
wrong, thank God, but things do go wrong.
So
here is an idea: what would happen if every church near
elementary schools took on the responsibility to be open after school and other
churches that aren’t near them provided people to help run the after-school
program? Or provide snacks or games or
videos? Or tutors?
Could
we agree that kids under the age of say 12 shouldn’t be home alone after
school? Could we do that one thing?
Seventy-five
percent of Americans profess to be Christian among the almost 306 million Americans. That is a whopping number of people we can
pull together for this project, although I don’t think you need to be a
Christian to be present with kids after school.
People all faith could do it, as well as those who don’t believe at all,
but I digress, we are talking about just trying to get Christians on the same
page.
In my make-believe plan here we have
almost 230 million people available to us.
Since there aren’t that many children around, we are ahead of the game
so far.
Okay, I know a lot of those people
are the parents who are working so let’s take off but while I don’t have
figures I’m pretty sure that we actually have enough people available to us to
pull off something like this.
Think about it: Senior citizens teaching kids their
hobbies. Retired school teachers and
caring people tutoring kids. A widow who
has no one to bake for can bake cookies for the kids. A widower who moved into an apartment can
teach kids how to use tools. A
grandparent who lives far away from grandchildren could get a fix once a week
as a volunteer. Stay at home parents
could bring their own kids and play games with other kids after school. A bank might send employees over to help kids
learn math through games. Think of the
options available to us. I’m
serious.
What if we Christians in Lafayette
alone decided to take this on…..remember, nothing is impossible when we are on
the same page……can we do it?
It has to be volunteer-run because
many parents can’t afford the childcare.
It has to be near schools so kids can walk or at least where buses can
drop kids off . But this is doable. Really doable. That is if we agree that children under the
age of 12 or 13 shouldn’t be alone after school.
This
isn’t the only idea that we could do. How
about the music program we have talked about or building more small groups, or
a better Bread Giveaway or figuring our ways to help us to be an even more
inviting people? As we come to the
Lord’s Table and make our way to the birthday of our Savior, won’t you think and
pray about what we might accomplish right here at First Baptist when we speak
God’s language? Won’t you think and pray
about what you can offer?
During the Civil War, Abraham
Lincoln was purportedly asked if God was on his side. "Sir, my concern is
not whether God is on our side," said the President, "my greatest
concern is to be on God's side, for God is always right."
What
can we do when we too are on God’s side?