Notes from the Wayside: Perspective: The House that Love Demolished

I share these thoughts hoping they are of help to someone else.

Comments are always welcomed.

The House that Love Demolished

Let your light shine before people, so they can see the good things you do and praise your Father who is in heaven.

Matthew 5:16 (CEB)

Ruin my life - the plans I have made

Ruin desires for my own selfish gain

Destroy the idols that have taken Your place

Till it's You alone I live for

You alone I live for

From "Ruin Me" by Jeff Johnson

There is a story near the beginning of the Bible in which a united humanity sets out to build a great city with a magnificent tower that reaches to the sky. For some reason, God disapproves of what the people are doing and decides to take action. To halt any further progress on the city, God creates divisions within humanity by giving the people different languages. The people are no longer able to understand each other and are forced to abandon any further development on the city. Humanity is scattered throughout the earth, and the city is remembered with the name Babel, which means "to confuse."¹

So what was so bad about the city and its tower that God saw it necessary to fracture and scatter a united human race? I think that the key for understanding God's actions in this story lies in humanity's motivation for building the city. Those who proposed to build the city were quoted as saying, "Come, let's build for ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the sky, and let's make a name for ourselves."² To make a name for oneself is to make oneself famous, in other words, to bring glory to oneself.

Basically, Babel was a city built on hubris, an inflated sense of self-importance.

After the incident at Babel, God begins to build something much different. God reaches out to a man named Abraham and promises him that his descendants will be "a great nation" and that, because of him, "all the families of the earth will be blessed."³ The fruit of God's blessing on the world through Abraham's descendants can be seen when Abraham's great-grandson Joseph becomes a leader in Egypt and helps numerous nations by preparing for a severe famine.⁴

As the centuries pass, the Egyptian rulers forget about Joseph and the blessing he brought to their people and force the people of Israel into slavery. God sees the plight of the Israelites, delivers them from slavery in Egypt, and makes a covenant with them. The people of Israel would become a "kingdom of priests." Their responsibility was to obey the Torah, the code of laws given to them by God.⁵

Out of a fractured, scattered humanity, God sought to build a "kingdom of priests" because of whom "all the families of the earth will be blessed."

The second part of the Bible – the New Testament – tells the stories of Jesus Christ and His followers. In these stories we see that God's plans include not just one group of people, but the whole world. Four books of the New Testament, the Gospels, tell of Christ's ministry, execution on a cross at the hands of the Roman Empire, resurrection from the dead, and ascension into heaven. Another book, the Acts of the Apostles, tells of how the early followers of Christ carried on His ministry.

On a day called Pentecost, not long after Christ ascended into Heaven, Christ's closest followers, the Disciples, are gathered in a room together. Suddenly they hear the sound of a mighty wind and see the Spirit of God descending on them as tongues of fire. When they leave the building, people from many different countries hear the Disciples speaking in their own languages.⁶ From this day forward more and more people of different backgrounds begin to follow Christ.

When God showed up at Babel, people were no longer able to understand each other.

When God showed up on Pentecost, people began to understand each other once again.

In one letter to the early Christians, St. Paul writes, "There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus."⁷ In another letter, St. Peter writes, "You yourselves are being built like living stones into a spiritual temple. You are being made into a holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices that are acceptable to God through Jesus Christ."⁸

At Babel, God fractures and scatters a united humanity.

In Christ, God unites a fractured and scattered humanity.

St. Peter's words bring to mind the covenant God made with the people of Israel. The people of the covenant were to become a "kingdom of priests," and Peter calls the Church a "holy priesthood." According to Wikipedia, a priest is "a mediatory agent between humans and one or more deities."⁹ Perhaps it could be said that priests are people who serve the world on behalf of God. I believe that Christ describes this priesthood when he says, "Let your light shine before people, so they can see the good things you do and praise your Father who is in heaven."

The responsibility of the people of the covenant was to obey the Law given to them by God. Christ said that at the heart of the Law are two simple commands:

You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your being, and with all your mind.
You must love your neighbor as you love yourself.¹⁰

God demolished a house built on a foundation of hubris and built a new house on a foundation of love.

If you want to see hubris at its most destructive, then look no further than Nazi Germany. The Nazi Party believed that people from their own race were superior to all other human beings and that some of those they deemed inferior should even be annihilated. In their hubris, the Nazis committed such horrific acts of violence that even sworn pacifists felt as though they had to be stopped by any means necessary.¹¹

By contrast, we see what love can do when when we look at people like Martin Luther King Jr., who sought to create a more just and loving society for all people. We see what love can do when we look at people like Mother Teresa, who gave her life to care for the sick, the crippled, and the poor in one of the most impoverished areas in the world. We see what love can do whenever we look at someone who cares for those in need or speaks out for those who have no voice.

Hubris is focused inward.
Love is focused outward.

Hubris exalts itself and is humbled.
Love humbles itself and is exalted.

Hubris caves in on itself.
Love continues to expand.

Hubris walks over other people.
Love carries other people along.

Hubris builds crosses.
Love bears crosses.

In a world where people are so often driven by self-interest, God has called all of us to become people driven by love. Hubris naturally divides us, but love brings us together. It is always painful when our houses of pride come crashing down around us, but we can be confident that God will build up something beautiful amid the wreckage.

Notes:

Genesis 11:1-9
Genesis 11:4 (CEB)
Genesis 12:1-3 (CEB)
Genesis 41
Exodus 19:5-6 (CEB)
Acts 2:1-11
Galatians 3:28 (CEB)
1 Peter 2:5 (CEB)
Wikipedia: Priest
Matthew 22:34-40 (CEB)
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, for example